Where am I at?
Looking back over the past month and a half, I have learned a lot in this class. In this post, I will focus on how I have met each of the Digital Civilization course learning outcomes since the beginning of October.
Historical Content
Over the past 6 weeks, our class discussions have focused on the historical time periods of the Enlightenment and the 19th Century. I have had the opportunity to learn about a variety of topics from these time periods through our assigned readings, additional research, our class discussions, etc. A few weeks ago we also had the opportunity to read a book about this time period with a small group of students in our class. I have recorded much of my research on my Diigo account. I have also discussed and documented some of my learning on my blog. The following are some blog posts that reflect the historical time periods:
Over the past 6 weeks, our class discussions have focused on the historical time periods of the Enlightenment and the 19th Century. I have had the opportunity to learn about a variety of topics from these time periods through our assigned readings, additional research, our class discussions, etc. A few weeks ago we also had the opportunity to read a book about this time period with a small group of students in our class. I have recorded much of my research on my Diigo account. I have also discussed and documented some of my learning on my blog. The following are some blog posts that reflect the historical time periods:
· Presentation (on the book our group read)
Computing Concepts: Since the beginning of October, I have learned some interesting things about the digital world and computing concepts.
I learned a lot about hackers from Dr. Zappala. I had always just thought of hackers as people who broke into other people’s computers and messed things up or took information. However, Dr. Zappala explained that there can actually be an art to what hackers do and that not all hackers do the same things for the same reasons. He posted on his blog about “The Romantic Hacker”.
I also learned about Turing and how computers can solve algorithms. We also had an interesting discussion in class about how there are some problems that computers cannot solve though, simply because they are problems that cannot be solved. This was fascinating to me.
I have explored the animation tools of GoAnimate, the photo presenting options of Picasa, and the great connecting tool of Skype.
Self-Directed Learning: This class has been an interesting experience for me. I feel like I am learning how to balance many different things.
Overall, I have had a hard time finding a balance between the historical content and the computing concepts throughout the semester. I feel like I am on a teeter-totter. At the beginning of the semester I was too far to the digital side and my blogging and attention focused on the digital things that I was learning. In trying to find a better balance, I have slipped to the opposite end of the teeter-totter, where the majority of my focus has been on the historical content. My goal over the next month is to find and maintain a happy medium in the middle of the teeter-totter, where I can successfully capture both the historical content and digital world.
I also have struggled to find a balance of spending my time evenly between consume, create, and connect. However, last week we talked about this balance again in class and since then I have been able to be better about it.
Consume: I am learning how to wisely find and consume material. Earlier in the semester I found myself taking so long consuming information that I didn’t have time to do anything with the information. Using Diigo has helped me solve this problem to some degree, because I can document what I am consuming, even if I don’t end up blogging about it. Recently, I have also figured out how to use resources that are out there and to sort through the information more effectively and efficiently.
Create: Since the beginning of October, my “creating” has been focused on my blog and a few tools that I learned how to use. I worked with GoAnimate some and created a rough-draft presentation of my part of the book that our group read. I ended up deciding to use Picasa for my presentation though, so I learned how to use that as well.
Connect: This is an area that I feel has experienced some change over the past month. I haven’t done as well as I could have with connecting to other people online. However, lately I have had more opportunities to connect with other people in person and then what we have worked on has come together online. This is the case both with our group reading project and with our final class project.
Overall, I have learned a lot in the last 6 weeks! There is still room for improvement though, and I am going to work on finding a better balance with everything in the next month.
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