Blog Post 6

The Networked Student
Wendy Drexler has a terrific idea with the Connectivism movie. She is showing how connected you can become just by searching the web. You can literally create your own learning environment and that is what it is so fascinating. Instead of spending hours on the Internet doing something that will not benefit you; you can be studying and learning, not just from your professors, but from other people around the globe. The information is out there, it’s just a matter of finding it.
Ideas like this put the learning in the hands of the students. Not only does it make them responsible, but it also shows them that with the right amount of guiding, what they can find. They could even take it one step further and begin learning things on their own. Before you know, they are spending hours learning. It’s just a matter of a nudge in the right direction. With the right amount of guidance from their teachers, the twenty-first student can be recreated everywhere, within middle schools, high schools, and most definitely in universities.

A 7th Grader’s Personal Learning Environment (PLN)
This seventh grader’s PLN is rather impressive and she made a very good point. With everything being online, there is a lot of temptation to just go and do something else like Facebook or Twitter. I think that can also show how responsible an individual is, because the temptation is there, but the person is choosing to ignore it, instead going for something educational. The seventh grader just goes to show how successful technology in the classroom can be. I’m curious as to what the note-taking thing she was using it. It looks rather interesting and like another way to create a PLN or expand on yours. My PLN is coming along, rather slowly, but it is getting there as I am adding things more and more.