Module 7: Online learning strategies and skills

For this module 7, we talked about online learning strategies and skills. It’s always hard to keep out motivation of studying. It’s not shame to say that. It’s really a big problem for me throughout my college life. Studying environment is a point that I have never thought of when I was lazy about my school work. I realized I’m always better focused when I don’t have friends around. And I need to put away all the electronics. This is really hard to do but it can make me push myself to finish the tasks so I can go see my friends and use my phone. And our well-being is another important part of our motivation. For me, I have problem with going to bed early. Which would cause me really bad condition for studying, it’s really low productivity  to finish my tasks. “Create a no-technology buffer 1+ hours before bedtime. The blue light emitted by phones and laptops decreases melatonin (sleep hormone) production, essentially blocking the signal that tells your body it’s nighttime. ” This is what I learned new from this lesson I think is really useful for me. I am definitely easier to sleep with asking myself creating a no-technology buffer 1+ hours before bedtime.

Module 6: Searching and Researching

In this module 6, we talked about the topic searching and researching. The most useful thing I learned is from the assignment that this module has. The assignment asked me to write a resource guidelines about each different modules that we learned about how to take online courses. And this assignment made me have to go through each module that we have learned and reviewed many resources that I have found useful but forget to use it. And after collecting those resources, I really realized how much resources that I can use for my study. And a point that I learned in this module I really want to talk about with students is about Wikipedia. I know that we should not use Wikipedia as a reference in our research papers but I never knew the reason. And this module talked about it. As what the lesson said :“Wikipedia is a user-generated, editable, online encyclopedia. While it is a decent place to get basic information, it is also important to be discerning.” so in our research, we should only use it as a website to know the basic background information. They are editable which are not always accurate. Using primary and secondary resources are what the college writings need to do.

Module 5: Online learning Strategies and Skills

I really like this module 5: Online learning strategies and skills. It’s necessary for us who as students to learn. The most useful thing I learned in this lecture is how to do note-taking. I learned from the “note-taking video from Indiana University” video, throughout the lecture practice, I used active listening and dealing with speed strategies. I used to write down everything that I hear from the lecturer without thinking through it, so it made my notes include many unnecessary sentences. But using active listening, I learned to pay attention and write down what’s important. And before, I always get lost when doing my note-taking. Because the lecturer were going too fast and I was writing down what he was talking before-head then lost what he was saying next. This time, I give up on what I missed and just keep going on what the lecturer was talking about next. There’s still pretty large differences between the notes I took and the notes that the lecturers took. Their notes are really detailed and fulled with every points that the lecture talked about. However, I still can’t follow all the points. And their notes are really organized. They used dotted points or mindmaps or symbols to make their notes well structured with what small points are within the big categories. I think I can try to use dotted point to structure my notes in the future. And I want to give an advice to all the students— taking notes by handwriting not typing. “Typing your notes can lead to mindless transcription.” is the exact sentence that said in the lesson material. I really think so and I find a lot of distraction when typing notes.

Module 4: Online Learning Strategies and Skills

In this module 4, we learned about online larning strategies and skills. The most useful thing I learned in this module is the different resources that help with our study from the lesson. Creating mindmaps, concept maps, and timelines were kind of too much work to me when I didn’t know the web tool that the lesson provides. I tried to use the bubble.us website which is a website to creat mindmaps and It was actually really easy to use and great for study. It makes the concepts of the chapter more clear and more organized. And I think the best practices for online reading and annotation provided by the lesson are really great. I always needed to learn how to read faster and read what’s important of the reading. Because many of my exams questions come from the reading that professor gives us. I would tell the students to effective use the online tools which can really improve their study. You will realize how much easier the study can be with all the help from the online resources. And another advice for all the students which I learned from the reading, we should work on one assignment or activity at a time.     “[Focus on] one task at a time; going back and forth between tasks slows your comprehension and wastes time.” This is one of the techniques that the lesson gives us to focus our attention. I think it’s the most useful one.

Module 3: Efficiency in the Digital Age

In this blog post, I want to talk about module 3 which is about time management and productivity. The most useful thing I learned in this module is how to use google calender which is a really useful tool. I used different apps to set up for tasks and check schedules on another app. The switching between apps are a little bit more of work to me. And leaning the google calender really helped me to fix this problem. I can setup reminder, events, and tasks all on google calender, and I can set up the reminder time that I want google calender to remind me. I would put this into practice in the future for sure. I want to try to schedule specifically for everyday of my time so I can achieve my goal of getting better grades for my schoolwork and keeping me away from distraction. I would want to tell students that if you want to be more productive and better on your time management, then you should have a schedule calender for your works. I really like a quote in the lesson material which I think is really good to say to students. “Don’t be jealous of anyone. Be inspired we all get the same 24 hours to grind.” Learning time management really helped me to notice my problem on the time wasting so I can change a little everyday and to grow to be a better person.

Module 2: Communicating and Collaborating

In this module, we learned the use of technology to communicate and collaborate effectively on academic projects.  The most useful thing I learned in this module is how to write a great academic emails. I have always been not sure about  if I’m writing in appropriate words and format for my academic email. This module solved my problem. I know the components I should be included when I’m emailing which are subject, greeting, context, closing and my full name. And I have already use how to make the best impression from this module put into practice. I had to email my professor about a case. I proofread my email and used spell check. And I used complete sentences and mentioned I checked syllabus before emailing. In this module, I realized how important is to learn group communication. From the reading “Tips For Online Students to Work Successfully in Virtual Groups”, the first tip “when possible, choose group members with similar schedules. Online students reside in different time zones and can have opposing work schedules.” Is really useful for me. I could put this into practice in the future since I missed the last meeting time with my group members because of the time difference. I will give the students advice that learning the use of technology to communicate and collaborate effectively on academic projects as early as you can. They’re actually really useful for your studying.