Social+Networks

Facebook, Twitter and the TA website will also assist in engaging members but in addition, you might wish to consider creating a social network such as those offered by Ning. At the time of writing this article, Ning had just started charging for use, so we would now suggest alternative free social networking sites such as [] and [].

These networks allow each member to have their own page, to make friends with other members, exchange messages, upload and share photographs and videos, share blog posts, create discussions, as well as include wiki pages.

A temporary community/network can also be created for a specific event such as conference or ne event.


 * Social networks ** are great for maintaining contact with your members and retaining or even expanding your membership. For this to happen, of course, an individual must get some value from the social network. There are numerous social networking sites, too many to list here. If the sites we have listed are not relevant to you in your area, try our ideas on other networking sites. You can find a list from wikipedia here.

Of course, Facebook is the largest, and we have already presented it on a separate page in this wiki when discussing pages and groups.

This page is dedicated to Nings and other similar types of social networks where the "users create their own social websites and social networks" rather than join a larger networking site such as Facebook, Orkut,[| LinkedIn] or similar.

= **Nings** = Nings are probably the first closed social network which offered groups of individuals so many options for networking. Up till very recently, they were free but this has changed and many organisations, schools and associations have started abandoning them for other options (see here the payment plans).

If you decide to use them, you will need to purchase the plan which is suited to the number of members you have.

Although they are no longer free of charge, they are still the leaders in this type of website and they offer a wide range of options to their members.

There are quite a few with very large membership which you might find useful to join and study, connect with their members and observe their practices so you can improve your own social networks or online communities. You will also need to join one or more educators' nings in order to decide if this platform is suited to you and your members.

Here are some nings worth joining and studying:


 * EFL CLASSROOM 2.0 - one of the most popular TEFL nings with 15.840 members and a great wealth of resources for its members
 * English Companion Ning with more than 19,000 members is created to help English teachers (not specific to TEFL)
 * The Educators' PLN with many of the members (app. 5,000) also connected through Twitter

Here are two video tutorials on how to set up your ning if that is what you have decided to use.

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Grouply
This is an alternative social network which has many of the features of a ning and into which you can migrate your ning if you happen to have one and wish to avoid paying monthly rates. Here is a short screencast tutorial which I found on You Tube.

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Below you can see a short video I made of the group created by the IATEFL Learning Technologies Special Interest Group media type="youtube" key="rVAiAYyYsCg?hl=en" height="344" width="425"

Grou.ps
Grou.ps is another alternative with very similar features to nings and grouply although its administration panel is slightly different. No groups related to TA's have been found yet or tutorials, so one will be appearing here soon.