The Networked Student: PLN's in the 21st Century

Review of Drexler, Wendy's "The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy".

Drexler, W.  (2010). IThe networked student model for construction of personal learning environments. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3), 369-385.

This article examines issues facing both teachers and students in creating a learning environment that supports both autonomy and structure in student-created learning environments.  

Concepts on which this article are based include learning, constructivism, and principles of connectivism.  Students are connected to other students, tutors, information, and other learners, and this article attempts to create a viable and replicable model for structuring learning in that context.  Modeling networked learning is one of the most powerful things a teacher can do in order to support students in their own creation of a Personal Learning Network.  Teachers can be connected to a variety of resources: curriculum documents, colleagues, popular media, print and digital resources, family and local communities, BLOGS, WIKIs, video conferences, social networking, online communities, social bookmarking, digital photo sharing, and tool/content development communities to name just a few.  The PLN model for students can be exponentially larger, and Drexler categorizes those entities into 4 groups:  RSS, Contacts, Information Management, and Synchronous Communication. Two key components for helpful student-created PLN's is their familiarity with the software tools and their motivation around the topic of the PLN.  

This article begins to do something I have been wondering about and am only seeing for the first time: what might a model for teaching K-12 students how to leverage PLN's look like?  It serves as a beginning point for teachers eager to give their students the advantage of having explored a PLN prior to their college and adult-life-long-learner career.  Drexler offers a well-written, clear template for this work but it is only a beginning.  More research, theory, and practice are needed to support the general educator in teaching students how to leverage PLN's for their own purposes.