Moodle Is Great; Ning Is Different: Managing Learning and Creating Learning Managers

More and more of my course content is on my Moodle page, and I'm feeling guilty about neglecting my class Ning, where I saw so much good thinking and learning happening at the beginning of the semester. While in the process of reading a couple of Innovate articles on the subject of social networks as course management systems that a colleague forwarded me, I had some ideas for different kinds of Ning activities, exercises that take advantage of the power and uniqueness of a social network as learning environment. Starting next week, I'm going to assign each of my students a cycle (our version of a week = 4 class meetings) when they will be in charge of running some forums and exercises on our Ning page. They'll meet with me initially to discuss their ideas and go from there. I'm hoping to take advantage of the fact that Ning is owned by all of us, as opposed to Moodle, which is owned by me. Updates to follow.