This is week 5 of the semester, and looking back I can see how much I have learned from this class and the opportunities it provides.
Being a civilizations class, Digital Civilizations definitely has taught me about the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. I have also come to see that there are significant parallels between those times and now. One example of this is a blog post done by Jake C., one of my classmates. He blogged about Descartes and then asked the question, who are the Descartes today? This made me realize that there is so much discovery and learning going on around us today and in many ways it is very similar to that which was happening centuries ago.
The “digital” aspect of this class has really taken me by surprise. Until I came to this class I considered myself to be quite comfortable with technology and the digital world. This class has really opened my eyes and helped me see that there are so many more opportunities in today’s digital culture to expand our learning and understanding. I have come to better understand some of those tools that can help me further my learning. For example, this semester I learned about Diigo. It has increased by ability to research and organize my findings both for this class and another class (for more details see my blog post about Diigo). This class has also helped better understand basic computing concepts, which has helped me better understand the terminology and ideas that I hear about all the time, but I haven’t known what they have meant. I am learning just how broad the possibilities are for a digital culture and digital learning.
This class is definitely pushing me as I work on becoming a more self-directed learner. This semester I have had the chance to explore and discover. One of the things that I have learned this semester is that there are educational blogs out there. All the blogs I had ever looked at before this class were mainly ones that my friends do and they were more of a journal than an educational tool. One of the amazing educational blogs that I found this semester is called “Opening Doors to Digital Learning”. This blog is fascinating in that it has a very similar purpose as our class does in that it is trying to expand and explore digital learning (see my blog post about this site).This class has taught me how to find free, valuable sources of information.
Through this class I have come to expand my digital literacy in ways that I hadn’t imagined. I am definitely not even close to grasping the digital world, but I feel like I am headed in the right direction. As my digital literacy has increased this has enabled me to learn more, because I know where and how to look. This blog is my first blog, so even posting on my blog was originally a great accomplishment. I have come to realize that posting on a blog is a way of teaching other people and that by teaching others I learn more. This has been a very positive experience for me, and I have found that creating blog posts has greatly enhanced my learning experience. I have also had the opportunity to learn more about Google Docs this semester (see my blog post) and I have realized what a great tool they are for creating and sharing what we create.
This class is helping me to connect with my classmates and other people with similar interests around the world. This has been an amazing experience and I have learned so much. One example that captures both of these aspects was when I connected with one of my classmates, Jackie, through Diigo. She had bookmarked a blog about open science and by following her link I also found myself connected to that blog. This helped me see that as I begin to establish connections with other people, those connections lead to more connections, and so on.
Overall, I think that this is a great class. I am working on putting adequate time and energy into each of the objectives of this course. I am finding the balance between the different areas of this class challenging and struggling to find a balance with how much time I spend on this class, but I will continue to work on this! I am learning a lot from this class and the opportunities that it provides, and I am excited to continue to learn more.
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