Motivation is crucial to lead our final success in both our school courses and future career paths. Creating a good environment atmosphere for yourself while studying is a good way to help you keep motivated. Different people have different preferences for their study environment. Someone prefer the extreme quiet place, and someone prefer the environment with some noises. I am the second kind of person who found themselves become more motivated and high productivity while listening some white noise and the nature background sound, such as rain. In the content of module 7, we strongly suggest that you can try to use the mobile application called “White Noise”, it offers numerous types of nature sounds and white noise. I found myself feel relaxed and be willing to work on the school works.

Online distractions are very common in today’s digital world. There are also some tools that used to eliminate online distractions. For example, I tried to use Self-Control to avoid distracting websites while I was learning using my laptop. It is Mac-only tool that is user-friendly for everyone. Mobile distractions are also common in our lives. While reading The 5 Best Apps to Help You Fight Your Smartphone Addiction, I found several useful applications that we can download on our phone to help eliminate the phone addictions. Forest is an application that I already used for a long time. I love this application, you can plant the online tree to help you keep away from your phone. If you touch your phone to use other applications, your tree will die. I highly recommend that you all can try this funny application!

Academic writing plays an essential role in our college learning, as the majority of our courses may contain plenty of works of writing. In module 6, we learned many specific strategies to help us achieve success in academic writing. Most of the written works in the college are argument- or inquiry-driven. Therefore, using online sources to search and research are crucial to the writing.

Once you have a thesis or a topic for your academic writing assignment, the first thing involved might be searching the related information. Using an online searching engine is one of the most convenient ways for us. However, there are numerous sources online that we may find difficult to choose. One of the foundations of determining online sources is checking their credibility. According to the E-Learning Companion: Student’s Guide to Online Success, the credibility of the sources involves three aspects, which are reliability, quality, and utility. Reliability involves checking the publisher, contact information, and confirming peer-review. Quality refers to check the accuracy of the information, and utility refers to check the relevance of the sources.These three criteria are practical and essential steps in the search and research process. It’s crucial to keep them in mind while conducting our academic writing.

During this week’s learning, the most important thing I would like to suggest to future students is that Do Not Cite any Sources from Wikipedia for your academic writing. The information from Wikipedia can give you a basic thought for your topic as a starting point, but you’d better not use any information from this website and cite the website. The majority of the professors do not accept sources from Wikipedia and if you use them, your grade will greatly be influenced badly. Using sources from more authoritative websites is more easy and provable.

In this week’s content, I learned a lot of practical strategies in note-taking. Taking a good lecture note is an essential method for us as students to record the important concepts and achieve great grades in the end of the semester. Taking the notes can also help us stay focused and stay away from the distractions, especially during the long academic lectures.

While watching the video from the Indiana University Student Academic Center, I discovered many useful approaches for us to future utilize in our note-taking process. Active listening plays a vital role for us note-takers. We should pay attention to the speakers’ speaking style, the rhythm, the volume, and the signal words & phrases in order to be ready to record the important concepts. Some examples of signal words that I frequently met while listening the lectures are however, but, in fact, indeed, first, reason, what I am saying is that. While hearing the signal words, we should be 100% focus on what follows with the signal words. Additionally, the lecture structure and outline are crucial for us to write a well-organized notes. Paying attention to the starting of the lecture are fundamental. It usually points out some recap, thesis, and important question that will lead the whole lecture. While taking the notes, we can also utilize the numbers, bullet points, and symbols to make our notes have clear and easy following structures.

While learning Module 4’s content, I discovered many practical strategies that can immediately utilize in my future academic reading. In Dealing with Special Texts, Social Science Texts and Foreign Language Texts are always the main types I read frequently. Bring some questions in mind while reading the texts are meaningful to help read more easily and effectively. “Put your critical thinking skills into overdrive when you are reading these texts” (5.3 Dealing with Special Texts) is a useful way that can help you read deeply and gain more information.

As a learner whose first language is not English, I have to spend plenty of time reading the assigned English texts. I strongly agree that the best way to improve reading ability is through practice, practice, and more practice. Not being afraid and not deeply rely on the dictionary is important for us foreign language learners.

In today’s highly technological world, we have various tools to assist us in achieving academic success easily. I would like to highly recommend some study tools that can improve our learning abilities and maintain good study habits. Google calendar is an effective tool that can help us stay on track and maintain good time habits. Bubble.us is an online tool that everyone can access and create their own mind map. Duolingo is a fun and free online tool that can help users learn multiple foreign languages in an enjoyable way.

In Module 3’s learning, I found how to face and deal with procrastinate in my life. Procrastination is a very common issue that I faced, especially while studying. During reading “14 Ways You Can Overcome Procrastination”, I discovered various useful methods I can apply in my daily life to combat procrastination.

I believe that developing my routine and discipline is one of the most practical ways. I’ve created a weekly calendar and assigned my tasks to manage my time more wisely. “Discover Why You Are Procrastinating ” is a very fundamental strategy that can help reduce procrastinating. I plan to observe myself when I am facing procrastination and find out what kinds of things disturb me. Therefore, the next time, I will prevent this thing from the root. “Focus On Your Top Three Priorities” is another useful strategy that I plan to apply in my life. When creating my weekly calendar or weekly ToDo List on Monday, I will first ask myself what three tasks I believe are extremely important and put them in priority. In this way, my working efficiency can improve.

Using Technology to Manage Technology is a meaningful method I gained from this week’s lesson material (Pg. 25). Freedom, self-control, and cold Turkey are three useful tools that we all can download on our laptops to control ourselves and stay focused. I’ve already used Freedom to help me be focused for one time. I believe that it will be a useful tool in my future learning and career.

In this week’s learning, I have acquired several new skills that definitely will enhance my abilities in online learning and the digital world. One of the most useful parts I learned is the importance of digital communication skills. In module 2, we watched a Youtube Video called Digital Communication Skills: Do’s and Don’ts , published by Described and Captioned Media Program. We are now living in a digital world which means that online communication plays a significant role. I strongly agree with the messages that conveyed in the video. One point that attracted my attention was how your own Facebook or Twitter account can shape other people’s perceptions of you. For instance, if you use some unprofessional phase in your online post, other people who visit your homepage may not perceive you as a professional person. It is very important to me because I will graduate this December and start my career.

Moreover, I gained many practical digital communication skills that I can apply in my life immediately from Module 2. The first point is using proper structure when writing the academic email. The important components in the email includes subject line, greeting, context, and closing with my full name. During the four years of undergraduate studying at The Ohio State University, I have a useful advice for new students: Be Patient and Be Polite when writing the email. Even though the professors were very friendly and easy-going, it is essential for us students never write the formal school email like a twitter message!

References