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How to Effectively Take Notes and Read Online

 

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I have experienced a lot of trouble with reading and note-taking online. The most difficult part of online classes for me was figuring out the best way to take notes and comprehend online readings. I found myself very lost in notes that I’m taking. It was bothersome to me that I spent so much time organizing and typing up notes on Google Docs just to not retain any of the information. Like Sarah, I experience eye strain while staring at a computer for long. In addition to that, I get migraines from it.

 

Throughout reading a lengthy article online, I tend to lose focus and my eyes feel strained. While reading this week’s readings, I learned that as we scroll further down the page, we can often lose out place, as time passes our eyes lose focus on the materials (Watkins, 2004). A small helpful solution I found was to turn on night mode on my device, which creates warmer tones for the screen display.

 

To get productive notes based on readings I used active note-taking. This is helpful for me to take notes on only what is important. I find myself to be a copy-machine sometimes, so because of this, I have changed my note-taking style. It is ineffective for me to write down everything I hear. I still would like to incorporate other abbreviations to further improve my note-taking and reading skills. If I used this, I feel like I would have even shorter and to the point notes about readings.

 

While doing online readings, I noticed that writing down important facts that will help me study is very helpful. To further improve my note-taking and studying I will make an outline of these important facts on paper. While putting these on paper, I feel like I would prevent eye strain and migraines while studying the most important information. Personally studying hard copy is more effective for me so this should decrease the amount of screen time and increase my proficiency in online reading and note-taking.

Trello Board To Keep my Time Managed

In this course, I tried out this tool called Trello to keep me organized. I used Trello to organize my schedule in one place. It is a very good tool to keep me on track for my larger tasks. I find that I am disorganized a lot because I have 15-20 assignments due each week, and nothing can fit all that information besides my brain. This is an easy and neat tool, I enjoyed learning about this tool in my class. When planning what to do with this, I picked my larger tasks and current tasks that popped up in my mind. As I said, I have a minimum of 15 assignments due each week, so it took me a long time to keep this page organized. Throughout the semester, Trello definitely taught me a few things about organizing my online class schedule.

My Intention For a Successful Experience in ESL 2011

At the beginning of this course, I came in determined to grow in my online education. Throughout this entire course, I have had nothing but determination. I have gained so much knowledge about my online education. Below is my first reflection paper that I wrote for this course. Thanks to my determination from this paper, I feel that I stuck to what I wrote in here throughout the course. Thank you to our professor for providing me with great knowledge throughout the entire course.

 

Reflection 1- My Goals and My Struggles.

As a busy student, it is hard to find time for myself to be at my house. I find myself more tired and sick as the days of the semester go by. Though I personally enjoy making a person-to-person connection with my professors, I struggle to make that same one with online professors. Though online learning differs significantly from face-to-face learning, I am excited to experiment with this.

There are many features of online learning that differ from face-to-face learning. Most of the time I get at home is while doing work for online classes. So, when I’m sick or tired, it is very convenient to be able to do my class online in the comfort of my house. In such modes, you are not obligated to “meet” with an instructor at a specific time (Long, 2004). No obligation is a huge difference between face-to-face and online learning. Another unique difference in an online class stated by Long (2004) is no travel time. On-campus it takes me about 15 minutes to walk to my classes, and for online I can just walk to a quiet space in my house.

At the beginning of my classes, I always start with good habits to give me a fresh start. I do this because if I don’t start it in the beginning, I know that I will never do it. Using a planner that is color-coded has made my daily schedule feel more attentive. Littlefield (2019) said that a way to be a successful online student is to start the semester right. In order to succeed in this class, I have already put assignments in my planner to try and get this semester started strongly. In a previous online class, I missed many due dates because the carmen page was disorganized. If I could go back, I would have made my planner using all the different pages she used to announce the homework. But because I started off with good habits, this class will be different than previous

In the week 1 module and the syllabus there were recommended student services to get help with their classes. I frequently struggle with the fear of asking for help. In fact, usually, I am told to get help. Because this class is online, the fear needs to be put aside or else I will be confused and fall behind. I would like to start going to the Younkin success center to give me studying strategies. Another resource OSU provides that I have yet to take advantage of is the Writing Center. Littlefield (2019) states that you have to know how to ask for help. Asking for help is not one of my strengths. But I know that in order to succeed in this class, I will have to.

To ensure my success in this class, I will try to keep organized and use good study and work habits. In order to do this, there needs to be planned out times for each week to work on this class. I plan on asking for help when I need it or even reach out to the professor just to make that connection.

Overall, I plan on overcoming my challenges and fixing mistakes that I have made in a previous online course. I look forward to learning more about how to be successful and what to avoid in online learning. I am grateful to have this course as a resource for my future online education.