What I have learned this term

The course outline we had for this class was to become more familiar with and appreciate the changing modes to reading literature and writing about it. This expected outcome was hard for me to see at first, because I was so used to the cookie cutter English major expectations. Starting a blog for a class to turn contribute our writing ideas was so new to me, and I enjoyed that aspect of the class.

As far as writing styles go, this class was surprising and sometimes confusing about what kind of writing styles were expected for this class. I was so used to an academic writing style, so being more free to bring in my personal voice and opinions was liberating. But then my professor told us that a lot of our blog posts were not academically-based enough. I loved putting together my chapter for our class ebook, which was to be personal and not restricted to any writing style. And then the requirement was given that we had to compose our chapter in a specific structure with a pull quote, sub-headings, and a "tweethis," which essentially made every person's chapter very uniform. So these kind of things confused me about the learning outcomes for this class.

I have come away from this class with a much greater appreciation for all the modes of online learning that there are. And I have come away with a greater perspective on the changing technology and how we can use it most effectively to help us in our acquisition of knowledge. I have especially enjoyed being involved with my classmates and getting to see their ideas and research along the way: it definitely gave me many new ideas to approaching research.

I plan on still trying to actively put out daily content on the web because I have learned more about the importance of a positive and active online presence. And I really hope that my classmates will do the same, because this has been a great class of students, with a lot of cool ideas and cool things to share.