Vanilla Forums is free, open source software that anyone can use to host an online message board community. As you might imagine message boards powered by Vanilla allow your users to create member profiles, give you administrative control, and the ability to create sub-forums. Vanilla Forums software can be downloaded and installed on your own server(s) or you can use one of the hosting packages offered by Vanilla. The hosting packages range in price from free to $199.
Applications for Education
Since Ning went to a fee-based model, many people have been looking for alternatives. If you have someone in your school that can install Vanilla Forums on a server, Vanilla could be a good way to build a school message board. You could also explore the free hosting package offered by Vanilla to see if that suits your needs.
Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Ning Ends Free Networks - Try These Alternatives
Lefora - Create a Free Message Board Forum
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Vanilla Forums - Open Source Forum Software
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3 comments:
Ning is still free for K-Grad school, for North American users thanks to Pearson Prentice Hall.
I tried Nixty for a few days, but returned to Ning. Edmodo could be an option.
Jeremy,
I'm glad to hear that the Pearson-sponsored Ning is working out for you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those networks are limited to 100 users which is too small for creating a school-wide or district-wide community.
Richard
Yes, you're almost right - 150 students.
http://blog.ning.com/2010/06/pearson-to-provide-ning-mini-for-free-to-educators.html
My school is a long way from that - since I am about the only teacher that uses social.
So, I go it alone - one class at a time - though I do get about 128 students to compete in March Madness based on Jason Webster's and Grady Long's template: http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/7.1/webster.html
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/7.1/webster.html
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