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Final Reflection Blog (Module 7)

As I talked in previous weeks on my blogs, online tools and online resources are all an coin have both sides. Some materials are beneficial to online E-leaners, some might not as useful as it looks. Students should be very careful when then using online tools and resources. And from my point of view, I believe the technology is something that create by human beings also should serve for human beings. Students should have an positive attitude about technology. student should not depend on technology excessively, however, students should use technology advisably. For instance, students who learning Mathematics should not over depend on calculator, calculating skill is also significant for individuals. There always might be an situation that you need to calculate something and you do not have a calculator beside. However, use technology to enhance learning can be done efficiently. For instance, students can always check their calculating results by using calculator. And students can check their Chemistry formula by looking up online to check if they balanced it correctly.

After I learned this course, through many useful questionary, I become more self- comprehend. I clearly know myself’s advantages and disadvantages. I can use my strength to enhance my learning experiences and improve my disadvantages. From this course, I become to know that I am an active learner and I tend be more efficient with visualized materials. And I find I am good at both global and sequential study. Which is very good for me to understand myself better, thus I can learn things more self motivated. And it also helps me to have increasingly suitable methods to study in the future.

There are many meaningful experiences through this course, the most meaningful one for me is the Time tracking sheet for a week on excel. I never done things like this before. I never exactly know about my time usability of a week in the past. And when I really tracked down my time section on a whole week, I observed many aspects from my time management. And I recognized that I have been waste many time on nonsensical things. And when I use the time management assessment online, the results are inspirational. It states out many obviously facts about my time management. And I think it helps with my procrastination. I will keep the time management assessment to use it in the future, and it is a really good resource to help you examine yourself about your time management ability. And students can use the time management assessment to keep on track too. The link is: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_88.htm

The most significant skills I learned from this course is those online study enhancement tools. Such as the graphic creator website, the timeline creator and the mind map website, etc. All those online tools are very helpful and I wish I can know them earlier. I will keep using those tools in my future study and career. Not only those useful online tools but also the way and process of take benefit from internet is also very crucial for my future study and career. From this course, students have gained a very comprehensive views from online learning. And I will keep those strategies I gained and use them in my future study.

Get better results from your research online (Module 6)

In nowadays, Internet provides us convenience. It allows us to find information we need from different category all over the world. However, students might that sometimes the research results can be more we expect and it actually becomes harder to find correct information when there are too many choices. Thus, how to get a better results from your research online becomes significant. When students looking information online, there are three objects need to keep in mind. First is terms, this is the individual that your are looking for online, so it is important, students needs to be specific with the terms. Second is limiters. Without limiters, a single terms research online can leads more than thousands of links related to your terms. Thus limiters can help students to narrow down your research and help you increasingly easier to find the useful information you need. Make sure to use advanced research features when you using Google search, it can save your time and make your research results becomes more efficient. The third one it construction. Which include operator, phrase searching and grouping words. So when students are looking informations online, they should try to use different ways to generate variety results. It could be helpful for your research results, although there is no guarantee it worth a chance to try.

Once when students find some good informations online, make sure you use those materials correctly. Always remember to cite your resources and avoid plagiarism. When you are not pretty sure with your materials, ask for help from friends, professors are usually very helpful.

You can learn anything you want from Internet (Module 5)

Just like what I talked about last week’s post. Internet is a coin with two sides. But if students can use Internet wisely, Internet can return many benefits. Such as listening and learning from online videos. I guess many of you are familiar with TED Talk and Youtube. There are over 2200 talks from TED.com. And there are unaccountable user in Youtube are upload many useful educational videos in different categories. For instance, If I want to learn how to cook a steak, I can search on Youtube, and there are many professional masters are share their recipe and record a video to taught how to cook a steak. The video below is a great example from Gordon Ramsay, who is the famous British Michelin 3 star chief.

Not only about things you want to learn from daily life, but also you can learn Chemistry or any other subjects from academic aspects. Just like the report from Chronicle.com. Students are find online videos are increasingly becomes easier and useful even than learning from a virtual lectures. It is true, sometimes a educational videos are usually concise and attractive. Usually a lecture in school is around 55 minutes to 2 hours. It is hard to be straightly concentrate on the whole lectures. But the online videos are usually shorter and students can pause as many times as they want. And they can also replay it if they still feel confused. Personally, I have a creative flair, I prefer things more innovative. And I like innovating things too. So if a educational video is innovative and helpful, I would definitely recommend it.

Educational Video

This educational video is talking about the most common mistakes in academic English, and it also taught us how to fix these mistakes. As a international student, English is not my mother language. Thus this educational video is extremely helpful. But I believe not only international students needs to watch this video but also the natives might made some unnoticeable mistakes when writing academic English. Therefore, this video is educational and helpful to everyone. From this video, I finally find out that I should not use contractions in any academic English. It also mentioned that when we use academic English, we should try to avoid multi part verbs, such as “go up”, “take away”. We can use “increase” instead of “go up”, and we can use “remove” instead of “take away”. Except those tips, it also taught us that when we write academic English, we should use more subjective and formal languages.

Just as I mentioned above, as a international student, those tips for academic English are indeed helpful for me. When I write essays, I can be more professional and more efficient.  This is what I expect when I search this topics educational videos. Therefore, I highly recommend this video to everyone who needs to improve their academic English.

Active learner use web technology to enhance learning experiences.

As I talked about from last post, in nowadays, technology does really changed our life from every aspects, especially Internet. It changed the way people thinking and working. If students can use Internet effectively, Internet can help students having a totally new and technology-enhanced study experiences. For instance, there are many of useful website are providing services for students to become an active learner. There are websites allow students to generate flashcards to review study materials. And as a creator, students can determine publish or private those flashcards. Except that, some of the websites have 24hours and 7days online tutor. Students can get help by tutoring online immediately, and it saved a lot of time. Otherwise, there are websites that allow students to share and review course materials, and the website itself is more like a online study community. Not only students but also teachers can share and edit course materials, and more people share the study community is more diversity. Thus, it somehow generate a large worldwide library. Although some of the website are charge based on a rate for their services, creators can share more to get website credits to view more materials. Thus, it becomes to a virtuous cycle.

Internet is a coin with two sides. There are many useful and helpful things online, but there are many bad attractions online too. Students can easily get distract from online advertisements. Thus, students should try to make a self suited learning habits. Some students who are not very autonomic might not suit to use too many online tools. Therefore, a self monitored characteristic is necessary for students to become a successful and effective online enhanced leaner.

effective communication make collaboration simple (Module 3)

In nowadays, technology really innovate our life, it not only provide convenience, but also make some thing used to be unrealistic become true. For instance, 20 years ago, people never think about students from all over the world can actually taking class together online. Now, those imagination becomes true, and we can not only share but also learn a lot from internet. Thus, a effective online communication becomes significant. When people are try to chat or exchange information online, there are actually many challenges.  Therefore, when students learning online, check grammar and spelling are always very necessary through all the time. It will generally avoid the chance of miscommunication. And when we reply to someone’s email, make sure you type the date in a full standard way. There is a true story happened on me, when I schedule an interview with my previous manager, he replied me and ask to interview on “tomorrow”. However, when I read this email, it is already the day after tomorrow, thus we actually miss each other, and we have to set up a different time for interview. These sort of miscommunications are due to ineffective online communication ways. Thus the tips for online communication  are becomes important. Without effective communication, it directly harm collaboration.

A good communication is a successful start of collaboration. When students are working together online, there are several tips is crucial for their success. First, always follow up with the tasks; second, always maintain your role. Everyone should be responsible with one’s role and assigned tasks, thus it will assume a success group project. Except these two, a good relationship among whole group through all the working time is necessary. It will be more easier to work together in a peaceful and friendly atmosphere.