EDCI 5825 Week 5 Blog Questions

1. Should all teachers be encouraged to create online activities for students within traditional classrooms? Please explain.

In a world surrounded by technology, all teachers should be encouraged to create online activities for students within their traditional classrooms. Although personal, face-to-face contact is important and necessary in the learning environment, online activities create new opportunities for students that provide many benefits. One benefit is that some students feel safer expressing themselves online (November, 2010). Students can interact and respond to each other freely on their own time, allowing them to be more thoughtful with their feedback “without fear of recrimination” (November, 2010, p. 89).

Another benefit of online activities for students is the advantage of a collaborative environment on the Internet where students reach out and work together creating a positive relationship between peers (November, 2010). Since the Internet is a highly shared tool, students work and rely on each other and “learn what each other think and believe” (November, 2010, p. 89). In regular classrooms, there is not as much sharing of ideas because students fear they are being judged; online activities create a judgment-free zone. November (2010) mentions one student from an online school known as VHS who says, “You can really know someone just by what’s inside them, by the comments they say and that type of thing, instead of thinking, ‘Ooo, that person looks weird’” (p. 90).

Finally, online activities allow students to take on the responsibility of managing information (November, 2010). November (2010) says, “With online learning, students can do their work when they are best prepared mentally and physically to do it, whether that is 9 a.m., 8 p.m., or 2 a.m.” (p. 91). Students are given the responsibly to manage their time freely and motivate themselves to complete their work (November, 2010). Online learning activities are not for everyone but I think it is important to encourage teachers to create some online activities and take advantage of all the benefits the Internet has to offer.

2. Envision the role of social networking in 21st century learning environments. Write a brief description of this vision.

Social networking has and will continue to develop throughout the 21^st century. The power of social interaction will continue where we build complex networks of resources allowing for learning to be a “continuous conversation among many participants” (Richardson, 2010, p. 86). With the explosion of Twitter, schools can communicate with parents and others in the community as well as find links to student work, presentation, or relevant articles on a variety of topics (Richardson, 2010). Social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Diigo, create learning environments where teachers and students can organize “vast libraries of information” on their own as a great tool for sharing information (Richardson, 2010, p. 91).

Social networking also gives students a new experience to engage in “self-directed, peer based learning” different from what they are used to in traditional classrooms (Richardson, 2010, p. 132). From an educational standpoint, social network sites such as Facebook and Ning create an interest-based learning environment (Richardson, 2010). “The key to both of these sites for educators is to move beyond the friendship-based connections and really explore the potentials of the networked, interest-based learning that’s possible within these frames” (Richardson, 2010, p. 132). Social networked learning creates a 21^st century vision that stresses “cooperation, interactivity, mutual benefit, and social engagement” (Richardson, 2010, p. 133). Let the social connecting and learning begin!