The Networked Student

The Networked Student is all about using technology in his psychology class. His whole class revolves around using the computer. The teacher never lectures and there is no textbook required. The class is taught through connectivism, which is the theory that learning is part of a social network with diverse connections and ties. This process allows the student to have more control in the way they are learning. The student has the power to lead themselves in understanding the material.

The student uses google scholar to look up articles for his post. He finds an article that is worthy of a post and shares the article. He also views other blogs to learn about psychology that other people have posted. I thought it was neat that he can look up mp3's and podcasts that supported his learning and download them to his ipod. Now that they are on his ipod he can listen to the information anytime he wants. By gathering all this information, he is able to create a virtual textbook. Now, his knowledge can be shared with the rest of the world. So why does he even need a teacher? The teacher shows the student how to use the network. The teacher shows the student how to differentiate good and bad information. The student acquires skills for the 21st century.

I thought the networked student was an interesting video. However, I do not know how much I agree with what technology is coming to. I cannot imagine an eighth grader performing all of their work from the computer, and not even using a textbook. It seems to me that the computers are becoming the teachers. I do not believe that all students are going to be able to learn like the networked student. Some students need a teacher to explain and teach the information. I do not see how all students are going to be able to teach themselves on the computer. In my opinion not all students would enjoy this new form of teaching.