Blog Post # 6

1.  The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler
  
     This video was very informative and I enjoyed watching it.  I thought that the connected student was very good and I think that it would help students to navigate the internet.  The connected student will have accessed to many different resources and it helps if you have a constantly absent student you can make that student a connected learner.  If they miss something in class they don't have to worry about falling behind because their project would be on the internet.  I feel that not having a textbook is a great thing because textbooks are what other peoples ideas are not what that particular students idea might be.  I like being a connected teacher and allowing my students to be connected.  They can teach others around the world about a specific topic and others can share their knowledge with that particular student.
     I don't think that right now I am prepared to be a connected teacher.  I feel this way because I am still learning how to use the internet to my benefit.  There is so much out their that can help me and it just takes time to learn how to use it.  I feel that I would have to learn a lot more before I could become a connected teacher.  I want my students to learn by example so if I do not know how to work something or use something I don't want my student to be like that.  I would however like to continue to learn about all of the different resources out there so that when the day comes and I have a connected student or class I am prepared to teach that to my students.  I want to be able to use the internet to my benefit and use all of the resources out there.
     I think that it would be very interesting to see how middle school students would react to this type of learning.  I feel that they would react badly at first but as they learned how to do things they would really enjoy this type of learning.  Some students learn differently and they don't like change but if you throw a computer in they seem to change.  Now days our world revolves around computers and all the things you can do on it, so I think students would react very well to this type of learning.

2.  A seventh grader's personal Learning Environment

     I really liked watching this video on a students PLE because it gave me insight into how a student learns.  Her video was very informative and I learned a lot from it and it was very well put together.  I didn't know that you could do so much with a PLE and now that I do my PLN I have some things to consider putting into my PLN.  I liked all of her use of the different websites and she really used them to her benefit.  I think that the fact the this was done by a seventh grader is amazing.  She was very organized and also very knowledgeable about the different ways to use the internet.  I hope that my PLN is as organized as her PLE was.

3.  The Machine is Changing Us by Michael Wesch

    I liked how honest this guy was and he didn't sugar coat anything.  He said something to the extent of we think that we are all that or the next american idol and then we find out that we are not at all. Once we find out that we are not all that we are shocked so we then turn to the media.    He talks about how we use the media to our benefit we use website such as youtube to truly express our feeling and thoughts.  It is very interesting that we get to know things about complete strangers through such types of media like YouTube.  How many people do you know that has posted a video to YouTube saying something about themselves or what they like.  I know personally several people who have posted numerous videos to YouTube.  I don't think that YouTube is a bad  way to share things with other people around the world.  I think that students can benefit from using YouTube to connect with other students around the world.  I think that as technology grows we lack in personal communication or face to face communication.  Students now days are getting so accustomed to using the internet to connect with others that we are forgetting the face to face ways to communicate.  The use of technology is not a bad thing but I wouldn't want my students to rely soley on that to communicate.