Final post

After seven weeks of learning in ESEPDY 1159 online learning strategies, I learned a lot about useful online learning resources, effective searching methods and useful study skills. This is a really useful and practical class that I would like to recommend to other students.

Taking online classes is quite different from taking traditional classes. Before starting this class, I thought there would be many videos and reading texts to learn. But this class is almost consists of a great amount of communication with peers, self studying and various small but practical activities. I originally didn’t notice that I’m a procrastinator. The questionnaire helped me pay attention to my bad habits. Through learning some useful methods such as making “To do” list and study plans this summer, I do make progress in avoiding procrastination. Moreover, I didn’t know what kind of learner I am before doing the form. But now I know more about myself and discovered the suitable way of learning and taking notes. So now I can study more efficiently after learning my problems and situations.

One of the most useful knowledge I have learned is using various online tools. These online resources include paper writing assistance, study skills and notes, online calender, and searching engines online. The note taking strategies are really helpful as I found some mistakes I made when I taking notes. I learned to listing key words of important concepts rather than writing many words in one page. Besides, I learned using google advanced search that I have used before. This searching method is effective and save many time. Through communicating and reading others blogs, I start to use several studying websites such as Quizlet and How To Study. These two online tools provide me many learning skills and tools that are effective in memorizing concepts and words. After this class, I begin to pay attention to many resources I dismissed before.

The most meaningful experience in this class for me is writing bogs to other students. Actually, This is my first time of writing educational blogs. As I’m shy and quiet, I usually don’t communicate with my peers. At this time, I start to learn communicating skills and give advices to others. It’s really an interesting and meaningful assignment. Meanwhile, I also learned many good tips from others’ blogs. Thus, writing blogs is a special meanful experience in this class.

Certainly, the most important thing is applying the knowledge I have learned into practice. I will mainly apply in two aspects, online learning and traditional learning. In the aspect of online learning, I would take use flashcards to memorize concepts and words in my subjects. Reading the studying skills and writing strategies to assist studing before and after class. In the aspect of traditional learning, I will apply the note-taking strategies when I am attending traditional lectures. Then after class, I will highlighting and summaring notes in the new method. If needed, I will search more related information that related to my learning topics in order to understand better. In a word, many resouces and tools can be applied in studying after taking this class.

In conclusion, this course is special and useful. With using many internet tools, I have masterd techniques that are helpful in studying online classes. This almost self-studying class assisted me in correcting my studying habits. Thus, I achieved my goal in this class and enjoyed this class in this summer!

Module 6

Learning how to use search engines online is very important for students. As a college student, I use it almost every day for papers, homeworks and research. There are many kinds of searching methods that are easy and effective to use. The google search is one of them. There are many videos on the website that teach you how to do it. An important and effective method that I learn today is to use the google advanced search. To be honest, I never use this method to search for information before. With this technique, I can narrow my serarching field to exact words, a certain time period, a certain field and even a certain publication. In this way, I can save a lot of time. Another one I learn is google scholar which I have never heard before. This search engine provides a large amount of journals and books that available for students. I can get an online copy of the article that I need. Futhermore, finding an website that is of crediblity, quality and utility is helpful for studying. When I search informations, I usually try to make sure the website is famous and has a reputable publication or authors. Website that is well organized is easier to find articles and information I want. If the website is quite useful for my study, I like to save it with bookmarks so that I can find it easily at the next time.

Educational video

The educational video is about psychology – How to train a brain.As the video shows, the term behaviorism which fouded by John B. Watson is an empirically rigorous science focused on observable behaviors and not unobersable internal mental processes. Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. The video give an experienment on dogs which shows what is associative learning and how conditioning works. Associative learning is the basic form a brain can do. It happens when a subject links certain events, behaviors or stimuli together in the process of conditioning. The experiment presents that classical conditioning shows how a process learning can be studied through direct observation of behavior. Another associative learning is operant conditioning, a type of learning in which behavior is strenghtened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. This is proved by the experiment of a mouse who continues push the button to get rewards. However, negative reinforcement is not punishment.

The teacher in the video introduces the definitions with several experiments to make it clear. Besides, the video use very cute animations and pictures to make the lecture more funny. When important definitions need to be memorized or hard to understand, the exact words and sentences are given to make sure students can learn better. Overall, this video explaining definitions and some experiments in an interesting and easy method to help me memorize and understand.

Module 4

Module 4 is about online learning strategies and skills. About reading online, we need to pay attention to three parts. The first part is the preparison before reading. As an active reader, students should review syllabus to know what need to do later. One important thing is to put away anything that would distract attention from studying. For me, I usually put away my iphone and ipad because I’m a visual learner. Then the second part is the time of reading. We should show why we read it at first and then scan the text quickly to learn several important points. I usually highlight or underline sentences and words that I believe are important with highlighters.  During my reading, I pay special attention to the charts and bold or italic words because these things are always helpful to understand the whole reading. After reading, I would summarize what I have read in proper form so that I know I have understand the reading contents. The proper form includes diagram, timeline and flashcards. If I can’t, I would preview the key points and ask questions to myself to strenghten my understanding. Finally, after reading, it’s necessary to paste the key points and the summaries to the Word doc. Organizing these sentences and adding comments beside these words are helpful for my future review. This is a convient and effective method all the time for me.

Considering that online reading is very different from traditional reading, summarizing important information seems important to me. As many information online are  in  videos, images and audio, we need to take notes to understand its meanings. However, online reading is more colorful and informational than traditional reading, even though it is less authorized and organized. Overall, this is my online learning methods and opinions.