Using Ning.com in an English Course for Social Networking

Dr. Schueth

The social networking site, Ning.com provides an easy way for students to discuss themes in popular culture by writing blog posts.

Ning

English 315B, Women in Popular Culture is structured so students work in both the Blackboard course management system, and then in Ning.com, which is a free social networking website. Students use the Blackboard course for Assignments (take quizzes and submit essays, for example) and also use the Blackboard course for course content (for example, readings, videos, external links). In the class Ning.com site, students were divided into blog partners for reading, writing, blogging, and responding to ideas. Students were encouraged to further personalize their pages, even uploading a picture of themselves to further facilitate a sense of belonging and building community between their peers. The instructor provided expectations for blog posts and feedback. Blogs were graded four times throughout the course. The Ning site also features sections for videos, discussion forums, notes, and chats. As Dr. Michael Schueth says, “the great thing about the site is that we can easily incorporate videos, pictures, and links into posts -perfect for popular culture discussions.” Creating and then enrolling in the site is easy. In Ning, Dr. Schueth created a site specifically for students in the Women in Popular Culture course. To enroll in the site, the approximately 30 students simply went to www.ning.com, searched for his name, added him as a friend, and then they had access to the site. Similar to Facebook or MySpace, this social network is private and closed to only the members of a specific group.