Personalized Learning Article Reflection

 For homework I read the article Preparing Students to Learn Without Us By Will Richardson. The article is about how students nowadays are able to learn autonomously by creating their own assignments, relating their studies to their passions, using technology in and out of the classroom, and personalizing their learning experience.

A quote from the article that I found interesting was:

"Students keep blogs, which Smith regularly comments on, where they archive their work, reflect on their learning, and connect with potential teachers outside the classroom. Smith uses Google Reader, an RSS feed aggregator, to collect all of her students' posts and support her review process. Students also use podcasts to capture and share presentations they give in class." (Anne Smith, Arapaoe High School)


All of this is interesting, and in some ways our class already does this. What I thought was particularly interesting was the part about students using podcasts to share presentations in class, because it could be used in our film class to give tutorials, instructions, or assignments to the students.


 Something that I found surprising about the article was that it says "personalizing the learning experience is not just a possibility—it's almost an expectation" (Will Richardson). I feel like this is a very broad generalization. It is almost an expectation according to whom? Another key piece of information that the article omits is: How do students that use this learning style compare to students that learn other ways? How do they compare in tests and grades?

A topic that I am interested in and would like to learn more about is how to use Final Cut Pro. My most recent problem was trying to import the clips from film individually, as in iMovie06, rather than in one big block of film.

Link to annotated article:
http://diigo.com/0sx4o