EdWeb.net is a relatively new social networking site similar to Ning, but dedicated solely to education. It also has a LOT fewer people on it, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view.
I loved Ning when I first joined a few summers back and everyone was discovering the joys of professional social networking. However, it has grown a bit ponderous and unwieldy for me, so I haven't been on in a while.]
EdWeb offers several features: blogging, chatting, calendar sharing, a wiki, document archives and more; I like the interface better than Ning--it seems cleaner and easier to navigate. Of course, there aren't many people with which to form a network yet, which is a drawback. But there is a school librarians group with 50 members in it; it will be interesting to see if we can make that a viable community.
I am a bit concerned that there already seems to be a corporate presence on the site. Again, we'll see what happens.
I am the founder of edWeb and was delighted to read your post. We are growing our community much faster in 2010. We are focusing on creating a very high quality (although potentially) smaller community of educators, so the communications can be of high value to members. edWeb is being used by many educator groups for professional development, which is our primary goal. However, we do invite education companies to join edWeb and sponsor communities for discussion, sharing resources, and providing professional development support. We believe that ALL members of the education community need a place to come together for serious dialogue about what is needed and what works in education.
ReplyDeleteAgain, thank you for your post!