I blogged about your experience.
http://edtechpower.blogspot.com/2009/05/technology-to-rescue.html
Thanks for sharing it!
-Liz
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Elizabeth Davis <lizbdavis@gmail.com>wrote:
> Fred - This is a great story of turning adversity into a learning
> opportunity. I have a Ning set up for our school, but haven't yet pushed it
> out. It has a few members, but no real content. I have several teachers who
> have created Nings for their classrooms and they love it. Your Ning had a
> true pedogogical purpose and thus it thrived. I think that is the key to
> most technology successes. As Chris Lehmann
> <http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity/> says, Effective technology
> is like oxygen, ubiquitous, necessary and invisible. I will be interested to
> learn how the ning continues to function now that your school is back in
> session.
> -Liz
>
> Liz B Davis
> Director of Academic Technology
> Belmont Hill School
> Belmont, MA
> http://www.belmonthill.org
> http://www.edtechpower.com
>
>
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:32 AM, Fred Bartels <fred_bartels@rcds.rye.ny.us>wrote:
>
>> We had an interesting experience with a forced closure this week related
>> to possible H1N1 cases. The closing was initially announced as being for
>> two weeks, but after one day being closed, new CDC recommendations allowed
>> us to reopen. (All our students with the flu are doing well.)
>>
>> For most of one day, we all thought we would be closed for two weeks, so
>> we started to quickly ramp up possible solutions for keeping courses
>> moving forward. You can read more about the day on this ISEnet post.
>>
>> http://isenet.ning.com/forum/topics/closed-for-two-weeks-due-to
>>
>> As luck would have it, we had created a school Ning a few days before the
>> closure. We viewed it as just an additional communication/collaboration
>> tool should we ever happen to be forced to close. The Ning was basically a
>> shell with only three members. I sent out an email to faculty about 8 pm
>> on the evening of the closure annoucement, letting them know about the
>> ning site, and suggesting that for some things -like discussions- the ning
>> might be a good optional resource. By 4 pm the following day the Ning site
>> had over 200 members, 30 course groups, and a very rapidly developing
>> sense of community. To put in slightly differently, we experienced with
>> our own little social network, the same explosive growth that happened
>> with Facebook and MySpace.
>>
>> The rapidity with which the ning site developed gives us a lot of
>> confidence that we could maintain a strong sense of community during an
>> extended closure. The ning is just one of the tools we would use to
>> facilitate communication, but it is now very clear to us that it would be
>> an important one.
>>
>> So here is one easy way to prep for a pandemic. Encourage your faculty to
>> become members of the Independent School Educators ning
>> (http://isenet.ning.com). This will provide a double benefit. Immediately
>> it will help them develop their own personal learning networks and it will
>> have them comfortable and familiar with Nings should your school ever need
>> to use one in an emergency. Oh yeah, and you might want to create your own
>> school Ning, and have it ready to go should you ever need it. You never
>> know. :-)
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> -------------------------
>> Fred Bartels
>> Head - Computer Department
>> Rye Country Day School
>> 914-925-4610
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Liz Davis
> http://www.edtechpower.blogspot.com
>
--
Liz Davis
http://www.edtechpower.blogspot.com
[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
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