Blog - A good way for teachers

why teachers should not blog and why I do is a thoughtful and interesting post. It is an reflection on why he blogs after reading a student's letter to the teacher.
Here's an excerpt of the letter :

You see… you don’t teach English. You teach kids. Flawed, messed-up, never perfect, wonderful, amazing kids.

Every child you denigrated has something wonderful about them, even when you didn’t see it.

Every child you insulted has worked hard at something, even if it wasn’t on the assignment you wanted them to work hard on.

Every child you mocked has aspirations, even if they don’t match up with the ones you want them to have.



I thought a lot after reading this post. When I was a student in China, none of my teachers had teaching blogs. Actually, they did not encourage students surf the internet at all, because they thought students are too young to control themselves, thus students would spend too much time playing games or chatting online. That becomes my belief gradually because I was raised in that culture. However, I begin to think that teachers need a way to reflect what they have learned from teaching and from the students' feelings and behaviors, to share ideas and thoughts with other teachers and students and to show who they are in their blogs. As a Chinese student, I thought with typical Chinese logic in the first semester after I came to the States. I respected my teachers but do not have any involvement with teachers after class. I worked very hard to reach my own expectations which I thought would also be my teachers’ expectations. I was very tired in that semester. I knew my teacher’s blog but I never viewed it because I think blogs do not have any influence on learning or on teaching. One day, I accidentally opened my teacher’s blog, and to my surprise, I found that my teacher is a very lovely lady, although she is a little bit tough in class. She has a bunch of ideas about teaching, she posted reflections about her teaching, and she does not have such unreachable expectations to students as what I thought before. After that, I dare to talk with her after class and ask questions during office hours.

In sum, blog is a very good way for teachers to challenge, reflect, show themselves and communicate with students.

Social Network Group

classroom 2.0

      Classroom 2.0 is an open, free and community-supported network which welcom everyone who is interested in web 2.0 and social media in education.

      First of all, I found that it offers special help for beginners. Therefore, if people who are interested in online teaching but do not know how to do, then they can seek help from the group. Secondly, it has a lot of activities, such as comment on an educator's website. Then members can learn through visiting others' blogs. Third, it has links to famous educators who would give suggestions online for certain questions.

      In sum, classroom 2.0 is perfect for teachers who is interested in social media in education.  

A learner is like an ant -- Connectivism in learning

      Connectivism is a learning theory based on the acknowledge than knowledge exists in the world rather than in the heads of individuals. People learn through contact and interaction. In the digital age, people can learn from others via internet, which accelerates the speed of knowledge transmition as well as the obsoleteness of knowledge.

      A learner is like an ant, which cannot live without community. Ants work together, exchange information and have clear allocation of jobs: the queen gives birth to babies, some ants go out and find food, some take care of babies and some guard the nest. As Siemens (2005) pointed in the article that Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing. I experienced the advantage of collectivism in learning. As we all know that TOFEL test is computer-based, and some of the exercises may exist first in the test in States and then in China. We have a forum that students who take the test in States would post the exercises on the internet by memorizing them and students in China can learn about it. And students exchange experience about how to practice writing, listening, reading and speaking. I found I made greater progress after I entered the forum and studied with others.
      In the vedio, Semens said that The learners themselves, the connections they formed each other, the connections they formed databases with other sources of knowledge is really the primary point of learning. Nowadays, people will search on the internet for solutions to problems. That's why Yahoo questions is so popular in the States and Baidu answers is popular in China. People go to online forum for suggestions about job interview, and even about how to chase a girl. In a word, in today's world, in the digital age, people will rely more and more on internet and they learn through contact and interaction via the internet.

Connectivism:A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
The Changing Nature of Knowledge

Social Media Revolution & Changing Education Paradigms

    
 Social media has grown exponetially in a short time, it has great influence on people's life at every aspect. Social Media Revolution
      It amazed me in 3 aspects.
      First of all, we have  96% of millennials have joined a social network.
      Second, facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year.
      Third, if facebook were a country, it would be the world's 3rd largest.
      The three aspects above show that social media has great influence on people's life. Teachers should take advantage of the influence. For example, add students as friends on facebook and see what they are interested in. Also, teachers can post their thoughts on blogs and share them with students. In sum, as more and more people visit social network, teachers can use it as a powerful tool to communicate with students, rather than consider it as an annoyying thing which may distract students' concentration.

      As for the vedio Changing Education Paradigms (Chinging Education Paradigms), I was interested in the animation rather than the content of it. I felt that animation is a great way to illustrate comparatively boring staff, and animation is typically suitable for on-line education. Teachers can link an teaching animation on blogs and students can see it and learn from it.