In this post, I will be exploring the skills and knowledge that I have gained throughout the course, and how I will continue to apply these skills.

When I first joined the class, I was more ineffective at implementing my time. I started projects and did not work on them, causing myself to spend so much time catching up to work. Throughout this course, I learned valuable lessons to keep me not only on schedule, but also efficient when working. By using the tools and lectures in the course, I learned a lot about keeping on schedule and how to organize your time. In fact organizing your schedule would be one of the most effective strategies that I learned from this course. I always had problems scheduling my time to maximize the effort spent in my free time.

After some modules came up that focused on time organization, I began to see my time effectiveness increase exponentially over the course of the semester. In the beginning, I was always late with submissions and working with deadlines, but now I am always on time and I use tools like charting my time to keep me on schedule.

I learned that I have problems with motivation. However, I also learned that some things that you initially think are inherent problems can be fixed with the right technique. For example, I thought I was always going to have trouble with time efficiency and time management. However, I stopped using my time poorly and began to start keeping better track of my time.

I also learned the proper etiquette to writing an academic email. I never knew that there was so many rules, but the Resource:How to Write an Academic Email helped me. For example, making sure to include context for your message is a small thing that I often forget when writing emails to my professors. This lesson helped me to get all of the details correct.

I think that the interactions between students in this course has had a huge impact on my experience with this course. By the usage of comments and discussion boards, I felt the real human connection with my peers. Being able to communicate, read, and critique with others has improved my own writing. I learned that collaboration is very useful in keeping you in check. With others depending on you, keeping up with assignments becomes more incentivized.

I will always use the lessons that I learned in this class in my life. I learned invaluable life skills that are applicable to almost every aspect of the adult life. When I am out in the “real world” I hope that I will stick to the techniques and lessons that I learned in this great course. Being on top of things, and using electronic resources effectively will be very useful to my career field.

Some parting advice I have for all of you readers out there: “Always be thorough with your work.” By checking things over many times and paying attention to the details, you can be successful and efficient.

In this module, I learned the important skill of utilizing online resources.

The module talked about using online resources in order to find relevant data and sources. In the module, I learned how to utilize the OSU library site, especially how to narrow down my search. I now know how to effectively use the site in order to find resources that are available on site or digitally. It also helped me to figure out the appropriate database to find specific articles. I also learned how to utilize Google Scholar and how that interacts well with the OSU library site.

In the future, in classes that require research, I should be able to quickly and efficiently locate resources that I need to complete research. In the past, I have had problems with the time it takes to find good sources, with these new skills, my workload should be decreasing by a lot.

For students in the future, you should definitely learn research skills. It will always be useful to find and explore more resources quickly and efficiently. Especially in the computer science field, the ever changing landscape is a difficult thing to keep up to date on, so being able to do research well is paramount.

This week’s module is about the notetaking and how to successfully condense information from digital materials like videos and podcasts.

The important takeaways from this module is to practice active listening during lectures. This entails truly listening and trying to comprehend the lesson and not just blindly writing things down. In the lecture, some tips that were given were to take notes while listening to the lecture. It will help the student to condense the lecture into the main points of the lesson. It also helps the student understand the message of the lecture.  It can help students to organize the ideas included, and they can revisit the notes later to study for exams or other projects.

I think this lecture was helpful, as many times I have to watch or listen to lectures and often times, I am not sure what to do while watching. Now that I know that there are others that have this problem, I can use this to find a solution. Having a definitive guide to taking notes on videos and podcasts. I am going to utilize the ability of active listening from now on, and I hope it will be very useful in future lectures that I take.

In this video, the author describes the process of genetic modification to plants and other organisms. The plants are changed on the genetic scale in order to breed traits that are considered beneficial to humans. The video then goes on to describe the potential risks posed to humans by eating GMOs, and thoroughly debunking each complaint with the organisms. The video then shows the potential positives of GMOs. It showed the benefits of genetically modifying resistance to insects and viruses, providing a more nuanced understanding of the concept.

I learned a lot more about GMOs. It is commonly associated with negative images, people getting sick and others profiting from that. However this video helps to provide a lot of information about the topic, even providing a variety of sources to back up their claims. I now believe that we should invest whole-heartedly into the development of GMOs to protect the environment and our sustainability in the future.

In this week’s module, I learned about active reading as opposed to passive reading. Additionally, the module taught online reading skills.

Part of the online reading skills were to determine in which order to read the content. The module suggested that one first skim the article, looking for key points and unfamiliar terms. It then suggests to take special note of charts or figures in order to aid comprehension of the content. Finally, after reading the passage itself, you should summarize the main points from each section of the text. If there are any questions or comments about the passage, you should be sure to write them down.

The module also detailed the main differences between online text and traditional reading. With online texts, one should expect a more personal and informational read. When reading online, the option for hyperlinks and other interactive content is available. Effective online content should take advantage of the different medium’s strengths and weaknesses.

Additionally the other modules that were included for this week detailed new sites that could assist students in their work. Either to help them study or to quickly reference structure and formats for their papers. All in all, I feel like this module was very helpful this week.

In this module, I learned to communicate more efficiently. I learned how to create an academic focused email. The module taught me how to make a clear, focused, and respectful email when communicating with an instructor or TA.

Also in this module, I was able to create a new section on my blog, allowing for me to practice interacting with an online audience. This will help me in the future to create content in order to promote myself. Being in the field of Computer Science, people often make side projects involving code or other projects. Being able to make a hub to showcase my abilities and my work will be incredibly useful in the future.

For students of Computer Science who may read this in the future, create your own blog now. Being able to have a place that you moderate to publish content and showcase your work is vital to our field. Allowing employers to see that you are taking the initiative outside of work to better yourself only helps your cause. It goes without saying without saying, if you are not creating content and practicing coding outside of class or work, you should. Being up to date on the current coding practices and keeping your skills fresh is tantamount to being viable in this industry.