In a past online course I took, a political science course, I experienced some difficulties with online reading and notetaking. The first challenge I faced was that I would get easily distracted when reading the online textbook. The textbook material was incredibly dense, and the chapters were very long. I found it hard to focus and keep my eyes on the computer screen for such a long time. Another difficulty I faced was that I would get distracted by emails and iMessages on my computer. I wasted a decent amount of time checking my email and iMessage. As a result, I would lose my place in the reading. A final challenge I faced was with regard to note-taking. With the textbook chapters being so long and the material so dense, I struggled to take good, organized notes. When I would go back to study from my notes, I found my notes were extremely long and crowded with a lot of unnecessary detail.
I think the first two challenges I faced with regard to online reading occurred because I failed to create a good reading environment and I struggled to read the long documents on the computer screen. In “Online Readings,” Ryan Watkins notes that the third step in improving online learning skills is to create a good reading environment. Watkins states that the internet provide us with a variety of distractions while learning online. Therefore, we must turn off internet communications, (Watkins, 102). In order to solve this problem, I should take Watkins suggestion and turn off my internet communications and create a good learning environment for myself. Additionally, Watkins suggests to print a hard copy of long documents, or enlarge the print and highlight text on certain PDF Files, (Watkins, 97). I can solve my difficulty reading lengthy e-books on the computer screen by printing out some hard copy pages, enlarging text, highlighting and engaging in more active learning.
I think the difficulty I experienced with organizing my note-taking occurred because I did not know what type or model of note-taking worked for me in this course. Going forward, I believe the Outline model will help me to take more organized notes and help me to pull out the most important points from the reading. This will help me eliminate a lot of unnecessary, little details I had in my old notes. I can also use abbreviation to help me shorten my notes and save time while taking notes.