I just started teaching the spring session of my class yesterday, and I decided I wanted students to be able to communicate with each other and also to share their work, if they choose to. I thought I’d try out Ning, a service that I’d been hearing about. It lets you create social networks (sort of like Facebook, but easier) for free. I tried it and voila! it took me about 10 minutes to set up a very attractive password-protected social network on which my students can register, put up their photos, use a forum to talk with one another, and participate in a blog. What a great tool for small groups! Check out Ning here. (You can’t check out my Magazine Writing Basics group unless you sign up for the class, which is still open) but you can look at many other open social networks.

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