Blog Post 6

In the video, "The Networked Student", by: Wendy Drexler, a 21st century high school student is getting his education through "Network Learning". He attends class three days a week, and the other two days he takes online classes. There are no long boring lectures that we all know so well, and there is no textbook for this class. This teacher believes in connectivism, which is using a social network to learn. Her students use the internet to research and study what they are learning.

"Does a network student even need a teacher?" I think this a fear of all teachers entering such a technical world. We all wonder if we are going to be needed as technology starts to take over the classroom and the learning experience. Of course we will still need teachers, there has to be someone there to guide students through this learning process. They have to be taught how to build a social network. We will also be the filter, someone has to teach them to sort out the fiction from nonfiction. The internet is a wonderful source of information, but you have to know the difference between opinions and facts. And as teachers we will be that filter. Teachers will also have to make sure students stay focused and are meeting the learning objectives for their course. Just because you give a student a computer and access to the internet doesn't mean they are going to learn anything. There has to be someone monitoring the students progress and making sure they are meeting the expectations for the course they are taking.

In the video "A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment", a student takes us through her network learning experience. I think that it is awesome to see how much she has learned, and how she has learned to use the computer to document her research. The student also states that she enjoys learning this way because of the freedom. Not because she can choose not do her work but because she can do it on her time and the finished product is amazing. I had never seen a blogster, what an awesome project. This Personal Learning Environment is much like the one in EDM 310. We use our blog to document what we have learned and we are able to work on our projects on our time as long as we get them done. Although I have definitely had to make some adjustments in my way of learning/thinking, I am starting to enjoy learning this way as well.