Fall Semester Reflection

1. Do you read your colleagues’ work online?  How often? What is it like to read their work? How does being able to see everyone’s work online at any given time change the way you do your work?
2. How has the publicly and always visible course blog made this course different from one without a blog?  How would the course change if the course blog disappeared tomorrow?
3. Has publishing your work for the public to see changed your approach to completing an assignment? How so?  How would your feelings about the course change if you couldn’t publish your work that way?
4. Has your experience of the physical classroom changed because of the open & online aspects?  Where does your learning actually happen?  
5. You were described in the Macarthur Foundation/DML  interview as “a pioneer”-- how do you describe the experience on the edge to people who haven’t been there (friends and family)?
6. How do they respond when you describe the brave new world in which you’re working?

      
        7.What do their responses mean to you?  What effect(s) (if any) do they have on you?

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1. I wish i had the time to read others blogs more often but when i do i am nearly always impressed by the level of quality/polish that is blatantly depicted by my peers. Having our work published online in my mind does effect my writing, motivates me to produce my best-work as well as audience targeting compositions, such as subtle jokes or references my classmates would recognize for example.

2. Having the course blog accessible at all times is a blessing and a blight to some degree. On one hand its always accessible and, if there's a question, it can be answered by leaving a quick comment. But, on the other hand, its accessible if your internet is up and running properly, if you happen to have it (hard to believe but some don't). Like all tech it requires ease of adaptation which i feel ive personally adapted to over the course of this first semester.

3. As i mentioned briefly in answer 1., knowing my work will be visible to the public's eye pressures me, no, motivates me even moreso then traditional "hand-in" assignments to always produce my best work, it additionally influences me as i often target my audience, making pieces and connections within those pieces that they will quickly recognize. 

4. Yes. Now when i walk into class i often enage in conversations with my fellow peers bout last nights posts, commenting on each others works, complementing, even critiquing. Learning on the other hand? well independent study is what i would liken the learning aspect of this class, though collaboration is indeed possible/encouraged, my best learning is done (at least initially) solo. 

5. To my surprise, they all think its cool as well as interestingly innovative. I know for one my parents support this approach, supporting the use of technology but not abuse/fear of it. 

6. Again, they believe it to be the next step in education, more an inevitability than just gimmicky interesting implementation. They support it.

7. One of my first posts, asking for comments on facebook thereafter, saw to a unexpected and ultimately eye-opening experience. Even though i only asked/expected fellow classmates to comment on my blog post, others, my family members, actually followed the link and read my work.  Commenting on my work, complementing me and supporting my writing, i couldn't believe they took the time to go out of thier way to read it without even mentioning it to them. Now, whenever preparing a post, i keep this ever public eye in mind. I always strive to present my bestwork to impress no teacher, no classmate, not even myself, but my loved ones. Indeed the scope of what we are doing now is one we wont realize, i believe, until much later, far off into a future when everyone else i following the steps we are taking thru internet-interactive learning today.