We had over 150 people join us in an Elluminate session tonight to discuss the changes taking place at Ning and the impact this will have on educational uses of social networking. It was a tremendous community gathering, and felt enormously productive to me.
Just after the session finished I received an email from John McDonald, the "VP Advocacy" at Ning, asking if we might be able to talk by phone in the next few days, and then later asking if he and others at Ning could have access to the recording. As this was one of our desired outcomes--the ability to present the community feedback to Ning--it allows us to claim at least one early success. :)
Many thanks to those of you who were able to join. It did have the feel of history in the making. While it will take a bit to organize the combination of text, voice, and white-board feedback, when that's done I'll post it here and on http://www.EducationalNetworking.com. It will hopefully serve as a public springboard to further discussions.
Here are some links:
Thank you so much for the great meeting, Steve: you and Peggy moderated it perfectly too. In particular the whiteboard documents were very useful as a red thread with so many participants.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for posting the various recordings too - and reporting Ning's interest in them. But also because whatever time is chosen for such an international online gathering, part of the earth will perforce be in the middle of the night.
In the present case, this part included continental Europe and great part of Africa, as clearly appeared in the interactive map where you asked us to add our location. One of the participants mentioned the many African schools that use Ning, and Ning - like Facebook - is also very popular in Europe. So thanks to your recording, we "benighted" (I left at 2.30 CET) can still learn from that meeting. So thanks again.
Claude
Have added this post url to the Shambles Social Networks page which can be reached using http://NotNing.com
ReplyDelete--------------------
Thanks for your leadership on this issue Steve. I hope the phone call is productive!
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve, for organising that amazing meeting. At one stage I noticed there were 143 participants in the room - a global audience with a 'global brain' and the ability to contribute as one on a common goal - to ensure that education continues to have the ability to network on a user friendly basis. Ning has been a fantastic tool to use and the membership of classroom2.0 is a tribute to that ability as was the global voice present in that meeting - ning had networked us.
ReplyDelete