About Nicenet

Introduction

Nicene is conferencing software and it easily available on net. Users do not need to download because it works only online so Nicenet is nice online software where teachers can create a virtual classroom and can share information with the members of group. Nicenet has all facilities to share information with the members of group e.g. teacher can send message to his students and can also get reply. This is freeware so anybody can get service from this software. In this way Nicenet is very useful to create an interactive classroom and it has conferencing system so teacher can manage his class easily.

How Nicenet Works

Nicenet can also be transformed in to virtual school because here same students can attend various online classes. A class is composed of sections or topics and within each topic messages can be stored and can be arranged according to date and also can be personalised. It is possible to have written conversations with the members of the virtual class and the teachers. Most important thing is that all members of the same group will have a mailbox for private messages that no one else will be able to access. There is also some drawbacks that teachers cannot upload files if they are not available on internet so only online files can be uploaded.

How to Start

First of all one has to access site called www.nicenet.org where teachers need to log in clicking on “create class” and students need to “join the class”. In this way teachers will get the class key which they can share with their students and without it students will not be able to approach the class again and teachers need to remember their username and password to log into class again. Teachers can send class key to various students in all over the world. In this way distance learning and teaching can be possible.

My Experience

I have created online classroom with the help of Nicenet software and it aims to teach certain ELT topics like Cohesion and Coherence in Writing. I have got students from ELT classroom and they are instructed to read various stories written by well known writer like R K Narayan uploaded on Nicenet and asked to observe very carefully all the linking patterns in the entire story. Then I have asked them to reform particular story in their own words so that I can check cohesion and coherence into their stories. In this way this kind of learning and teaching is really fun. Students can learn without any kind of threat and can express themselves completely.

Conclusion

In this way Nicenet software is very useful to both teachers and students and it also very interactive because students and teachers can deal with any subject through messages. But the important thing is that both students and teachers should have internet connection otherwise they cannot get help from this software.