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The last seven weeks have come to a fast end. There has been quite a lot of information to take in through the last half of the semester. As finals begin to creep up I have begun to reflect a good amount on the new tools I now have in my toolkit when it comes to online resources that will help me develop in my academic career. The new strategies I have learned about have allowed me to learn more about myself as a student as I have started to decipher my own study habits, techniques, strengths, and weaknesses.

Throughout this class, there are many different important things that I have learned which have helped my academic development. Efficiency in the digital world is something that has helped me as I began to schedule, plan and execute my short-term goals. Web-enhanced reading and study strategies have helped me learn more about the different types of techniques that I can use to strengthen my study plans. When it comes to actually learning the material, learning more about web-enhanced learning and listening strategies have been helpful when it comes to the comprehension of the material itself from the moment it is learned about.

As I have started learning more about myself, I have been able to understand more about what type of strategies work best for me. I realized that a lot of times when I didn’t understand material right away I would often feel less than my classmates since I began to compare myself to many of the students who were doing much better than I was. During this class, I realized that it wasn’t about me being less than, rather it was about the way the material was taught and the techniques I used when it came to studying. My learning strategies were not the same ones that have been used throughout various classes. I am more of a visual learner and a lot of what I have experienced when it comes to lectures has been structured in a more auditory way. Knowing this has served as something that has completely changed the way I go about studying the material.

This course has taught me to put into practice certain study strategies in order to help me retain a lot of the information I learn in class. Even though a lot of the material I am currently learning is rather difficult, I know that with some of my own perseverance I am able to actually learn the material myself. Learning about different online sources that can help me add my own visual aspects to the classes I am taking have greatly impacted my study plans. By making mindmaps or even flow charts I am able to break down material and visualize it in a way that works best for me.

With the information I have learned I am now able to take it and apply it to a vast amount of classes I am taking, both online and in person. As I had mentioned in the beginning I now know more about the study tools that I have in my own personal toolkit as I have been able to put them into my own practice.

As this is my last blog post, I leave you with a challenge. I challenge you to follow more about the type of students you are.

This quiz will help assess you learn more about what type of learning preferences you have: https://www.webtools.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/

After you complete that read through this article to find about the placements you scored: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm

Finally, take this last assessment to learn about what areas you need to improve upon when it comes efficiently managing your time https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_88.htm

Once that is complete set short-term goals for yourself. Check back to this blog and take a look at some of the different study strategies I have talked about when it comes to improving yourself as a learner. When I completed these steps I saw my overal time mangment score go up and I was able to understand more about myself as a student as I picked up what type of strategies work best for me.

I hope that this new information helps you the way it helped me. There are so many resources out there for students, we just need to make sure we are looking in right places, just use some TLC- look at your terms, consider your limits and examine your search construction!

Until next time!

As college students, I think that it is very easy to get caught up in doing things fast and efficiently, however, is this a strategy that we are applying to all different levels of our work? Ask yourself this, how often do you take the time to actually conduct a specific google search that will give you results which can be used in scholarly papers? Most of us just google the first couple of words of something we are interested in which leads to millions of results, however not all of those results actually hold valuable information for us to utilize. Something that is rather important is making sure that you are getting quality results that are reliable and easy to utilize.  Starting on page 67 of the E-learning companion student guide, there are a couple tips for evaluating online resources. Some of those include bias, citations, and references, support, and original sources. These are all characteristics that we should look out for to ensure that we are getting quality sources which can be used as support evidence or even just personal knowledge. Another key tool would be to use advanced searches to narrow down searches giving you the top results right away rather than having to scroll through pages of links. Try limiting the search applying dates, keywords and the source you are looking for whether that be an article or even a video.

Next time you are searching make sure you use some TLC, look at your terms, consider your limits and examine your search construction!

The purpose of this module is to strengthen the way students take notes. There are many different ways to go about taking notes which is something that is often times neglected by students as they tend to stick with one system and copy that throughout the majority of there classes (I am very much guilty for this).

There are different styles to take notes whether that be cornell, keyword or even mind maps. There are also different things to incorporate such as technology and how one wishes to use it to their advantage. For example, if you are at a lecture and the instructor uploads the powerpoint slides online a good thing to do would be look over the slides and some of your own notes or questions to the note sections.

An important element that must be considered is what notes will be taken from. For example, podcasts are great resources and in some cases, you may be required to take notes from them. The only downside with podcasts is that they lack the visual component often make the note-taking process to require more active listening. The good thing about podcasts is that you are able to replay the sections if the information was missed.

Online videos are another tool that could be used to learn. When it comes to online videos they do often incorporate a visual representation which for me personally makes the note taking the process a bit easier.

The purpose of this video is to help us understand the correlation between physics and the way it applies to things such as dance. The video breaks down the physics between the 32 fouettes performed in Swan Lake. The dancer starts by pushing off her foot, creating torque. She then sweeps her arms open to help her keep her balance. Her other leg never stops moving which stores momentum, this is what keeps her in motion. As she brings her arms or leg in closer this helps the dancer angular momentum which is equal to the dancer’s angular velocity times her rotational inertia(body resistant to rotational motion, increases as more mass is distributed further from the axis of rotation). Except for what is lost to friction, the angular momentum must stay constant which is conservation of angular momentum. As the dancer brings her arms in closer, her rotational inertia shrinks, to conserve angular momentum her angular velocity(speed of turn) has to increase to carry her through multiple turns which is how she was able to turn 32 times.

This video helps enhance my learning in physics as it applies a subject I have learned about in a different way making the concepts easier to understand. Prior to this video, I was having difficulty understanding the way that rotational inertia correlates to the conservation of angular momentum and angular velocity. With this example, I am able to visualize the way both work together in order to create the physics behind dance.

This module was very useful as it gave me the opportunity to explore different learning strategies and techniques that can be used online. Many of these strategies are essential for the growth as a student, however, they are not talked about as often as they should be. This brings up the point that knowing your resources is a major key to success.

I would recommend going to google and searching ‘Online Learning Strategies and Techniques for Students’. This pops up a lot of great different tools that students can utilize to help them grow and strengthen as a student. Some of my favorite resources that I have found through this module are the following:

Academic Skills Center 

https://students.dartmouth.edu/academic-skills/learning-resources/learning-strategies/strategic-learning-videos-and-books (Links to an external site.)

This resource is meant to provide students different learning strategies and techniques meant to help them improve their academic learning. There are resources from books, to videos which provide information on an array of topics. This is a good resource for students who are having trouble in a particular area such as notetaking or time management and simply just need a refresher on the subject matter.

Memorize

http://memorize.com/ (Links to an external site.)

This resource allows students to learn and create material and apply new ways of memorizing it. This is also a great tool for those students who are constantly on the go and like the accessibility of accessing their work online. Students create pages of the content they are trying to memorize, they can then apply different methods such as flashcards, matching or multiple choice quizzes to answer those questions. When they create pages they can use certain functions that help them understand by reading the material or even add a visualization to it.

HippoCampus

http://www.hippocampus.org/ (Links to an external site.)

HippoCampus provides thousands of free videos in different subject areas. From topics of Math to Humanities, this resource includes videos to help students better understand certain subject areas. It is very similar to Khan Academy, however, it gives students a different perspective and another way of learning the material.

GoConquer

https://www.goconqr.com/ (Links to an external site.)

This tool helps students create courses and add a multitude of different elements such as slide sets, flashcards, mind maps, notes, quizzes, and flowcharts. This tool is great for those who like to have their material all in one place rather than having to jump around from one website to another. There are also different groups that other students have created which make up an online community of students focusing the same type of curriculum.

These tools work only if one knows the type of learning style they like the most. Attached I have linked an image from “E-Learning Companion Student’s Guide to Online Success”. This should help you identify different learning styles and hopefully you are able to check out some resources that work best with your own learning style. 

Through this module, I was able to pick up new information on online etiquette. I thought that it was pretty important to refresh my understanding of the use of online skills and how that correlates to ones everyday life as we are a generation of people that are constantly using the internet and its resources. The most useful thing that was picked up from this module had to do with the use of creating, editing and keeping up with blog posts (the irony). It allowed me to reflect on the expectations I would like to carry for this blog and how I can do so. Blogs give us the opportunity to reflect on our understanding and learn more about how others take in certain information compared to oneself.

From the curriculum this week, something that I have actually already implemented would be my use of online video chat services for conference calls and setting up a shared google doc for meeting minutes. It is often difficult to get everyone to the same place, at the same time, therefore this tool has helped me a lot when working with groups not only around campus but abroad as well. It gives one the flexibility to speak from the comfort of their own home as it minimizes the time taken for travel in certain scenarios. They are also often very straight to the point. Scheduling polls is another thing that I have also already implemented when setting up meetings which allow people to work together taking into consideration their own personal schedules. Page 122 of the E-Learning text book allows emphasizes on how one can compensate for not having the ability to have verbal conversations by advertising how to properly convey ones message through a professional manner (if you would not wink in person, do not add a wink emoticon in a professional email).