Blog Post #6

Why Do We Need Teachers?

In the video, The Networked Student by Wendy Drexler, it goes through a "story" of a young man who is writing a paper on the subject of American Psyche. It goes through the steps of him finding good quality information that is credited and shows ways that he can get different opinions through other students blogs, and teachers blogs. He learned that the blogs can usually tell peoples opinions about American Psyche. There were a few things that the student did to show others where he acquired information about this subject through sites like delicious, and dingo. He found different recordings and videos from professional teachers that have information about the American Psyche. He used Skype in one section to have a video conference with a professional on the subject also.

The real question about this video is "Why Do We Need Teachers?" As I watched the first part of the video, I never heard him say the teacher taught him this or that. He used his knowledge of the internet to find all this this information. This doesn't mean that he doesn't need a teacher. She is the one who offers him guidance when he gets stuck, shows him how to communicate properly and ask respectively for information from others, shows him how to know the difference between good and bad information, and so on. So really all this wouldn't be possible unless a teacher had informed him on how to use the internet or how to find things on the internet. This kind of stuff isn't given to you through genetics.

So I guess my argument is that teachers are the root of all knowledge that students have. I mean they can't just go out and eat books and know how to do things. They have to be taught to give them a start on how to learn. Some teachers such as Dr. Strange, are teaching students to learn on their own. They give them different sites and different projects to learn mistakes and to teach them how to learn and find information. So I guess my answer to the question, "Why do we even need teachers?", is Heck Yes You DO! We must always be there to keep them on the right track and keep them doing their learning properly.

7th Graders PLN

In this video, a young girl is talking about how she uses technology to do school work for her classes. She goes through how she finds information and posts to her blog and different social networks. The things she does is awesome, and would be a blast to do with teachers that you technology to teach class. The only thing is is getting computers, and internet to kids. I know that we are in the 21st century, but not everyone has a smart phone, internet, and even computers. Also, the grade level I am going to school to teach is probably not literate enough in technology to know how to use the computer. So my question about this blog is "If they all do have computers, are they all going to know how to use this technology?"