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Ning v Wiki?

I am looking to improve the interactivity of the SSAT online provision for our leadership programmes, and I am looking at setting up a Wiki or ning site to house interactive forums and information from training events. I am a bit of a newcomer to the whole thing though and wondered if anyone had some advice or has tried it themselves?

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Permalink Reply by dave garland on September 15, 2008 at 11:03am

I've used Ning with my Leadership Group, sixth form students and this year hopefully with all of our Year 7 "Learning to Learn" course.

I prefer Ning, it's more social than a wiki!!!

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Permalink Reply by Simon Burton on September 17, 2008 at 9:06am

I think it depends on what your real objective is. Wikis seem better to me for pure exchange of ideas and developing information sources, Ning better for the social aspect. Why not create an SSAT group here on Wired Teachers and add a wiki to that group?

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Permalink Reply by John Sutton on September 19, 2008 at 9:31am

I'd tend to agree with Simon. However, I would say that Ning requires a fairly high degree of engagement if it's to become useful. Depends on your audience - if you think they'll actively participate, then Ning is fantastic. A wiki is more useful as a resource coolector/ repository of ideas where people can just come and take stuff if they don't want to collaborate - which, unfortuantely still seems all too prevalent among many teachers.

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Permalink Reply by dave garland on September 24, 2008 at 12:46am

We have just had a problem with our planned use of ning with Year 7. US Federal law prohibits its use unless the student is at least 13 years old. We are thinking about http://rafi.ki as an alternative but it's not as "facebook" as ning is

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Permalink Reply by Mr Roberts on October 5, 2008 at 12:13pm

I think it has to be ning because if you really want to improve interactivity among people then you have to make it more social! If you can make it meaningful and interactive people will go there and once you have them there then the ideas and sharing of good practice will just flow!

The wiki I feel would not allow the creativity to flow as well as the ning and as someone else said you just need to get them there first.

Whatever way you go it is a great idea and it is really needed the challenge is to get people using it like all these things. Please keep us posted would like to see what happens!