Thursday, September 30, 2010

Learning and Sharing...

     I am currently finished with all my assignments for week one of my online course - Dimensions of Learning.  Mind you, it is only day 3 of the course. This is what I have learned so far:


  • 29% of the people under the age of 25 in America have Bachelor's Degrees. (Shocking or not?)
  • There is no excuse for not learning.  An entire book was written about learning.  I know I read it for the   course
  • How you learn is essential to learning.  
  • Time Management is a must to do online courses (and anything else in life)
  • The stories and andedotes in the book are very cool and fascinating.  For instance, one quote is from the queen of online learning (I didn't know about her either until now) and she said that online teachers can see their students mind not just their faces. I liked that one.
  • Quizzes online are very different than in school.  (Especially if the quiz you are taking uses different terminology than the terminology on the site - too long to explain)


    I have all ready moved onto Week 2, done the assignment and my first discussion.  So now I have to learn about a few theories of intelligence.  This may not be very important to say, but in reading the first theory of intelligence, it seemed to make sense.  Everyone learns differently. Everyone's use of intelligence is different.  I like that doctors use studies to prove it, but I wonder how they decided to do it.  For instance with Gardner's Theory of Intelligence.  Did he wake up one day and just think 'that would be a good idea for a study?' or did he discuss it with friends, etc. And did his friends say the same thing at his results?  You know how your friends can be.  "Makes sense" "of course", etc.  Or in this day and age of technology, would it just be a simple "great!", "go gard...",  "wow", "wonderful".  

    Completely getting off track, but that annoys me.  The thing about leaving a comment for some people on a picture, or whatever.  "Great", "Wow", "Wonderful".  Do they think this is helpful feedback?  I, myself have major issues with feedback, too little, too much, too cruel, too nice.  But I'm strange and completely tied to my emotional stream (which can go crazy at any time).  I mean if I leave a comment I try to be insightful.  A little more than "yea" "nice" "wow".  Of course on Face Book all we need to do is click on a link and say we like something.  Maybe that's right after all.  You didn't have much to say about it, but I liked it.  In any case we can blame Face Book for that.  They came up with that link.  I'm certain in the not too distant future (unless I just haven't seen it yet), the world of the Internet will come up with an application we can all put on our banners and such -  "Did you like this?"  "Love this?"  "Hate this?"  Oh no, wait, I have seen that.  Never mind, it's all ready here.  Who needs conversation?  Who needs insight?  I'm ranting, but it is scary that we have gone from such rich thoughts as people to one word expressions.

    Of course writing in a blog does make that statement a bit funny.  I guess I don't like one word expressions.  And the fact that blogs have taken over, I would imagine a lot of other people feel the same.

    What I do like about the online course I'm taking is that the discussion responses from other students are supposed to be insightful, bring up conversation, provide opinions, like a classroom discussion.  It sounds interesting so far.  I think I'll take some time off studying textbooks, working on line, reading, and writing for a while and do my own time management -- Dinner!

Until next time...

    

2 comments:

  1. I agree, wow, great post....er..I'm doing it aren't I. congrats you just saved a life.
    Nice post

    ReplyDelete
  2. Okay, just kidding. I think you are so right, with your points about the importance of learning and I know as a virgo over 25, I always need a game-plan. No matter what it is.

    Right now I teach, more then an I activley learn, sometimes I think teaching is easier than learning. But not always the wise choice.

    ReplyDelete