If you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve already begun building your personal learning network.
Here is a clever video called The Networked Student about how students are doing it these days, and how this new approach to learning will enhance their 21st century skills. Highlights include using iPods to listen to college lectures posted on iTunesU and videoconferencing with experts for research projects. It was created by Wendy Drexler‘s high school students (!), inspired by a course on Connectivism offered by Stephen Downes and George Siemens this fall.
It sums up the role of the teacher as this: a learning architect, a modeler, learning concierge, connected learning incubator, network sherpa, synthesizer, and a change agent. Educators will be solely enablers of searching and discovering, creating life-long learners who will be invested in their own learning. Every small step you take in your classroom to encourage exploration and collaboration brings us all one step closer to this goal.