Impacts of Weeks 1-7

By: Tariq Vinson

          Weeks one through seven have had a huge impact on the way that I manage tasks, time, environment, and the way that I learn. Throughout this first session class, I was given the tools to be able to focus on what methods works best for me and what methods I should stay away from. The one that stood out the most throughout the succession of the class was the environmental management. I have been a major procrastinator for my entire school career, and I always thought it was because I did not manage my time well. This class showed me that the actual cause of the procrastination was the environments that I would try to study in. I would always have something around to distract me from doing work whether it was people, my phone, or a gaming system. Because this class made me aware of my surroundings when I study, I was able to pin point the problem.

Even though I had found out what the problem was, I was not able to easily change my habits to rid myself of the problem. My phone is a key part of my life as it keeps me up to date on events and keeps me in contact with everyone that I know. On top of that, people are everywhere and are hard to get away from and my gaming system is in my room. With these three major distractions and many others, it felt almost impossible to be able to create the ideal study environment.

I tried multiple different locations utilizing Globokar’s method of analyzing study areas and finding the right space until I found what worked for me. I found my answer by studying in my room, but removing all distractions in a way that I would have to do extra work to be able to distract myself. By placing the controllers to my gaming system downstairs and putting my phone on “Do Not Disturb” and placing it on the other side of the room, I was able to get some studying done. Being in my room created an environment away from people and other distractions, but the action of taking away the technologies made it a success. Not having my phone close by allowed me to focus on the content that I was studying and not having the controllers upstairs in my room disabled me from being able to play any games, thus creating my go-to study environment.

Globokar, J. L. (2010). Introduction to online learning a guide for students. London: SAGE.

Throughout this first session course, I learned many different strategies to use for studying and organization through the material and interactive discussion with my peers. Short readings and videos were given each week to guide us to think about how we learn and what strategies and technologies work best for us. We were made aware of some of the vast number of study technologies that are available for us to use. Three of these technologies can be found on my technologies page, along with pros and cons for each. I had chose these three as they can be very useful when planning, organizing, and finding information needed for all purposes. Along with these two takeaways from this class, another takeaway is that there is a strong sense of community in the class. While it is online, it brings an in-person class feel through peer to peer discussion and interaction. By having an easy workload and easy graders, my peers and I can actually express what we mean and react honestly to other’s post instead of posting something just for the grade. By actually having meaning in the things that I posted kept me engaged in the class and as a result, I was able to enjoy the class as much as an in-person class.

In the next two weeks, I will leave a post summarizing my experiences with the ESLTECH 2011 course.