A Distraction in the Classroom

Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are great ways to promote buisness, share ideas with others, connect with people over the internet and most of all helping teachers improve their classrooms. Social networking can benefit the classroom by having collaberations between teachers and students. In additon, teachers can follow other scholors on the social networking sites, which can help them gain knowlege in preparing lessons and which ways are best for teaching students. Although, with the many reasons why social networking in the classroom is a great idea, it can also be a large distraction for the students. Students are not being able to get their studies done. Even though the students are having the struggles to get the work done at their own homes, it has also been complicated to get the students attention during class time with all the distractions of the social network. Students that have class with a computer right in front of them are driven to go on facebook instead of participating in the class. It is causing students to slack on their assignments and also lose sleep because they spend most of their time online and when it is too late decide they need to get their work done. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html is a site that explains how technology has become a serious distraction in today's society. If this issue is ignored it can cause extreme consequences in the success of students in this day of age. In result, people would put much less of an effort into their work and lose their focus in completing their future goals.

Twitter Can Benefit the Classroom

Twitter is a social networking site that i feel can be very beneficial to teachers and students in the classroom. I have been using twitter for about a year now and i am in love with it. Twitter is a great way to learn new information and read other peoples' opinions from around the world. It is alwasy interesting and can provide new ideas for educators to use in their lessons by reading other teacher's posts about the classroom. As a student it will be easier to connect with other people that have the same interests and gain new insight in the world of teaching in order to prepare for their futures.

Response to Powerpoint and Narrative Project

In my SEDU 183 class we were asked to come up with a lesson plan for a chosen grade level by using powerpoint and writing a narrative.  I enjoyed this project with creating my own lesson for a 7th grade history class on documents that are important to the United States. I plan on becoming a teacher in my future so it was great practice to being able to come up and create lessons for students. I thought the process was fairly easy, because I am used to using powerpoint for projects. Although I did think it was difficult to come up with a lesson where the powerpoint is not just telling the students the information, but having them interact with the teacher and lesson.  I feel that the presentation was successful and it was very interesting to see other peoples' projects for the grade level they chose.  Overall, i feel that this project has been beneficial, because I learned many new skills with creating a lesson plan for students by using technology.

How Personal Learning Networks have Changed Classrooms: Blog Response

In chapter 1 of “Personal Learning Networks” the authors discuss how PLNs have changed the classrooms and how teachers provide lessons and work on line for their students. Personal Learning Networks have drastically changed society and the way people learn new material. With the new technology students can receive information from anywhere and be able to become educated through PLNs around the world.  In addition, there are now online courses that can be taken; social networking through other teachers in order to share ideas, and having the students learn the skills that are needed in navigating the computer.

Although, this new age in technology does not fully mean teachers are not needed. Instead, PLNs have made it much easier for the teacher and students in the classroom and learning how to interact with others using devices to share opinions, and information around the world. The authors state “This type of learning includes how to make connections online…collaborate with others in ways that go beyond just sharing information” (p.20).

Educators can use the technology to share other lesson plans with other teachers and receive feedback in order to become a much greater teacher. I think the greatest part of technology through PLNs has given opportunities to students to explore even books online, for example “Google’s attempt to scan and digitize every known book…will make those books more accessible and useful” (p.16). I believe that if Google is able to complete that, students will read and become interested in the books much more without going to a library in order to do so.

The concept of how PLN’s are used explains the text as a whole by stating the importance of PLNs and how it can benefit the community. The theme of PLNs in the wider world means that it provides sharing networks for teachers and students to learn much more throughout the world without leaving the classroom. Also the grading system is much easier and. One question that I have from the text is how the future will be if we only use PLNs in classes? Will the attendance for school not seem to matter anymore? The answer in the text proves that teachers will still be used, but the new system “is the dawn of a new age of schooling” (p.20).

In conclusion, I agree with the fact that PLNs are needed and have helped schools. But it is also important to let students know attendance should matter, even though the schooling can be accessed online. PLNs have changed the world only for the better and I believe that it will continue to grow and become even more successful in the future for students and teachers everywhere around the world.