e-wot?

It’s been a year, and I’ve decided to process-map how I set up a private Ning network for our teachers to use for their personal development. It’s been quite a success. The Google Analytics show good stats and senior teachers are asking me for info about the sites to add to their presentations, or to do more – and better. All good. So I think it’s time for me to outline how we got to where we are.

I’m going to start this next week. I think I’ll be using OmniGraffle to build the flow charts.

Switch off ‘comments’ in groups.

We’ve found that the ‘comments’ option in Ning groups gets a bit confusing for our members. All our teachers can create groups. So we encourage all teachers who create groups to disable ‘comments’, and encourage group members to use the forums instead. Not a problem for you yet?

The problem we’ve found is that group members get confused if they have to choose between writing a comment or starting a group discussion thread. Too many ways to communicate. Too many choices.

The ‘discussion forum’ in the groups works better because discussions are threaded, the comments are not, and they’re in reverse order – which is confusing.

Now, I’m sure comments are great in groups where the members know the difference between a forum and a comment wall. But in our experience, most don’t. If the comment wall gets used for something that would work better in a discussion, then any potential for developing a good discussion seems to dry up immediately.

Edit: Ning now has a much easier way to create a favicon – click the Manage tab then Network Information. You can add a favicon from there. Much easier than all the guff below. Thank goodness for updates!

The suggested tools, below, are still good though.

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Ning has a couple of pages (1, & 2) that tell you how to do this, but I thought I’d tie them together here for relative simplicity (they miss a couple of steps too, but they haz picturz). Please read everything below carefully.

The Ning Developer network post says this is a beginner difficulty-level task. Without being condescending, I’d say it’s a tad harder than that. (So I’m assuming that if you’ve read this far, you’re not a beginner and you already know what a favicon is. =P )

I’m doing this for Windows XP users (sorry Mac people, check out the links above).

Suggested tools
I recommend that you use http://www.favicon.cc/ to make your favicon pixel by pixel. It’s fun. To get the colours right, I recommend that Firefox users get the great Colorzilla addon (use it to pick colours from your page to add matching colours to your favicon).

WARNING
BE CAREFUL: You’re going to use WebDAV to connect to the source code and folders on your Ning network. Do not do this on a computer that you share with other people! They might be able to wreck your network. (see, this isn’t for beginners, is it?)

12 steps to the favicon
Once you’ve made your cute favicon, save it to your desktop as favicon.ico and follow these steps (in Windows XP):

1. Open ‘My Network Places’
2. From ‘My Network Places’ click on ‘Add a network place’ (under ‘Network Tasks’ on the left)
3. The ‘Add Network Place Wizard’ will open. Click ‘Next’.
4. Click ‘Choose another network location’
5. Enter the WebDAV network address for your network which will look something like https://XXXX.dav.ning.com, where you’ve replaced XXXX with your network name as it appears in the regular URL/URI of your network. (don’t forget the ’s’ in ‘https’, m’kay)
6. Once you’re done, click ‘Next’ (you might have to wait a bit here)
7. Select ‘Choose another network location’
8. When prompted, enter your Network Creator’s email address and password (read the WARNING above if you want to select/check the ‘remember’ option offered)
9. Choose a name for your WebDAV connection and click ‘Next’, ‘Finish’, then log in.
10. You’ll now see all the folders and files in the root directory of your Ning network. Your Ning network source code is now available via ‘My Network Places’ (read the WARNING above)
11. To be safe, copy everything you see there to your local hard disk as a backup
12. Copy the new favicon.ico on your desktop and paste it into your WebDAV window to replace the favicon.ico which is there.

Clear the cache in your browser, hard refresh your browser (Firefox: Ctrl Shift R), maybe even close your browser… and behold the glory of your new favicon!

If it doesn’t show after all that, then wait a bit. I’ve known favicons to take a day or two to appear.

If you’re a Ning network creator, you can change ‘blog’ to ‘journal’, ‘notes’ to ‘resources’, ‘music’ to ‘podcasts’, ‘my page’ to ‘my e-portfolio’, you could even change ‘banned’ to ‘retired’ or ‘booted’ or whatever you want.

Why?
The point of changing these labels and the other text in Ning is to personalize your network by using the language that your members are most likely to relate to.

For example, we found that among some of our members the word ‘blog’ had negative connotations. So we changed it to TP Journal (short for Teaching Practice Journal), and then it became something they felt comfortable using.

How?
Go to ‘Manage’, then ‘Language Editor’, pick your language from ‘current language options’, mine’s English (British). This will open your language editor page. In the left column you’ll find the original Ning version, on the right is where you add your ‘custom text’ version.

So on the left search for the word you want to change. Let’s say you want to change ‘blog’ to ‘journal’ everywhere on your Ning site. Enter the word ‘blog’ in the search box on the left. It’ll return all the instances of ‘blog’ on your Ning network. On the right, you can edit all the instances of ‘blog’ and change them to ‘journal’ or whatever.

Sections on the right that are pink and contain no text have ‘missing’ text. With these, just copy the text from the left-hand column and paste it into the corresponding empty pink box opposite on the right. Then edit the word.

Once you’ve finished changing your words, save the page. Then go and check how your site looks. If you’ve changed all instances of the word on your site, you’ll see the changes everywhere.

Suggestions & stuff
For an education-focused Ning network, I can recommend changing ‘Music’ to ‘Podcasts’ (unless your network is about Music Education, of course). Podcasts are usually more relevant than Music in an Educational context (this doesn’t exclude music, of course). This makes the ‘Music’ player suddenly useful as a ‘Podcast’ player.

The ‘Notes’ pages work well when called ‘Resources’.

On one site we’ve renamed ‘Events’ as ‘INSETTs’ (IN SErvice Teacher Training) which is more relevant to the members on that site.

‘Groups’ we’ve renamed as ‘SIGs’ (Special Interest Groups), which in our context is more specific and relevant to our members.

Over the past year I’ve set up and overseen the running of three educational Ning networks that have had good feedback over many courses and events. The three networks we have running at the moment are for teacher training & development, so the members are all adults. But based on other experience we’ve had in using similar technology with secondary students, I recommend this approach for younger learners too. YMMV = Your mileage may vary. Let me know what you think.

In this post I’ve listed some steps that I recommend that you follow in setting up a Ning network in an educational context. These steps might appear a bit over-structured (and pedantic) but they’re derived from real experience, ‘hard knocks’ and lessons learnt. I hope you find them relevant to your context. Let me know what you think.

Our networks are private, so I can’t give any links. If you want more info or specifics, please comment and I’ll help.

Our 3 Ning networks

The first is to support trainee teachers on a CELTA course. ‘Groups’ used for courses. ‘Blogs’ used for reflective journals (only tutors are ‘friends’ to ensure privacy of posts and comments). Face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder induction in two 1-hour sessions.

The second is to support school teachers from Singapore schools in developing their skills in using literature for English language learning. ‘Groups’ used to split cohort into tutor/thematic groups. ‘Blogs’ used as above.

The third is the focal point for our own teachers’ research and development. This is too complex to tell the story here. I’ll have to write another post. Lots of ‘human’ face-to-face stuff has gone into making this work.

The 12 steps for EduNing startups

1. Become an expert. Play with Ning, and other similar tools (e.g. Moodle), to the point where you really understand what Ning can/can’t do. This deserves another post. I’ve got loads of tips.
2. Know your context. This means teachers’ skills, interests, values, time constraints, willingness to experiment, etc… It also means knowing your students, products and technological infrastructure. But teachers come first, because they’re the ones who’ll make this work or fail. They’re the ones who’ll make it sustainable. They’re the ones who’ll help you do the work of persuading everyone else.
3. Match your understanding of the tool (1) to your context (2). Play with these two, reflect, analyse and adapt. You’re a problem solver and a fixer. Learn to listen. Be prepared to immediately drop whatever you know won’t work.
4. Once you understand Ning and your context, seek to understand the specific situations/courses where Ning will obviously add value. Everyone (teachers, students & management) must see that this is an obvious improvement over what’s currently in practice.
5. Set up a prototype Ning site. First and most importantly, change the language settings so that the labels/navigation makes sense to your stakeholders. I changed ‘blogs’ to ‘TP Journals’ and ‘groups’ to ‘SIGs’ and ‘events’ to ‘INSETTs’ because these terms made sense to the people who would be using our networks. Second, add your school logo and play with the css if you know how. All of this is helps when you have to present your idea, it really does. If you make these simple changes, people will be much more likely to buy in to your idea. Be as thorough in this as possible before presenting your idea to anyone.
6. Work out your objectives and benefits (not the features) to the point you can state them clearly and concisely in less than one minute. One set of objectives/benefits for management. One set for teachers. One set for students. You’re doing this to get and sustain buy-in. First from senior management, then from teachers, then from students. Management are important. But teachers are most important, because teachers who like Ning will make students like Ning too. Without this buy-in, you will fail. Don’t forget to smile, no matter how tough it gets =)
7. Show key teachers and managers your prototype labeled and logo-ed as described in 5 above. Do this one-to-one, because it’ll be easier to manage any objections than if you try to do present it to a group. You’ll be able to adapt and present something better to the next person you talk to.
8. Focus on tasks. Very important! Most teachers don’t have time to experiment. Tasks help them to plan. Tasks help everyone to get through the syllabus. Prepare to help teachers decide how to set tasks for their students. Do not assume that teachers and students will work it out for themselves. Without clear tasks, the results will be patchy at best. Tasks should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Timebound). Simple is best.
9. Talk with individual teachers to get them involved early on and help them so they become advocates, champions and eventually admins. Empower them, don’t try to do all the work yourself, you can’t.
10. Always be available to give shoulder-to-shoulder support to teachers and students when they need it – on time. While you’re doing this remember that you’re aim is to empower – make yourself redundant, help the teachers and students take ownership.
11. Get evidence of success. Plan early to find ways to record successes. Use Google Analytics to record activity on your Ning site and get students and teachers to complete an exit survey (I use Survey Monkey). Always take time to tell stakeholders about positive feedback face-to-face. Talk first, write later. You’re doing this to bolster your support (you’ll also get feedback which you can use). Remember: face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder and on time.
12. Monitor, observe, listen, iterate. Expect things to get out of hand. It’s usually down to poor communication when things do. So be prepared to step in to communicate fixes (3), objectives (6), and suggest tasks (8) concisely. If it’s a technological problem, make sure you’re in close contact with the problem and the people who can help you fix it. Then fix it quickly. Ning Network Creators is a big help for Ning-related problems. And don’t be afraid to contact Ning support too, they’ve been great with me. Don’t talk about problems (just monitor, anticipate & listen), make solutions happen.