Blog Post 7

The Networked Student is a video directed by Wendy Drexler that attempts to explain the future of education and the future roles of educators. The video is really well done using simple drawings to illustrate the point. The Networked Student argues that as the 21st century progresses, students will become in charge of their own education more. Students will research topics and collaborate with experts and fellow learners from around the world to learn about an assignment. The students will be forced to problem solve on the fly and participate in a network of learners in order to complete assignments. After the bulk of the research and collaboration has been completed, the students will then create some type of project that details exactly what they learned. Parts of this assignment are up to the students, which could create more interest on their part.

The teacher will also play a much different role in this type of classroom according to the video. Teachers will be facilitators more than lecturers. They guide students on a learning path rather than specifically teach facts about something. When students run into a problem on their journey, the teacher is there to assist them and suggest some way to attack the problem. The teacher manages the progress of the class by staying constantly involved with student work rather than controlling the pace of the class through lecture.

I have mixed feelings about this type of classroom. I love the fact that the teacher does not constantly lecture facts to students leaving them bored and despondent, but the video may take things slightly too far. The video seems to imply that this type of assignment would be the only assignments in the class, and teachers would never actually teach anything about their area of study. They would simply facilitate and help students research more on the internet. The video may not mean for this to be the case at all, and if this was done a few times throughout a course, then I think it is an excellent way to approach the future of education. I still believe, however, that it is important for students to learn some basic tools and facts from teachers that are difficult to understand when simply researched on the internet. That is why I think something like the "flipped" classroom will probably resemble the future of education more than this.

A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment is a video of a 7th grade girl explaining her class structure. Her class is exactly like the "Networked Student" of the previous video. In her class, they do almost all of their work online and present it in the form of various digital projects. Her class resembles EDM 310 a great deal. Her class is a 7th grade science class where the students are learning about different types of animals. Much like EDM 310, her science class is a perfect example of the type of class that is conducive to a "networked" type classroom.

The journey through EDM 310 is constantly opening up new tools that we can use in our future as educators. Our PLN's will constantly grow until we have a great foundation for our own classroom.