Bendin Blog

Of the three Ning, Ning in Education, and Classroom 2.0, my favorite was Classroom 2.0. A lot of what I tried to look at in the other two prompted me to join the site before I could look (and I just didn’t feel like joining one more group – ha – maybe later).

Ning was so big that it was almost too big for me and when I did find a group that I thought I might enjoy, there really wasn’t anything there yet (or maybe only one member). I know that the groups have to start somewhere so I will definitely check back and see how it is progressing and I might eventually join in for the ride.

I liked the “gadgets” in Ning in Education and I also enjoyed looking at some of the forums. When I tried to search the videos there wasn’t much there for me to use with my particular search but I did see some lovely vacation pictures of the other members.

Classroom 2.0 had a wiki section that I liked and I found some things there that I could use with my own digital citizenship search. I think that this site could be useful in a lot of ways for professional development as well as professional collaboration with ideas and best practices. The video section was also easy to browse through and I found a few things there that interested me as well.

I know I’ve got to become more “clickable” and join more social networking sites. I’m beginning to learn the balance of “reading” vs. “skimming” for information but I also have to protect my time (I could spend HOURS on this stuff). I appreciate the opportunity to explore some of these networks with some direction rather than just floundering in the dark for good groups to visit. There is so much out there that it seems a waste not to learn more. My plan is to try to get a buddy to do it with me (maybe carve out some time for a cup a coffee once a week while we scan the cyber world) and maybe that will keep me charged to do some more exploring.