Sue. I didn’t discount blogs and wikis – I think they have greater application to teaching – I just wanted to clarify the scope of the question. Yes…my gut feeling is that we should create tools that our students can choose to install and use if they want – so offer rather than invade.

Nice point about Ning.Even though you can customise your profile (each bloody time for each bloody network!!! ) if does feel a bit like playing on someone else’s turf.

I agree with the “need first, technology second” approach. And also accepting that what is a solution on one campus is not the solution on another – even when the problem seems identical. These tools give us the choice to fine tune it to match the users perfectly.

Had an interesting discussion with James Farmer about communities like Ning and blogs. He highlighted that communities like Ning struggled because the lack of personal ownership. Will be interested to see if he is right. For sure with Ning there is a lot you need to do to actually make it work and you need to make people want to buy in.

So my question back to your friend would be before you think about the technology have a really good think about what you are trying to achieve. What is the solution you are trying to achieve? Once you have worked out what this is now look at the tools that can make it happen.

Sue