Most.Shocking.Rose.Ceremony.Ever!

Grou.ps, will you accept this rose?

It’s really hard to think about leaving my beloved Nings. Especially since they are so comfortable. But really I have to be realistic here. I can’t afford Ning Plus at $24.99 a month and even if Pearson finally agrees to sponsor my Nings (apparently they’re experiencing a high number of requests. Duh.), I will no longer have access to chat or groups. Also I’d have to moderate every blog post before they appear, and while some teachers may want that, I don’t.

Grou.ps is not quite as slick and the kids can’t personalize their profile pages to the same extent that they could on Ning but it’s still pretty good. I’ve had a couple problems migrating my data but they’ve been very quick to respond and very helpful

But I have a confession….

And now we go to commercial.

Just kidding!

Here’s my confession: I will be cheating on Grou.ps with Ning. Truth be told, as exciting as the new guy is, there’s something warm and fuzzy and comfortable about Ning. As Royan so aptly pointed out it’s like I broke up with the perfect boyfriend and now I keep comparing each new guy to him.

Seriously, though, I would like to stay with Ning only because all my stuff’s already there and yes I know I can migrate to Grou.ps, but I already know how to use Ning and I can speak about it with a fair degree of confidence. The problem of course is that while I applied to have all my Nings sponsored by Pearson, I’ve only heard back about one. Ning says that they’re dealing with a high number of requests so I have to be patient. I’ll bet. They say:

If you already submitted a question or issue but haven’t received a response yet, please be patient. We are working as fast as we can to get to your ticket. Submitting the same question multiple times will slow our team down. If your question is related to a sponsorship or billing, please rest assured that we won’t shut down any networks after the August 20 deadline until we’ve responded to your tickets.

Okay.  So I will use Grou.ps for my media class and continue using my Nings for my grade 12 English classes. It isn’t absolutely essential to have chat for my two other classes and it also isn’t absolutely essential that they create subgroups for their book clubs since I want them to look at all the blogs, not just the ones on their books. I’ll just be a little more strict about use of tags. If for some reason Pearson won’t sponsor them I’ll just move over to Grou.ps.

So that’s the plan. Two roses. You’ll never see that on The Bachelorette.

As a side note, @markhowe1982 told be about Schoology which I checked out. I think it would be absolutely ideal for teachers who are not techies and have no desire to spend hours geeking out with a new toy. Schoology was super simple to set up. It doesn’t have a bunch of bells and whistles but it’s got blogs, groups, and you can also post assignments and grades (among a few other things). In some ways it reminds me of Edmodo, but Edmodo doesn’t have a blog feature.

Time to start seeing other people?

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Sometimes when you’re getting a little too cocky and pleased with yourself (see previous two posts) the universe decides to come along and give you a good old slap upside the head.

My slap upside the head came in the form of Marc Andreesen’s recent announcement that Ning would be discontinuing its free networks. This resulted in a veritable “twit-storm” (did I just coin a new Twitter word?) of activity, including a #bitemening hashtag and a Google Doc from the awesome Alec Couros
with some Ning alternatives.

I have created six different nings that I use throughout the school year with my English classes. My students LOVE them and I feel like I’m just tapping into the potential of this social networking platform. There’s no way I’ll be able to afford the premium account price of $20 a month for all my nings. Even if I just kept one per class and modified them, I’m still looking at $60 per month, and that would be out of pocket. Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand companies need to make a profit and if Ning’s current business model isn’t profitable, they need to make some changes but… but…

Ugh, I’m so disappointed. That’s all.

I was just getting some teachers really excited about the possibilities of using Ning in the classroom and now I know many of them will be frustrated and unwilling to try if they find out they’re going to have to pay.

I really hope that Ning will follow the lead of other companies like Wikispaces by providing free educator’s accounts, because I don’t want to have to stop using this amazing product.

So lesson learned. I’ll probably be a little more cautious next time before embracing “the next big thing”.

Here are some of the alternatives I’m just starting to explore if I have to give up on Ning:

  • Grou.ps-Looks kind of similar to Ning, and promises to stay “free”. But I’m bitter and jaded now.
  • Google groups-This looks okay, but my kids really like how similar Ning is to Facebook and this just doesn’t look similar enough.  I can’t tell if students can create their own profile pages.
  • Webs.com This gives me hope. It has more of the look my students like.
  • SocialGo Looks pretty appealing too.
  • Yuku Very cute! But it doesn’t seem like there are many features available in the free version. Also some of the features don’t look very school appropriate.

So the good news is, there are lots of options out there. The bad news is, who knows if they’ll suffer the same fate as Ning. For me, it’s not really a big deal to switch (provided that the alternatives give me the same kinds of features) because I’d be starting from scratch at the beginning of the next school year anyway. I’d just take some screen shots for exemplars. I hope to participate in Steve Hargadon’s Elluminate discussion this Tuesday on Ning. I’m sure there are lots of good ideas out there!

But if Ning were willing to provide educator accounts for free, or even for a $10/year per site cost, they’d keep my loyalty. I still think they have an awesome product.

I still love you, Ning I just think I may have to start seeing other people.