Intense work, alright! Haha, yes, this is in response to our assignment to give our final thoughts on “the topics we studied, the intense work we did, the community we shared, what we have learned”.
From the very beginning of this class, I realized how hard this class would be. Understanding the layout of Blackboard was essentially the biggest part- there’s no way to succeed in an online class if you couldn’t figure out how things worked on the main webpage! I won’t lie, it took me nearly the first three weeks to understand how to use the website so that it’s comfortable to me. It was much more difficult getting used to everything than I had thought, even as someone who can comfortably say that they are technologically up-to-date (may sound egotistical, but true!).
Although I don’t like to sound whiny about it all, I have to agree that some assignments were a bit too much. This is partly due to my own poor management of time; I will not say that the workload given in this class is too much. Given proper time management and small increments completed throughout the course period, this class has an adequate amount of work. Again, I won’t say there’s too much, but I won’t argue that there’s too little either. Somehow, definitely, as mentioned above, getting used to the website was the biggest challenge and made work much more harder.
We go into detail with various aspects in academic writing, and without a doubt, taking this course will boost knowledge in this particular subject by introducing (or re-introducing) the basics found in essay writing. I found the Post-Draft-Reviews (PDRs) to be extremely useful, as it required participating students to think critically upon other papers, their own paper, as well as being cautious about others’ recommendations for changes on their paper. The Reading discussion board was very fun for me as well, I felt like it was a communication between students almost as if it were in person. They also initiated in some great discussions between students about interesting issues, and I always love reading and thinking about everyone’s responses.
Another challenging aspect which I felt needed to be considered about this course was the group collaboration and separation. This was extremely confusing and it was difficult for me to keep up and understand the idea of groups in an online class, at first. Within a week or two after its introduction, it was getting easier, and I soon found that it was actually really helpful and unique to have our own groups.
One disappointment, I thought, was the minimal (and I stress minimal) usage of the cyber café. I feel like the opportunity for students to really interact each other was presented, however, few took advantage of this. That’s fine, perhaps not many really wanted to express themselves out on the café; my guess is that this class was viewed as something academic, and couldn’t be something more fun, like a sort of social network thing. I feel like students should be more encouraged to participate in this section.
All other hardships aside, this was a difficult semester, but we’ve made it through! Congratulations to everyone!
From the very beginning of this class, I realized how hard this class would be. Understanding the layout of Blackboard was essentially the biggest part- there’s no way to succeed in an online class if you couldn’t figure out how things worked on the main webpage! I won’t lie, it took me nearly the first three weeks to understand how to use the website so that it’s comfortable to me. It was much more difficult getting used to everything than I had thought, even as someone who can comfortably say that they are technologically up-to-date (may sound egotistical, but true!).
Although I don’t like to sound whiny about it all, I have to agree that some assignments were a bit too much. This is partly due to my own poor management of time; I will not say that the workload given in this class is too much. Given proper time management and small increments completed throughout the course period, this class has an adequate amount of work. Again, I won’t say there’s too much, but I won’t argue that there’s too little either. Somehow, definitely, as mentioned above, getting used to the website was the biggest challenge and made work much more harder.
We go into detail with various aspects in academic writing, and without a doubt, taking this course will boost knowledge in this particular subject by introducing (or re-introducing) the basics found in essay writing. I found the Post-Draft-Reviews (PDRs) to be extremely useful, as it required participating students to think critically upon other papers, their own paper, as well as being cautious about others’ recommendations for changes on their paper. The Reading discussion board was very fun for me as well, I felt like it was a communication between students almost as if it were in person. They also initiated in some great discussions between students about interesting issues, and I always love reading and thinking about everyone’s responses.
Another challenging aspect which I felt needed to be considered about this course was the group collaboration and separation. This was extremely confusing and it was difficult for me to keep up and understand the idea of groups in an online class, at first. Within a week or two after its introduction, it was getting easier, and I soon found that it was actually really helpful and unique to have our own groups.
One disappointment, I thought, was the minimal (and I stress minimal) usage of the cyber café. I feel like the opportunity for students to really interact each other was presented, however, few took advantage of this. That’s fine, perhaps not many really wanted to express themselves out on the café; my guess is that this class was viewed as something academic, and couldn’t be something more fun, like a sort of social network thing. I feel like students should be more encouraged to participate in this section.
All other hardships aside, this was a difficult semester, but we’ve made it through! Congratulations to everyone!
I didn’t really have a hard time getting around the Blackboard website but I can see where it can sometimes get confusing. The workload was definitely heavy and sometimes felt like too much, but I found that when I broke it down into small increments over the week it was really not that hard to manage. The assignments weren’t really all that difficult either aside from the essays which required the most effort, you know? It’s awesome that the Peer Draft Reviews helped you. I mainly used Smart Thinking for feedback, because I felt like it would be more useful than that of my peers. Overall though I’m glad I took this class online and with Jennifer and I can certainly say that I learned a lot over the course of the semester. Yea, nobody really used the cyber café and it would have been a cool addition to the class, but I just don’t think that anybody really cared about going above and beyond what was asked of them. My schedule was tight and in my spare time I wasn’t thinking about the cyber café or what I could contribute to it. Have an awesome summer, Ji!
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