Thing # 22 Nings

I will be honest, I had never heard of Nings until completing this activity. I am familiar with social networking groups like Facebook and Twitter. I can see the significance of joining a group where you can share ideas, lessons, frustrations, and ask questions to other educators or librarians. For librarians especially, this would be a nice way of networking and collaborating with other librarians. I can see how it might be somewhat lonely being the only one of your kind on a campus. It would be great to have a way to interact with others in your field and form a community of sorts that you could go to for ideas or even to seek help.

However, I did notice that Nings like Teacher Librarian Ning are no longer free networks. I fear that Facebook will one day charge a fee, but for now we are able to enjoy this social networking for free. Everyone likes the word free. It just rolls off your tongue. I am happy to see that Katy ISD has added Facebook to our website. It is no longer blocked by a firewall. What does this mean for social networking for educators? The possibilities are endless.

I did enjoy some of the videos featured in the Teacher Librarian Ning such as a group of students singing about the library and the significance of the library for the 21st learners. They sang to the tune of John Lennon's "Imagine", which is a beautiful song.

Find more videos like this on TLNing


In my search to learn more about Nings I did find information about alternative sites that are free to the public such as, Cube Tree for companies or Edmodo, which is a microblogging system designed for teachers and students. Again I believe that joining a social networking group would help librarians to collaborate and learn more about their profession.