Social Networking Group

I joined The Educator's PLN. This website has various resources, for example, the Forum. As Alan Levine said in the video New Media Consortium, 'It's really important for us to be able to stay connected to people that are smarter than us because we can't know everything'. People will post some discussion questions in this section, which allows people of different experiences share their ideas. You may find a lot of useful suggestion from their comments.
As for the social networking group, I find Build the Ideal 21st Century School will be useful to me. Both the learning and teaching are changing over time, so there must be some differences between previous and future school. In this discussion forum, people discuss how 21st century school will be like. For example, there is a question saying 'Should your elementary school have a Facebook Page?' In this group, people comment and share their ideas, which will provide more resources for building the ideal 21st century school.

A learner is like a hunter

A learner is like a hunter. A hunter needs to hunt in the wild and concentrate on what he is doing. To hunt successfully, a hunter has to cooperate with other hunters. A language learner, similarly, has to learn by themselves and interact with others.

Our learning process is a socially interacted network. As Siemens posits in his article A learning Theory for the Digital Age, ‘Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual’. We cannot separate the learners from the organizations and institutions.

The hunter will have to update their hunting method as times goes on.  In the video The Network is the Learning, he says that ‘If I am not continuing learning, I am becoming obsolete in my particular field’, which also emphasizes that we have to keep learning because knowledge is always changing. 

In order to cooperate with other hunters, the hunter has to use some advanced communication tools. In learning process, one important way of learning is the impact of social software. Siemens elaborates an example of ‘online photo sharing’ in the video The Impact of Social Media on Learning. You can go and comment on someone else’s images and make connection with others that have the same tags, the same interest with you. This makes the process that sharing those resources into a dialogue, a conversation. Siemens says that ‘Most of us enjoy conversation, we are social beings’. He explains that our knowledge grows by doing this because ‘words really give life to thought’.

Diigo and Scoop.it

                           

                vs.

Diigo and Scoop.it  are both helpful tools for keeping websites that can be accessed from anywhere. I will lose my collected useful websites if I change a computer before. Now with these tools, I can assess my websites anywhere at any time.

I can follow others and others can follow me in both of the two tools. We can share useful information with people all around the world. By searching for the multiple tags in Diigo and Scoop.it, I can assess thousands of websites I am interested in. Diigo and Scoop.it provide organized and rich resources in our field.

However, they have some differences. For example, I can highlight text in saved articles in Diigo. It is useful if I want to take some notes and to share with others. This is one feature that Scoop.it does not have. However, scoop.it allows us to comment on others’ scoops so that people can share opinions on one topic. I can copy and paste from original article to appear in comments about site.  Also, scoop.it offers suggestions for related articles. I found this most useful because it saved me a lot of time finding information related to my aimed topics.

By comparing the two tools, if I would continue to use one of them, I would like to use scoop.it because I like its suggestions for related articles. This is a great way to expand the information I want.

Reactions to Videos about Future Education

Social Media Revolution

What is the power of social media? People share their experiences through social networks. We chat with friends online. We cannot access facebook and youtube in China but Renren and Youku are created to replace them. A new product needs social media to let people know it.

I am shocked by one scene that says ‘If Wikipedia were made into a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long’.  It is impossible to make Wikipedia into a book but it can exist in our learning in another more convenient style. We can search almost everything from Wikipedia. People prefer to read online than take a heavy book now. We can see people in the public with an ipad in their hands. Even some kids are crazy about computer games. I remembered that a school in China also uses ipad instead of blackboard.

The Networked Students

How do 21th century students learn? They may not have a textbook. I believe that this is true in the future. For example, we do not have a textbook for this online course. A textbook is written by one or maybe two or three writers, so we can only access opinions by the writers. That is not enough. Students can search for more information that they need online. How?

Students can search the internet for specific topic and save useful ones in their computer. At last students create their own knowledgebase on that topic. Students will post their opinions on their blog. Anyone in the world again can access that blog and comment. If I do this, it means I learn from others and others learn from me. I know some of my undergraduate classmates learn online courses from professors all around the world. We may not have the opportunity to go to Stanford. But we can listen to some Stanford courses. We may choose a major and show interest in other field. With those online open courses, we can master a second major. 

Using Blogs to Meet Learning Standards

Using blogs with my own students...

One thing I will do with blog is to post some materials related to the course. Students can read them and prepare for our class discussion. We may begin our discussion before class because we can comment instantly. If students have any problems, they can let me know so that I can adjust before class. This helps my class interaction with students more efficient. I can get in touch with my students whenever I want. By commenting on my students' blog, I can communicate with my students and get to know their thoughts better. 

Using blog for my own professional development....

I think blog will be very beneficial for my professional development. Blog enables me to think more about my teaching after the class. For example, I may post a new blog to record my own teaching experience. During this writing period, I will consider my advantages and disadvantages in my class. So this helps me do better for my next class. Also, because of the blog, I can keep a lot of important information that I can refer to in the future.

Standards that Student Blogging meet...

1.	Creativity and Innovation
	Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students:
	a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression. c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. d. identify trends and forecast possibilities.
2.	Communication and Collaboration
	Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
	a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.

   Teaching English as a Foreign Language: ACTFL standards