Week 4

This weeks blog post asked to discuss networked classrooms. I found this statement from the book PLN by Richardson and Mancabelli to be very powerful. " Learning is only as powerful as the network it occurs in." This statement still has be thinking that maybe this is the reason why the MOBAP MET program is the right fit for me and all of those years of classroom education is kinda meaning less to some extent.  I was not able to make those "network" connects as they are referred to.  Thanks to this online class and others in the program I feel I have made excellent networks to work within.

The one question to answer is advantages and disadvantages of a networked classroom.  Well there are some many advantages and disadvantages to everything.  Who is really to say an advantage to one persons is not a disadvantage to another. According to PLN the benefits of a networked classroom are; transparent, collaborative, learning centered, accessible, communication based, supportive of problem or inquiry-based learning and driven by authentic assessment.  Those excellent strategies for networked classroom working really well also lead us to some challenges as well.  PLN states safety and ethical use is number one.  Then goes on to list transparency, assessment, ownership/rights and parents as the other challenges or disadvantages of a networked classroom.   While reading about each individual advantage and disadvantage I could really see how some could fall on both sides like transparency.  I see this daily not even at my own school but I hear from other teacher friends just how afraid teachers are to open their students up to the internet and kinda not play an active role in their learning environment.  Some schools are not very open to the idea of Social Media and ban it from school, so therefore you as a teacher who see the advantages of it, are not able to use these methods in your classroom.  

The video below shares some ideas on networked classrooms and diversity.

How to slowly change your classroom into a networked classroom.  I really think no matter what you have to have a faculty and principal who will support these methods, otherwise you can talk till your blue in the face nothing is going to change.  You as the educator need to personally know the ins and outs of all the programs you want to introduce to your students otherwise it will be a learning experience for the both and not really take of as a network in the classroom, but rather a dud.  Start small and make little connections inside the school between the students and the different classrooms. When starting small you allow to have failures but also you allow for the students to model what you are doing and learn from the good and the bad.  You do not just want to let the students have free range of some of the programs, you need to set boundaries. 

The YouTube video was created ACEdotedu and posted to the page on Feb.19 2010