"A Day in the Life of a Connected Classroom"

Based on a Blog by Andrew Marcinek 3/3/11.

I enjoyed reading this blog and it was written by an English professor who incorporates technology throughout his class.  The only piece of paper he hands out is the syllabus in the beginning of class.  I like how he initially uses the analogy of Wikipedia the use of a wiki.  He uses a classroom wiki to organize his classroom activities.  His class has Wi-Fi, so students are able to use their laptops during class and he even tweets during class.  “Information fluency” was the topic mainly covered in this blog and the embedded YouTube video is amazing watch on this topic.  This instructor even tweets and uses Google docs in his class to record the topic at hand.  Also, he also uses Face book to connect his students.  He lets students who do not have a laptop in class share a laptop computer with students that do.  I liked reading this blog as he really is using technology in numerous ways.  I do think that the English subject is one of best classes to incorporate technology because writing can be used with most technologies online.  I am a little taken back by the use of twitter as I do not believe proper sentences are used in this media.  In this context, I do think he is trying to engage his students with the use of twitter, but I think he needs to emphasize proper sentences when using this technology while in class.  I do think technology can be used in the classroom, but I am not totally set on using all these technology forms in a traditional classroom setting.  I can see how blended learning or online courses need to technology to its full advantage and I think this instructor was made to be an online instructor.

Marcinek, A. (2011, March 3) A Day in the Life of a Connected Classroom (Web Log Message). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/connected-classroom-information-literacy