The English Companion Ning

A ning is an online social platform (like MySpace or Facebook) for people to create their own social networks around specific interests...
Ning is the Chinese word for peace. www.ning.com

Here is an article http://www.teachersourcebook.org/tsb/articles/2009/10/01/01ning.h03.html about a ning for English teachers called The English Companion started in December 2008 by English teacher and author Jim Burke. It shows the potential of online social networking to break the culture of professional isolation.

It's tagline is "where English teachers meet to help each other" and describes itself as "A place to ask questions and get help. A community dedicated to helping you enjoy your work. A cafe without walls or coffee: just friends." http://englishcompanion.ning.com/

Burke's Ning exceeded his expectations for a virtual meeting ground. In roughly six months, The English Companion Ning, which Burke refers to as "the world's largest English department, without the meetings," catapulted to close to 6,000 members of all ages and levels of teaching experience from five continents. "What's kind of fascinating and scary about Web 2.0 and Ning is that you can create it quickly and before you know it, its got a huge following," he notes.

Nings have borrowed the tools of Facebook and MySpace—the ability to post a personal profile, upload media, and have multiple asynchronous and synchronous conversations—while allowing for the customization around a particular subject. Members contribute content, while the administrator can meddle as little or as much as he or she wants. Members return not only to post, but also for the opportunity of discovery.

I have explored it and found it interesting. I went to the Reading Strategies and followed a discussion about teaching students inference - teachers have shared various pdf documents and powerpoints with examples from their own teaching...

The English Companion bookclub feature book for October 09 is Donalyn Miller The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child (which I did a LibraryZest post about in September 09 with the label Book Whisperer).

Library staff may want to draw English teachers' attention to it in case it is of interest and use ?