Posts

Final Blog Post

My first online class has left me with a feeling of confidence and pride.  Not only did I overcome some fears of using online resources but also feel as though this experience has helped me for future online training.  I believe this online way of learning, will be the future for other generations of college students and feel comfortable navigating my way through it.  I have learned there are so many online resources and training aids that actually are more helpful to the way I learn.  I found that the surveys for the way we each learn are different, and if we can tap into what helps us understand a difficult concept, will only help us further down the road.  For myself, I have learned how much time is spent wasted when it could have been directed to more useful avenues of accomplishment.  The seven day charts we each made of how our time is spent really put it into perspective for me.  How easily we can become distracted and waste time.

Time management for a college student and anyone for that matter, is the single most important thing that I will take away from this class.  If we can set time aside each week for not only our studies but for the important things in our lives, we will not let time slip through our fingers.  I have also learned that peer reviews are very helpful.  We each see the world through different eyes, and receiving other online tips and strategies from our classmates really helps with taking in new information.  I also really enjoyed the module about finding and citing sources.

Throughout my college experience at Ohio State, and being a History major, Finding information is key.  Having the ability to gather primary and secondary sources was vital when it came to researching and writing essays.  A freshman needs to learn these skills very soon when entering the University level of scholastic pursuits.  There are a few sites that I usually always use for finding information, but taking this class, I have learned a few more that will help me in the near future.  Something else I would like to pass on that may help someone else out is the necessity of saving your work.  A student never knows when they may have to use or turn in previous work for a professor or even the academic board for proof of completion.  I ran into this problem my freshman year when I was dropped from enrolment and had to prove to the college that I did in fact take three courses and passed them because I had saved all my documents from each class.    The use of technology will only become more complicated as time goes on and staying up to date is only going to help, the further removed we become from the college scene.  Online training in the Army is becoming more mainstream and feel that with this class under my belt, it has only opened the doors for my future success.  I have enjoyed this experience very much and feel that I am lucky to have put my reservations aside of online training.

Effective Searching and Researching

Being able to locate and use viable information is a key skill when a student is learning how to not only find research, but develop the skills necessary to wright research papers.  Throughout this module I found new ways to use Google, which for the most part I have always just used the general search, and advanced search methods.  It is amazing how much information is at our fingertips these days.  Being able to posses the skills to capture all this information is a vital quality and skill.  This was a very helpful learning module.  The reliability, quality, and utility of a website are three crucial points to consider when using a website for valuable information.  Being able to learn this as a freshman is just another tool that you can put in your toolbox, for use further on down the road.  I have found that with my time in the military and out in the civilian workforce, knowledge is truly power.  The better equipped you are to gather information and know where to find it, the more valuable to an employer you will become.  The best part about new technology is that it is always changing, so we as students and future leaders, should never stop the learning process as well.

Web enhanced listening and viewing strategies

This blog is about how we can enhance our listening and viewing strategies based on the use of external resources like you tube and online note taking strategies.  I believe the online note taking strategies are very important to college students because developing good notes is very vital to the comprehension we have for difficult and challenging classes.  The strategies I liked the best were the cornel system of note taking as well as using key words and abbreviations to symbolize the importance of key notes.  I have found that throughout my experience at Ohio State each student begins to realize their own method for taking good notes.  With practice, we begin to develop our own way of taking notes that works for us.  Being able to organize and recognize key events in our notes is very important.  Being able to use online resources like you tube can enhance our learning capabilities because for me, I am a very visual learner so seeing an instructional video really helps me grasp an organize information.  I can understand the message being given much clearer by watching a video, rather than reading a book.  The visual aids help me to recognize the importance of the message being given.  Videos also allow me to brainstorm other ideas for a topic of interest.

How the media affected the Vietnam war

http://youtu.be/IZ5TmdANFws

The main points that this video makes is how the media’s portrayal of the Vietnam War lost the public support of the American viewers back home.  The journalist were sending un edited pictures and film of the war back home in an unrealistic light for the American viewer.  This was the first time Americans had full access to the war from their living room television set.  The pictures the American people were seeing many times were of wounded and killed American GI’s, and of the civilian Vietnamese people’s huts and villages being burned down.  These pictures only added to the antiwar effort and would add to the negative opinion the American people had not only for our foreign policy in Vietnam, but the complete withdrawal of American troops in Vietnam.

This video enhances our understanding of the negative influence the media had on Vietnam, by using music, and pictures of the negative aspects of the war.  This video also gives very important factual information that supports the photos being witnesses about the Vietnam War.  The pictures used in this video give us an insight of the anti war movement in the United States, and how the media was casting an ugly shadow on how the military was treating the Vietnamese people.

Web enhanced reading and Study strategies

Hello,

I believe this blog post is one of the most important ones we have done and will do.  I believe this because so much in college and out in the real world is finding information.  These websites that we researched are all very helpful in terms of finding information.  Everyone had many different search engines which is a good thing because if you use the same ones every time, not only are you using mundane information, but you are using information that everyone has probably already seen.  I honestly wish I had used a website which is http://cram.com.  This website would have helped me very much when I was taking my three German language classes because we used notecards literally everyday for our vocabulary test.  This website allows you to create flash cards and then test them on yourself by taking quizzes.  I wish I had know about this sooner.  I guess this is the main point for students to interact with each other and share helpful ideas vie the internet.  I also liked how this module went over web based readings, because so much of the recourses we use as students come from the internet.  The study strategies that have always helped me out are one, turning the television off and getting away from outside distractions. To fully engage in anything requires complete attention to the task at hand.

Technology tools

Hello,

This week I learned how easy it was to set up my first blog page, and how to follow other students blogs as well.  I feel like this is such a good skill to possess because so much of the future and even now is based on communicating through the use of technology.  New technology is growing at an alarming rate so it is imperative that we as students and future leaders need to possess the skills that will make us a vital necessity for the culture in which we live.  Basically all forms of communication are moving through the use of technology but at the same time I hope we do not lose the basic skills of communication.  We can use these blogs to help critique each other in areas where we might be weak and need improvement.  The use of new technologies also saves us very important time because I know each one of us have very busy schedules, this form of communication makes it very easy to communicate virtually anywhere we have a smart phone or laptop.  The education and learning atmosphere is heading into the age of online training so as I have said before, it is very vital that we all learn how to communicate for the next chapter of technology.