We live in a time of social networking, a time when people throughout the World are able to interact with each other and express ideas using a variety of online social networking tools.  Myspace is certainly the most prominent social networking site, but are there other options?  What is available for the classroom? The teacher? The student? The parents?  Surely teachers who have tried Myspace or Facebook in the classroom have encountered various problems, like privacy and spam issues.  Educators and parents will be eager to learn that two services, Ning and Imbee, both allow users to create and manage their own social networking sites.  Forget using a service that offers little control and is riddled with advertisements; Ning and Imbee provide the user with easy interfaces and ad free environments.

No Advertising

One of the best qualities about Imbee and Ning is their dedication to keeping advertising out of their educational sites.  While other social networking sites inundate children with ads, Ning and Imbee offer services that engage young learners, letting them peruse the valuable information without being distracted.  Elementary and middle school teachers will find Imbee a good choice as it is geared toward the younger student. Ning can be used by all age groups, but it has only offered the removal of advertising for ages 13 through 18. For information on removing advertising from educational Ning networks for this age group, read Big News from Ning: Ad-Free Student Networks by Steve Hargadon.

Great Features

Users of Ning and Imbee have access to features that allow them to read news or learn about related events, join groups, read and comment on blog entries, view photos and videos, and other activities as set up by the network creator. RSS feeds let users subscribe to updates from specific parts of the social network. Ning and Imbee are easy to use and both have great setup tutorial services and everything you need is in one place.  After following the simple steps to create an account, students can share, interface, react, and most importantly, be engaged learners.

Student Engagement

Students are always excited to learn that using Ning or  Imbee to create a social network is much different than creating a Myspace page.  Rather than construct one page of material, students can create a network with multiple Web pages and groups.  Teachers can rest assured knowing they can control user privileges and have the option of making the networks private or to have an open network and invite users from all over the world.  Both services offer audio and video upload for easy sharing, blogging, chat, group creation, multiple language support, privacy settings, and more.  Parents will be happy that they can be as involved as they want to be; with Imbee parents can monitor their young child's network, and with Ning a parent can join their child's network or even join a network with their child's teacher. 

Creative Ideas

Many educators have already started experimenting with Ning and Imbee networks:

• Across Generations is a Ning to help students with homework and provide parents and students with resources
• Reading Revolution is a Ning setup to motivate children to read.  It provides a forum to discuss books, offers insights, and video postings of kids talking about their favorite books
• World Village is a network that links second grade classrooms in Thailand to classrooms in the U.S. in an effort to help children learn about other cultures 

These are just a few of the wonderful ideas that have come to life with the help of Ning and Imbee. For more ideas on how educators are using social networks in educational environments, check out the Social Networking in Education wiki site.

Once you get started, join the Ning in Education community to connect with other educators using social networks. The site provides tips and tricks, pointers, and a place to get answers to your questions.  So take a minute to set up a Ning or Imbee account and join the conversation. It's time for the intellectually curious to take back social networking!