Blog Assignment #7

The Networked Student

This was a pretty cool video about a way of learning that I have never heard of before. The Networked Student describes Connectivism, which is a way to learn through social networking. I’m guessing the teacher encourages her students to make connections with others around the world about the topic they are learning. With this way of learning, the student must create a PLN; just like the ones we have created in EDM. The students also have a social bookmarking sight, where others students share URLs.

When I was learning about this way of learning, I personally had the question of where is the teacher in all of this? But supposedly, the teacher is there as a “guide”. She instructs them on building their PLNs and shows guidance when her students get stuck. She also shows them what would be considered good and bad information and helps organize their PLNs so they will continue to use it in the future.

I feel like this way of learning is still new, but it is growing as the new way to learn. It involves so much technology which is important in the real world. This is the way students can get exposed to what they will be using for the rest of their lives. As a future educator, I like this way teaching. But that means I need to be on top of my technology skills so I am able to show my students how to learn in such a way.

7th Grader’s PLE

It is so different to see middle schools using computers in such an advanced way. Building an PLE for a science class? That is really impressive. This 7th grader's PLE explains how she uses her PLE to guide her throughout her science class. She has her school website that can be referred to at the bottom of the page and the ones that are not for school are at the top. My PLN is similar to this 7th grader’s because we use the same website to make it: Symbaloo.  I have also separated mine into school and not school tiles.

I like symbaloo because of how quick and easy it is. This is a great website for middle schoolers to use because they can start working instantly. Even though I had recently created mine,  I hope that PLN will be as much of a benefit to me as it is for this 7th grader.