Blog Post 6

The Networked Student
This video is about of course a networked student. This means that the student uses technology to learn instead of the old way of textbooks and teacher lectures. In fact the teacher of this class rarely lectures at all. She encourages creativity from the student in finding his/her own way of learning the topics. The student uses a network of learning.
A network of learning includes everything the student uses to learn. For example blogs, podcasts, etc... The student finds all of this on the internet. They can use Google Scholar to find articles from professors around the world on the topic they are learning.They subscribe to blogs to figure out differences of opinions on the topic. The students are embracing the new technology, because it ultimately can teach them more about the topic then the regular textbook can.
So why does the networked student need a teacher? Well, the teacher is there to teach them how to use the network. He/She can give them information to look up to help them understand how the network works. The teacher is there to differentiate between scholarly work or propaganda. The teacher teaches the learning network so his/her students can be better prepared for the future.
A 7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment
This 7th grader's personal learning environment is similar to mine. She is given the same tools I am to learn. She has the same freedom of surfing the internet that I do. On the other hand hers seems way more organized. She has everything in perfect working order. This is pretty amazing in that she is only in the 7th grade. This tells me that kids today are learning a lot more than when I was in the 7th grade. Another thing is I need to get with the program and learn more about this to teach my students.
Critique of Smartboards
This certain blog explains how smartboards can be effective. You do not need a mouse for the smartboard everything can be done by touching it with a finger or special pen. Educational games can be played on it without the the use of all kinds of transferring cords and computers. There can be downloading of educational movies etc... The blog also talks about how efficient training needs to be done before using the smartboard. In the post about how the smartboard is useless the writers made the argument that everything thing done on the smartboard is just as easy on a regular whiteboard and that is less expensive. The blog that supports the smartboards encourages users of them to be trained and see then if the smartboard is better.http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/2007/08/interactive-whiteboard-white-elephant.html