The Networked Student

My blog assignment this week is to watch and comment on the video The Networked Student. This video was produced by Wendy Drexler. I found the video to be very informative. It was a short video, but it made you think about the direction in which teaching is going. Am I prepared to be a teacher of a networked student? At this time I am not sure of the answer to that question. The video starts with a student taking an American psychology course. There is no textbook and the teacher never lectures. She is a student of connectivism. She believes that learning occurs as part of a social network with many connections. Technology is used to make these connections.

Connectivism makes students take control of their learning and personal learning network. Students are to connect with others. The student is to develop a personal network on the subject of the American psyche. He uses different tools to develop his network. Goggle scholar is one tool used. He then shares bookmarks about this finds and creates a blog. By using the blog the student is able to post comments about his topic and also read what others have to say. He is building a knowledge base. The student uses his mp3 player to subscribe to Itunes U. There he is able to gain access to audio/visual podcast of this topic. Next he develops a wikispace where he shares his knowledge about what he has learned.

During this whole process the student is developing his personal network. The teacher is there for guidance. The teacher's job is to help students extract relevant information and to guide them in their journey of learning. The teacher's goal is to help the students maintain their learning network so that they can use it in the future. I think that making students take some control of their own learning is great. Students need to know that staying networked through twitter, blogs, learning circles, or friends gives you a arrange of information, but it also can give you support. If you would like to watch this education video you can find it at http://is.gd/2cgBb. This is a great video for new teachers to watch.