Hello all, as you know on this last week of this course we have been studying motivation. I don’t know about the rest of you but this is probably the single most important week I have had in this class thus far. I have had a rough time in college and this has affected my mental state in regards to my own learning, and the biggest issue I have had has been keeping myself motivated and staying focused. The burnout is real. However, this doesn’t mean it has to take hold of you completely, it can be overcome, with much of the issue being to honestly self evaluate why you are here, why you have put the work in, why you have spent the time you have. I can’t say what that is for all of us but for me it is my independence that I have decided is important to me. Achieving this individual goal is another issue all together; it requires focus. This week we were challenged in an assignment to use an app to improve motivation or focus, and I chose to use the Forest app to limit my phone usage, as that is a major distraction for me. It has in fact worked out for me (it literally just informed me a couple seconds ago that my tree had grown) although I was skeptical of the app. To be honest I still am as it simply encourages you to abide by its rules. But, that is exactly what I think most of us need, encouragement, even if it comes from ourselves. And with that I will say goodbye for this semester, and also say to each of you individually, that what you want to achieve in your studies matters and that you should continue to strive for them, and that the past is just that, the past, don’t let it define you and keep moving.

The Forest App I Used:

https://www.forestapp.cc/

This week we all got the opportunity to relearn (possibly just on my part being the first time) what it actually means to research, and that there is a distinction between that and simply searching. In this time I really had to nail down what I thought I knew about judging credible sources and was able to see a few issues with the ones I had been using. In one of the assignments we were asked to do some short research on a topic, mine own being that of the origins of the golden retriever, which was rather fascinating (I guess to an animal scientist at least). However I tried using a strategy that as a little less orthodox than I would normally use, which was the use of wikipedia; and yes I know that that is committing a cardinal sin on the research side of things, but I didn’t actually use wikipedia as the resource, rather I used it as a way to find resources, which turned out to be incredibly useful. From my own experience thus far I would say that we as students should take advantage of databases such as this more often, given that we take the content itself with a grain of salt as simply taking information on wikipedia as blatant truths may be a risky proposition. The point is, I guess, don’t be afraid to use and read shaky research as long as you use it to find good, solid information for your studies; after all, there may not be a correct answer to be had for some questions.

This article from the lesson inspired this post and taught me the difference between research and search:

https://marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-Search_vs_Research-01.pdf

This week we were introduced (possibly not for the first time) to the use of critical thinking and listening in our studies. I found this week to be informative for a few reasons, the first and most direct being the use of the Cornell method of note taking, which I had not heard of up until this point, and that I got from one of this week’s assignments, as a short couple of sentences in a video about taking notes and their strategies for taking notes. After delving into this a little further on my own time (I know right, who would have thought taking online courses may impact your time at home?) I found that I had missed out on some of the strategies used by this technique, most specifically the speed at which you can take notes using the technique. I have begun using this for my MOLGEN course and it has really helped. I believe that I will continue to apply the concepts of this style of note taking in the future, though I don’t use the style explicitly or in opposition to the things I already do. I believe that this is a good learning point that although your method may work and be good enough, it may be beneficial to take another approach and consider the that there are other options, even if you decide against it. I find that many times I will do things simply because I had never considered that it may be done differently, and losing out on these opportunities just because of a lack of realization kinda sucks in hindsight.

The Video that kicked off my search for the “Cornell Method”

Oddly enough I find that I have had more help now than I ever had in my earlier college career now that I (as well as the majority of us all) have been taking my Online Learning Strategies course, as I am continuing to find new resources that I feel should honestly be more talked about even in more stable times (Anyone remember how to get to campus?). I feel as though I have missed out on all of the opportunity to use these resources, which I have been able to a fair degree, especially an app that keeps me from accessing sites when I shouldn’t. At the beginning of this module I was at first very much worried that this would be less informative than I would have liked, but I have been pleasantly proven incorrect by both my instructor and my fellow classmates, whom have made many contributions to viable resources for the average student. I have discovered multiple new, and most importantly effective, ways to help me study, which is especially useful for the genetics course that I have, in my infinite wisdom, decided to take during the summer months when I would be away from campus and those that I usually study with. I would like to thank you all for this and I want to wish you all good luck, steady concentration, and a happy fourth.

This post was originally inspired by StudyStack, whose link is https://www.studystack.com/, but has evolved to many more.

Throughout this week I was able to explore the use of the computer more than I was initially comfortable doing, especially in the form of tracking my week down to the tiniest detail (So that may be a little melodramatic) and finding out that I am much more boring than I had originally anticipated. My boringness aside however, I was able to explore how I went about my life a little more effectively than I had been able to in the past and was able to dive into the “why” of my general procrastination within my school career. In doing this I found that I may simply not have enough time on my hands to accomplish every task I would like to, and it is most likely causing the rest of my tasks to suffer because of it. In Tim Urban’s TED talk he explains his procrastination issues as basically a response to simply not wanting to do what he should and doing what he wants until the last moment and panic strikes. This sounds fairly familiar to me (except the monkey) and I was not shocked when I tried to apply this to my own situation, but I found that my willingness to be distracted is simply due to the fact that I don’t do much more than work, whether it be for school, or one of my two jobs. Unlike Tim I am at a loss as to how to correct this in my own life without simply sacrificing one of the things I do in order to make ends meet time-wise. I hope that none of my classmates have this dilemma and I also wish you all good luck in your studies!

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I find that in today’s new normal online world that we all must participate in  (some of us being excited, others not so much) that there is no small amount of trepidation in how we all communicate and learn along side one another. These trying times can see many of us using the internet in communication more than we have in the past, with this blog post being a perfect example, and it has come to mind that many of us less tech savvy or internet familiar people have a hard time expressing our ideas and tone effectively to others. I find that the idea of Netiquette is a much more useful tool than I had originally suspected in my computers courses back in high school lead me to believe. Even though we have all written possibly countless emails to our advisors, professors and fellow students, the use of the standardized email template provided in this module is probably a good refresher for some. However, the most important part I found to be was the more specific wordage that is used in this method of communication, as the main features in traditional communication is lost to some of us in text. Even as I write this I find that I constantly reread and alter this post in order to try and convey a friendly attitude towards you all while also not becoming robotic in doing so. I hope that armed with this understanding of communication breakdown (for some) that we do not jump to conclusions in their attempts to be courteous (whether they are successful or not).

Here is the video from the lecture that inspired this post: