Thing # 22: Nings

Talk about save the best for last. I wish I had known about Nings for the past few years. It's amazing. The one I would have used is the TeacherLingo. It has blogs about different topics that are of interest to different professionals in education. All kinds of topics that one as a teacher might want to talk about, or even vent about. This part would be great to brainstorm with other teachers, too. And one can leave comments. It is kind of like a wiki, but the comments are separate. It's neat to see how many comments and views each blog has had.

The find teachers section is great, too. You can click on the kind of teacher you want to find to interact with. You can click elementary teacher, foreign language teacher, retired teacher, substitute teacher. I think this tool in particular is a little scary. If I were a parent and looked at some of these blogs, I would get the feeling a lot of teachers are not very content with their jobs. But, I wish law makers and Superintendents and such people would look at these blogs. The frustrations expressed by these teachers are real. They want to do a good job, but there is nothing more they can do. They just have to bear some things. I read one by a Spanish teacher about how she is so frustrated her students don't care about what she has to offer them. Another was by a 5th grade language arts teacher who has a disabled ESL student who knows his alphabet letters to F and his mother won't take him to the neurologist so he can be classified as 504 and put into special education, which will entitle him to more one-on-one help. It helps all of the teachers to know they are not alone. Like I said, I would have appreciated this Ning since I have been teaching. At least I can share it with the teachers on my campus, now.

This is one great section. You can find lesson plans for your area of teaching. I looked up Kindergarten Math and got a bunch of great lesson plan ideas to click on. What a useful tool. And some teachers who have used each lesson have left reviews with stars to show how good they are. I love that some of them are already tried and rated. I value that feedback a lot. It is so valuable to know about a lesson before you decide to get materials for it yourself and try it.

The message board is great. Again, people out there need advice. If you feel like it, you can read their problem and put your experiences and wisdom to good use. This is really a great opportunity for novices as well as for those with experience. Everyone can benefit from these interactions.

The feedback portion requires that you sign in. Apparently, you can let Teacher Lingo your suggestions and what you like about this Ning. This is always a good sign. It shows the Ning is trying to meet the needs of the users and to constantly improve the services it provides users.

Like I said, I will definitely mention this to the teachers on my campus. I think new and experienced teachers would enjoy participating in this Ning.