Tips for Ning Newcomers (especially folks in the Klein Math group)

[Laura Gibbs]

Email notifications. You can control the email notification settings in Ning by reviewing your Ning profile. BY DEFAULT, when you contribute to a discussion, you will get email notifications of other people's contributions to that discussion. If you want to get notifications for a discussion to which you have not contributed yet, there are little notification links at the bottom of every discussion page which you can turn on, even if you have not posted anything to the discussion yet. Just scroll to the bottom of the discussion page and you will see something like this which you can click on to make sure you get notifications:

Create new discussion areas. Please feel free to create new discussions! Right now in the History of Math Group, the discussion areas are focused on the Klein book, chapter by chapter. You can also create other discussions in the History of Math Group area. I for one would be very happy to see this as a group area to discuss any kind of topic related to the history of math, even if it does not relate to the Klein book we are reading this summer!

Using your blog. If you have a really long post you want to share, instead of including it in a discussion box, you might want to create a blog post in your Fireside blog, and link to that from here (it's easy to add a blog post: click here). That's something I will probably be doing a fair amount... I tend to go off on tangents sometimes, and I'll use my Fireside blog as a handy place to get tangential without derailing our discussions here. :-)

Your Ning profile. Whenever you contribute to a discussion or make a comment, there is a tiny picture (it can be a photo or any kind of image that you choose), which is linked to your profile. You can get to your profile page by clicking on the MY PAGE link that appears across the top of every page at the Ning; in the upper left-hand column you'll see the links for adjusting your profile page settings. To visit other people's profile pages, just click on the little picture next to anything they have posted at the Ning. You can include all kinds of things on your profile page - in addition to your personal image, you can add text and links and images to your profile page, and even embed your favorite videos, etc. Here are some notes I share with my students about updating their profile pages:
* Ning Profile Clean-Up. Make more room on your Profile page by hiding features you do not need, such as Latest Activity or duplicate Blog listings.
* Ning Profile Theme. Choose your own look for your Profile page - Ning keeps adding new themes to choose from!
* Add a You-Tube Video to your Ning Profile. You can add a YouTube video (or a video from any other embedded video service) to your Ning Profile page.
* Add an RSS Feed to your Ning Profile. You can add an RSS feed (from an online news source, from a blog, etc.) to your Ning Profile page.