Blog Post #6

Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

The networked student in this particular video is majoring in American Psychology. He uses his knowledge to find sites that would be valuable while he is still grasping the information about the real facts of American Psychology. Wendy Drexler explained in this video that the networked students will not be effective learners without the connections that makes all of this possible. This student is apart of the 21st century high school, and is using the internet and other ways to connect and find facts.

Google Scholars is one of the important gateways for this student to find scholarly articles that would support his lesson topics. This student is also apart of the social bookmarking site, which helps him to search for blogs that would disagree are agree with any particular argument and where he can post new informative ideas that he has found.  He also found that his mp3 player is much more than a music box, but it enables him to use iTunes U to find actual professors giving scholarly lessons at Yale University. He also uses wikispaces to create story boards and other things that would help him to enhance his experience as an American Psychology major.

One of the questions on this video that was very debatable, asked why does he need a teacher to network? Well, he needs a teacher for guidance, to learn how to communicate properly, to learn to differentiate good information from propaganda, and to maintain the continuation of networking to navigate properly. Teacher should always be the navigator and should always help you to learn about new tools.

A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment

Compared to the PLN's that we should be working on for class, I think that I am on the right track. The 7th grader PLE was very interesting, I like how she had her school work and important info in folders at the top and at the bottom she organized all of her accounts like Facebook and Twitter. Even though these technological tools are very efficient and less time consuming, she said that is easily to get off focus. I was very fascinated about how she was able to find different ways to access things that pertained to her project. For those who are not as technologically literate, she even explained how she could ask a scientist a question and they can reply back, and she could also use Skpe to talk to the scientists over the web. Since I already knew that you could do this, I will try and use my PLN very effectively with added modifications that were not mentioned in her video.

Critiques of Smartboards 

Michael Staton, Why Smartboards are a Dumb Initiative

Michael thinks that smartboards are a dumb initiative because administrators to him are buying these tools to point at and count. Michael Staton says that using smartboards does not give kids the correct environment to actually learn something.  To him it is a dumb investment because it does not reduce the teachers work load, it does not enable social networking and it does not make the lesson plan efficient. Michael Staton is trying to say that if it can not help in theses areas of learning than it is a waste of his time.

Bill Ferriter, Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards

Bill says that Whiteboards are just sitting up in the classrooms for decoration. Bill said that this gizmo did not help his teaching curriculum to be any easier than it already was, to him the computer was much more helpful than the whiteboard. Even with a teacher who has taken out the time to learn and who have had training, Bill says that it is just an irresponsible purchase.  When companies say that whiteboards are the bridge to technology, to him they are saying it is just a replica of the traditional instructional practices.

http://medt3401.blogspot.com/2010/04/smart-board-smart-idea.html