When I first signed up for this class I had no idea what I was getting into. I was told that this class was not too difficult and that I should be able to handle it with my full time work schedule. I had a little fear at first because it was an online class, something that I did not look too kindly upon at the time. Looking back now, I should of never had that fear! Online courses are actually not so bad! Sure, you don’t get the physical interaction with people, but there are different ways to interact.
Throughout this class, I learned a good amount of material regarding technology. First, I discovered how useful Google Docs can be! You can just type up a document and take it with you anywhere you go! It’s quite convenient and I plan to use it more often. I also learned that there are a lot more resources out there than I could have ever imagined. There is pretty much a tool for anything you can think of! There are flashcard programs, time tracking programs, and many others! The key thing is to do a little bit of wandering around on the internet and finding them. When it comes to actually searching the web, I learned a few new tips and tricks that can speed up my searching process. I learned that you can use quotation marks to get exact words in you searches. Also, you can use words like AND, OR , and NOT to eliminate unwanted results. To go even further, you can do an advanced search in most search engines to “super” narrow down the results. Once you find some results that look promising, it is important that you are able to distinguish between reliable and unreliable resources. We learned a few tips about this in class as well. I learned that you can evaluate sources by looking at materials such as the credentials of the author, the site reputation (good ones usually end in .edu or .org), the contact details (good sources usually include some sort of contact information), and internally cited resources. It is also important to not get all your information from one source. This is because you want to make sure the information is consistent by investigating it on another website. Together, all these things are vital for determining the reliability of the site. I could go on and on about more things I learned, but those are the key points that I remember from the lectures.
Not only did I learn a lot about technology in this class, but I also got to learn a little more about myself. Throughout the course, there were a few surveys that “judged” my procrastination and my time management skills. I knew that I was a procrastinator before, but I learned that I was more of a procrastinator than I thought (if that makes any sense haha). To make things a little better, I learned that I was actually a pretty good time manager. This is because I honestly do not have much free time to waste, seeing that I am going to school full time and also working full time. Lastly, I learned that I can limit my distractions by choosing a better work environment.
The most meaningful thing that I got out of this class would probably be how to stop my procrastination and be more productive. I need to tell myself specific things that I need to do in order to actually do them. Also, I can set up incentives for myself to enjoy if I finish a task. Lastly, if a task seems overwhelming and very big, I need to break it down into bite size pieces and attack a little bit at a time. All of this information is very useful and I plan on applying it in the future. How exactly can I apply it? Well, I will keep track of all that is due more carefully by getting a calendar and writing things down on it. If I physically see it, I am more likely to do something about it. Overall, the course provided me a lot of useful information that can be used in a different variety of ways! I hope you enjoy (or at least don’t struggle 😉 ) reading this and thank you for being my professor.