We started the assignment by choosing between 4 different questions and completing its associated activities. The question I chose was “What is Revenge Porn (and What Laws Pertain to It)?”. The associated activities with this question included reading 5 articles. Following this, I had to post on the discussion board, including which question I chose to learn the answer to, why I chose the question, and answer the question, by referencing specific articles I read.

I chose to learn about my question because I really do not know much about the subject and was interested in learning what it was. I also wanted to learn how prevalent or important it is in today’s society. I know that it exists, but it is not something I hear much about in the media personally.

From the different articles, I learned that revenge porn involves circulating nude or other invasive photos of women without their consent. This can be initiated by ex-boyfriends, but also hackers infiltrating computers and stealing these photos. Revenge porn can include videos too, not just pictures. 

From the articles, I learned that the laws that pertain to it vary throughout the country. For example, in Wisconsin, revenge porn is a misdemeanor that can result in nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine. However, only 13 states have passed laws that ban revenge porn.

This problem is now being looked at on social media sites, such as Twitter. Revenge porn is now a violation of user rules. However, although people are beginning to address the issue, there is still a long way to go, in both state legislation and on social media.

This information I just described it what I learned from the 5 articles, and it is very similar to what I wrote about in my discussion board post.

Reflecting on this assignment, first I think it was fantastic that there were 4 different question choices to choose from. This is now a couple times in this course where we have had a choice and having 4 options really opened up my possibilities. It made me more excited to work on the assignment because I was not forced to follow a path of information that I was not interested in. Having the choice allowed me to be more engaged and work harder on the assignment.

Additionally, I found the topic itself to be kind of fascinating. Personally, I really have not been a part of or have seen any revenge porn, so it was a learning experience for me. Even though it was interesting, it was very sad, because the young women who are victims of these crimes do not deserve the punishment they have to face. It is repulsive that people will expose others’ private body areas without their consent.

Reading up on this topic brought me a lot of knowledge of where we are currently with the issue, and how far we still have to go. As I stated previously, we are going in the right direction, but we are so far away from where we need to be. All states and all of the social media platforms should have laws against revenge porn, and hopefully, one day that will happen.

Finally, referring to each individual article was valuable because it allowed me to really engage with the material more. Reading all of the articles, starting my post, and going back through each article to find more information lead me to engage with the material multiple times at least. This will lead me to remember the information for longer, which is important with a complex issue such as revenge porn.

This assignment started out by watching “Charlie Bit My Finger”, reading about the ALS ice bucket challenge, watching “Teach Me How to Bucky”, watching Ellen read “Texts From Your Ex”, and watching “School is Closed”. Following this, we had to watch professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video. After watching this, we had to make a discussion board post where we had to describe one of the viral sensations from the lecture video, specify whether it was an intentional use or an unintentional result, and explain why it went viral by referencing the three features that research has shown to predict what content goes viral. Finally, we had to start our five-day news journal.

The lecture video was comprised of 12 viral sensations, some intended to reach a lot of people, and some not. The first sensation was “School is Closed”, in which a school principal made a YouTube song to the tune of “Let it Go”, and it explained that the school was having a snow day.

The second one was “Teach Me How To Bucky”. This was a video created by UW Madison students to the tune of “Teach Me How To Dougie”. They made it to bring glory and excitement to their school.

The third one was “Miracle on the Hudson”. Someone on a commercial ferry saw a plane submerging in the water, and he took a picture of it, and tweeted it.

The fourth one was “Help Wanted”. A father went to Reddit to try to find someone who could photoshop the medical tubes out of a picture of his daughter. The daughter had only lived 6 weeks and was in the hospital the whole time, so they had never been able to snap a photo without the tubes. Thousands of people responded.

The fifth one was “A Weird, Unidentifiable Rash”. A doctor saw a boy with a weird rash that he couldn’t identify, so he took a picture of it and posted on an app populated by other physicians. Soon after, the rash was diagnosed!

The sixth one was “Reading Rainbow”. This was a kid’s TV show that went off of PBS, but someone wanted to bring it to children by creating an app and streaming episodes into classrooms. He made a Kickstarter campaign and raised over 5 million dollars!

The seventh one was “The Ice Bucket Challenge”. To raise funds for ALS research, people poured ice water on their heads and challenged others to do the same, and if not then to donate to the ALS Association. They raised over 100 million dollars!

The eighth one was “United Breaks Guitars”. A musical duo’s $3500 guitar was broken on a United Airlines flight. Initially, they were not reimbursed at all, so they made a song on YouTube describing their situation, and it was viewed 15 million times. This led to United Airlines reimbursing the duo.

The ninth one was “Charlie Bit My Finger”. This is a video of two brothers hanging out and having fun together. It was uploaded so family from out of town could see the video, but it went viral.

The tenth one was “Cool Wand!”. An intern asked his boss for a few days off because something came up at home when really he just wanted to attend a Halloween party. A picture of him in a Tinker Bell costume got posted online and his boss ended up seeing it, and sent the intern an email about it.

The eleventh one was “Fair Trade Organic Bananas”. Scottish Labour Party candidate Stuart MacLennan tweeted “God this fair trade, organic banana is expletive. Can I have a slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified one?”. He eventually was removed from office.

The twelfth one was “Texts from my Ex”. It is an Instagram page that posts texts from ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. Ellen DeGeneres even read off some of these on her show!

The three principles that are associated with things going viral are emotional salience, a point of connection, and an element of surprise.

In my discussion board post, I talked about “United Breaks Guitars”. I explained what it was, as I did above. Then I explained that it was intentional to broadcast widely, because the musical duo wanted as many people to see it as possible, to raise their chances of being reimbursed by United Airlines. Then I related it to the 3 principles of viral things.

It has emotional salience because it would make people sad or mad at United, and feel pity for the musical duo. It has a point of connection because many people have experiences with getting ripped off by a company. It has a point of surprise because it is not typical to turn a complaint into a song.

Reflecting on this assignment, It was really interesting to hear about the 12 different viral sensations that were discussed. I had known about a couple of them, but the majority of them I hadn’t heard of, so it was very cool to learn about them. For example, it was very heartwarming to see that the father whose daughter had passed away in the hospital received so many responses and support from others. That was an example that seemed to truly have significance to me, so it was nice to hear about.

Additionally, it was good to include a mixture of intentional and non-intentional viral examples. Clearly, things such as the Ice Bucket Challenge and the United Breaks Guitars video were meant to go viral, in order for more people to hear about it and support the cause. However, things such as the Charlie Bit My Finger Video went super viral, even though it was just a silly home video intended for a small audience. It is interesting to think about a bunch of viral videos and posts and try to distinguish if they were intended initially for a big audience or not.

It was also valuable to learn the principles of why something goes viral. The 3 principles given definitely make sense, but I had not known them before. Now I can apply them to viral things in the future, and I can realize if it met the requirements and can understand why it became so popular!

This assignment brought a combination of learning and entertainment, which was awesome. It kept me focused and interested because the new content was engaging and fun to hear about. This is definitely one of the better assignments I have experienced in the course thus far!

This was the last assignment of unit 4, and once again started out by completing the unit 4 review sheet. After this, we had to review the term project instructions, settle on one project and one presentation media, and begin preparing the previous units. Next, we had to post about these decisions on the discussion and talk about what work we have done so far.

As mentioned previously, the review sheets are cumulative, so I had to input information about units 1, 2, 3, and 4. Unit 1 asked about previously feared technologies that are no longer feared, so I included the written word, chess, the phonograph, newspapers, novels, umbrellas, bicycles, pencil erasers, and pocket calculators. Unit 2 asked about the 5 fundamental principles of learning in which higher education capitalizes, which I included that it can lead to better mastery, can optimize performance, can deepen memory, can promote critical thinking, and can enhance writing skills.

Unit 3 asked me to list five challenges that college students face today and how Internet-based education can tackle each challenge. My first challenge was unaffordable tuition costs, which internet-based education can tackle this by creating more MOOC’s, or online courses, that are free or have a low cost to take. My second challenge was expensive textbooks, and internet-based education can tackle this by not requiring textbooks for their courses, or providing all of the necessary materials online for free for all students in the course to access. My third challenge was lack of sleep, and internet-based education can tackle this by setting assignment due dates in advance, allowing students to work at their own pace, rather than working late into the night. If they are tired, they can go to sleep and not have to worry as much about waking up for an early lecture or exam.

My fourth challenge was having classes too early for optimal cognitive functioning. Internet-based education can tackle this through its flexibility, as having all the materials online means that students can work on the course when they are at their own time of peak cognitive functioning. My fifth challenge was the lack of open and accessible education for everyone. Internet-based education can tackle this through the utilization of MOOC’s, or massive open online courses. These courses can be taken by essentially anyone so thousands and thousands can learn from them.

Unit 4 began by asking if the internet is making our communication briefer, and if it is making it less formal, and the answer to both of those is no. Next, it asked me to explain what it means that the Internet is manifesting our preference of intransient and asynchronous communication. I explained that people prefer intranscience and the internet because it is long lasting, and can be viewed and remembered as long as people want. I then explained that people generally prefer asynchrony because it provides convenience and controllability, for example, to develop and maintain friendships.

It then asked me for 6 guidelines for emailing a professor. I included use your university email account, use your professor’s LAST NAME in your salutation, start with a new message, write an informative subject heading, do not address a professor by their first name unless they have explicitly
instructed you to do so, and write grammatically, spell correctly, and use appropriate capitalization.

For the term review project document, I started out by explaining that my project was going to be a daily journal where I itemize the content along with my reflections, and my media was going to be a blog. I explained what I had done so far, creating a blog on Word Press, and writing my first post. I was waiting to hear feedback from professor Gernsbacher before I wrote more posts.

Reflecting on this assignment, as always, the review allowed me to master the previous unit concepts even further. For example, I have gotten to know the 9 technologies from unit 1 very well, and I do not have to even check anywhere to remember them. Each passing unit allows me the chance to take another look at the main concepts, which is always helpful.

Additionally, continuing to force us to wean down our options for the term project was a good idea, because it makes us think about it and combats against procrastination. When we have to create documents explaining what we have done so far on the project, this encourages us to do some work first, so we actually have something to write about. So, this requirement kickstarted my work, and now I am working at a really fast yet thoughtful pace!

Once again, this is not an assignment for new learning but was still helpful for me to get to know the course material better and get some early term project work in. I enjoy each opportunity I get to grow in my course knowledge!

This assignment started out with reading 2 articles and an abstract. The first article discussed how it has been 25 years since the first text, and it has changed the way people communicate but has not led to any grammatical decline. The second article discusses a similar theme, that texting does not hurt the spelling or grammar of kids. The abstract also notes that internet language has not led to a decline in grammatical skills.

Next, each chat group member had to read a different research article, based on where their last name falls academically. The article I read was called “The Effect of Text Messaging on 9-and 10-year old Children’s Reading, Spelling, and Phonological Processing Skills”.

Additionally, we had to conduct a one hour chat with our chat group. To start the chat, we had to tell the other members of the group about our research article we read. This included the study’s methodology, the major results, and what those results mean. We had to finish by concluding what all of the studies mean, and what we would tell a parent that is concerned about their child using textisms.

Finally, on the discussion board, we had to post a summary of our chat, a transcript PDF, and information about the group members, time and date of the chat.

In our chat, Weiyan’s discussed that her article results were that there is no evidence that knowledge of textisms by pre-teen children has any negative association with their written language competence. My article results were that there were no significant differences in cell phone versus no cell phone groups on measures of spelling, reading, and phonological processing. However, within the cell phone group, use of text abbreviations was associated with increased literacy skills.

From the two studies we talked about, there were no real negative consequences related to textisms that were mentioned. They were either neutral or actually positive in many cases. We thought parents and educators should read these studies and be less worried about their child about using textisms since it will not hurt children’s language development, it could maybe even improve it!

Reflecting on this assignment, it was good to read a few initial articles that all represent similar findings. Consistently reading that texting does not negatively impact language development allowed me to really believe that, because multiple findings backed up the claim.

Additionally, reading a different article than other chat group members was good because it allowed us to compare and contrast the different studies. Even though they were about the same general topic, the methods weren’t identical and they weren’t testing the exact same variables. So, comparing articles allowed me to think critically and try to draw conclusions that could represent both studies!

I also thought it was good to include the part about parents who are worried about the negative effects of texting. Older generations, as well as the media, constantly talk about texting in a negative way, how it is taking up all of our time and making people less smart. However, the articles we read showcase that there are not cognitive disadvantages from texting. If I am ever confronted about texting by an older relative, I can now tell them about the results of these studies!

Additionally, talking about the results of studies with other people is good, because it provides new perspectives and facilitates learning. Chatting with Weiyan once again allowed me to learn about her as well as about the class material, and I look forward to our next chat!

This assignment began by reading a portion of an article written by professor Gernsbacher. Next, we had to make a discussion board post, speculating why research surveys conducted via text message rather than conducted via telephone are more accurate. More specifically, we had to describe why we think respondents are less likely to straightline, why we think respondents are less likely to satisfice, and why we think respondents are less likely to fall prey to socially desirable responding.

Professor Gernsbachers article segment starts by describing that the internet is manifesting the desire for writing instead of speaking. However, there has not been very much research on internet-based communication. However, Schober and Conrad moved their studies to the internet and phones, and have found out that surveys through text message tend to be more accurate than surveys over a phone call.

More specifically, over text, participants are less likely to straightline, or respond similarly to a grouping of items. Additionally, they are less likely to satisfice or round off answers. Finally, they are less likely to use socially desirable responding, or answering in ways that make them look good.

In my discussion board post, I thought that over text, people are less likely to straightline because they don’t feel as if they are rushed to answer the questions. When talking on the phone, if asked a question, you have to think of an answer quickly, and if you don’t you may worry about being judged. So, you may respond similarly to many questions so you don’t risk taking too long to think about your answers. However, over text, you have as much time as you want to respond, and it doesn’t feel as much like you are making someone wait, so people likely answer more realistically rather than giving repetitive responses.

I think one reason that respondents over text are less likely to satisfice is that they don’t feel as rushed as on a phone call, just like for the straightline issue. A second reason could be that people don’t know the answers right off the top of their head, so they have to give an estimate. Answering over text gives people the opportunity to find more exact information, since they may not know it off the top of their head, or may feel too rushed to think clearly. 

I think text interviews would diminish socially desired responding because it feels like no one is speaking to them directly. They know they are answering a question, but in a sense, they don’t feel like they are talking directly to a human, so they aren’t as worried about being judged. It also makes it feel more anonymous, which generally allows people to be comfortable with telling the truth.

Reflecting on this assignment, it was really interesting to learn that changing the method of interviewing could lead to much more accurate results! This makes sense in concept, but I had never thought about it before. I had always pictures interviews for research to take place in person or over the phone. This assignment painted a new picture for research interviews, and it should be used more in the future.

Additionally, it was useful to discuss 3 relevant research terms. I am very familiar with socially desirable responding and straightlining, but reading about them gave me another chance to review them. I did not actually know what satisfice meant, so that was nice to learn, and can apply to research in which participants give their own answers.

Also, rather than taking information right from the article, it was nice that this assignment gave me the chance to speculate on my own about why text interviews led to these better outcomes. This allowed me to use my critical thinking skills, and use my knowledge from courses such as research methods as well as my life experiences.

This allowed me to learn some new information, review some old information, and connect different concepts together. This was definitely valuable to complete!

This assignment started out by requiring me to read all of the other chat groups’ summaries of their unit 3 chats. Next, we had to reply to the group that identified challenges and solutions most similar to our group. Finally, we had to reply to the group that identified challenges and solutions least similar to our group.

The group I responded to that was the most similar was group Y, including Brittany, Erin, and Subin. Their 3 challenges were large lecture format, textbook prices, and tuition prices. My group’s 3 challenges were textbook prices, class size, and lack of sleep, although tuition price was one of the problems we tried to address, but could not think of a realistic solution. 

For textbooks, we had similar ideas to gives students access to free, online textbooks. They also brought up the option of cheap, hands-on textbooks which I thought was a good idea.

For large lecture format,  it was a great idea that they had to use quiz questions in class to make sure the students were keeping up with the material. Both their group and our group agreed that online learning in some capacity could help solve this issue.

For tuition, they decided their solution was to cut it in half. While I liked their ambition, I have no idea how they expected to make this work, as they didn’t provide any ideas of how to achieve this goal.

However, overall, group Y identified similar challenges as well as similar solutions! I think they did a great job.

The group I responded to that was the least similar was group Z, with Holly, Stella and Valerie. Their 3 challenges were over-reliance on lecturing, classes that don’t take place during optimal learning times, and laptop misuse during lecture.

For over-reliance on lectures, their solutions included workshops or training sessions for professors, and brief in-class discussion periods. I thought that these were great ideas, just very unrelated to what was discussed in my group.

For class times taking place when optimal for students, the solutions included having multiple lecture time options. Once again, I think this was a solid idea. It somewhat relates to our lack of sleep problem, where we want classes to start later in the day to ensure a good night of rest.

For laptop misuse during class, their best solution was to have a campus-wide requirement that laptop users be designated to a certain part of the lecture hall. Although I didn’t see this as a huge issue on campus, it is an effective solution, as I have seen it done in certain courses.

Reflecting on this assignment, it reflects yet another example of distributed learning. This is the fourth or fifth assignment regarding college challenges. Reading about the issues as well as the solutions will allow me to think about these issues, talk to others about them, and retain the information for a long time.

Additionally, it was valuable to respond to groups that were the most familiar as well as the least familiar. Often times, we are drawn to those who are similar to us, but interacting with those with different opinions allows us to grow as people and see things from new perspectives.

This assignment was fairly quick and fairly simple, so there is not very much detail to add. However, it was still good to complete, and allowed me to compare opinions and interact with others!

This assignment began with reading an article titled “How To Email A Professor”. Next, we had to show this article to 5 other college students. We then had to keep track of which suggestions each student was most familiar with prior to reading the article, and which suggestions each student was least familiar with. Finally, we had to post on the discussion board the initials of each of the 5 college students, and which suggestions they were most and least familiar with.

The 9 suggestions from the article were to use your university email account, use your professor’s last name in your salutation, start with a new message, write an informative subject heading, do not address a professor by their first name unless they have explicitly instructed you to do so, write grammatically, spell correctly, and use appropriate capitalization, use paragraph breaks to help organize your message, don’t use e-mail to rant or whine, and write the body of the email message first; fill in the address in the to: line last.

I explained in my discussion board post that I showed the article to 3 friends from UW Madison, and 2 friends from other universities. My 3 friends from UW have the initials of TS, MB, and NC. My two friends from other schools include MP, who goes to the University of Chicago, and PK, who goes to UIC. 

TS told me that he was the least familiar with recommendations 1 and 2, about using your university email account and using the professor’s last name in a salutation. He told me he was very familiar with suggestions 3 through 9.

MB told me that he was least familiar with number 8, about ranting or whining over email. He was most familiar with number 6, about writing grammatically and using proper spelling. 

NC said that he was least familiar with number 9, about filling the body of an email first before filling in the address. He was most familiar with number 1, about using your university email account. 

MP told me he was very familiar with all 9 recommendations! He is a very intellectual guy, so this did not surprise me very much. 

PK claimed he was least familiar with number 9, about filling the body of an email first before filling in the address. He said he was very familiar with the other 8 recommendations. 

Reflecting on this assignment, it was nice to read an article about how to email professors, since it is a topic that is very prevalent to college students. For me, even though I have heard all 9 of these suggestions before, I still violate some of them sometimes. For example, sometimes I forget to start with a new message sometimes, instead of replying in an old email conversation I had with a professor. So, this was a nice recap, and will likely lead me to mess up less in the future.

Additionally, it was nice to interact with other college students outside of the course. First, sharing the suggestions with them may have led them to learn something they didn’t know, which would be great! Second, it is just nice to see the different perspectives they have. Even though I know the people that I reached out to very well, some of them had very different familiarity than I would have expected. It was interesting to learn what each of my friends was most and least familiar with.

As mentioned in previous posts, this course never fails to include different types of assignments. Including other college students outside of the course brought in some variety, and made the assignment more enjoyable. I do not know what to expect for future assignments that may be different, but it will be interesting to see what ideas that professor Gernsbacher has to continue to mix things up!

This assignment started out by requiring me to watch a lecture video by professor Gernsbacher, which examined how the internet is changing the way we communicate. Next, we had to read 2 articles, including one by the New York Times. Finally, we had to make a discussion board post explaining if the internet is making communication briefer and less formal, what it means to prefer intransient communication over transient communication, what it means to prefer asynchronous communication over synchronous communication, and describe a situation where there was a preference to communicate asynchronously.

The lecture video began by talking about how common cell phones are these days around the world, and how they are used for everything. However, it was explained that the internet is not making communication less formal, explaining how textual slang dates back centuries. For example, in 1917, Lord Fisher used the phrase “OMG” in a letter to Churchill, and emoticons have been in text since the late 1800s.

Next, it explained that the internet is not making communication briefer, as informal registers for communication have always been around. For example, a letter in 1862 by Victor Hugo just had one character, a question mark, and a short story by Monterroso in 1959 was only 50 characters. Additionally telegrams used to be used for brief and fast communication.

Next, it was explained that we prefer intranscience over transcience. writing is more intransient or long-lasting than spoken communication and can be saved and retrieved later on. Next, it explained that we prefer asynchronous forms of communication over synchronous forms. Writing is usually asynchronous, whereas speech is usually synchronous. The main reason for this is that asynchronous communication is more convenient.

The Jaschik article as short and was just explaining that due to bullying, whiteboards on dorm doors at MSU are no longer permitted. The New York Times article was explaining how texting can be a tool to help kids graduate, apply to college, receive counseling, and more. It should be used more frequently because it is cheap and can even help low income high achieving kids succeed!

In my discussion board post, I explained first that the internet is not making communication briefer or less formal, using the examples I already discussed. I talked about what it means to prefer intransient communication over transient communication, what it means to prefer asynchronous communication over synchronous communication, as described above. Finally, I described a situation where there was a preference to communicate asynchronously. This was that students would much rather email their professor than call them or talk to them in person.

Reflecting on this assignment, watching professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video cleared up a lot of assumptions that people have about the internet. Everyone talks about how the internet has made communication briefer and references textisms, but the video showed how these features have been around since way before the internet. Additionally, everyone talks about how the internet has made everything so informal, but the video also countered this idea with facts. It is nice to hear about these historical truths because most of the public seems to be in the wrong when it comes to certain features of the internet.

Additionally, the video taught me the terms “transcience”, “intranscience”, “synchronous”, and “asynchronous”. I knew that most people tend to prefer long lasting communication over spoken communication, and convenient forms of communication are usually those that are not in-person. However, I did not know the vocabulary that related to these ideas, so I am thankful that this lecture taught it to me!

Also, I thought the New York Times article was very interesting. I know that kids use text messaging a lot, but I never knew the impact that texting interventions could have. Sending text reminders that remind people and give information about colleges can make kids more likely to apply and get in to schools, which is fascinating! If this really is the case, this type of intervention should be utilized more frequently in schools.

This assignment allowed me to confront some stereotypes about online communication, learn some new terms, and learn about a texting intervention that can lead kids to future success. This was full of great content, and I look forward to more assignments like this in the future!

This was the last assignment of unit 3, so it started out with completing the unit 3 review sheet. Next, we had to review the term project instructions, identify 2 possible projects and presentation media, investigate the resources I would need for these different options. Then, I had to post about all of these options and resources on the discussion board. Finally, I had to upload the review sheet as well as the term project options document through an assignment link.

As mentioned previously, the review sheets are cumulative, so I had to input information about units 1, 2, and 3. Unit 1 asked about previously feared technologies that are no longer feared, so I included the written word, chess, the phonograph, newspapers, novels, umbrellas, bicycles, pencil erasers, and pocket calculators. Unit 2 asked about the 5 fundamental principles of learning in which higher education capitalizes, which I included that it can lead to better mastery, can optimize performance, can deepen memory, can promote critical thinking, and can enhance writing skills.

Unit 3 asked me to list five challenges that college students face today and how Internet-based education can tackle each challenge. My first challenge was unaffordable tuition costs, which internet-based education can tackle this by creating more MOOC’s, or online courses, that are free or have a low cost to take. My second challenge was expensive textbooks, and internet-based education can tackle this by not requiring textbooks for their courses, or providing all of the necessary materials online for free for all students in the course to access. My third challenge was lack of sleep, and internet-based education can tackle this by setting assignment due dates in advance, allowing students to work at their own pace, rather than working late into the night. If they are tired, they can go to sleep and not have to worry as much about waking up for an early lecture or exam.

My fourth challenge was having classes too early for optimal cognitive functioning. Internet-based education can tackle this through its flexibility, as having all the materials online means that students can work on the course when they are at their own time of peak cognitive functioning. My fifth challenge was the lack of open and accessible education for everyone. Internet-based education can tackle this through the utilization of MOOC’s, or massive open online courses. These courses can be taken by essentially anyone so thousands and thousands can learn from them.

For the course review, my 2 possible projects I listed were the daily journal as well as a detailed overview for middle school or high school students. My 2 possible presentation media were a blog and a website. I investigated the resources I may need for these projects, and I realized I really would just need my computer as well as access to the course website and google.

Reflecting on this assignment, as always it is good to review information from previous units. Going over information from unit 1 and unit 2 allows me to continue to master the concepts we discussed earlier in the semester.

Building off of this, reviewing the current unit was valuable because it was fresh in my mind. Through articles, posts, and chats, we have been very focused on the issues surrounding college in this unit. This review brought this topic back and allowed us to offer solutions to these problems, which made us apply our knowledge to come up with new ideas.

Additionally, limiting my term project to 2 options and 2 media was a good idea because it allowed me to narrow down the possibilities of what I wanted to do. Going one step further, investigating the resources we may need for each project was helpful, because it helped put everything in perspective. For me and my potential options, very limited resources are needed, so I felt confident that I could manage either of the options I ended up choosing.

As I have mentioned before, these review options are not focused on learning new material. They allow me to look back as well as plan for the rest of the course, which I appreciate when I have the time to do that. Rather than jumping right into the next unit, this assignment gave me a smoother transition. I look forward to diving into unit 4!

This assignment revolved around meeting online with our chat group for the first time this semester! This was tied to Unit 3 assignment 1, so we had to start out by listing 3 college-related challenges that have affected our group members the most. For the rest of the chat, we had to design a college system that would limit these 3 challenges. Following the chat, I posted on the discussion board with a summary of our chat. My fellow group member, Weiyan, attached the chat transcript to the discussion board and posted the time, date, length, and names of those who participated in our chat.

The three issues that we decided upon were expensive textbooks, large class size, and lack of sleep. Our college system included ideas to fix all of these, or at least limit their effects. Additionally, it is important to note that high tuition was one of the highest on our lists, but we couldn’t think of a realistic way to lower tuition.

For the issue of expensive textbooks, using e-textbooks instead of textbooks was our fix. In our system, the university would cover the costs of these e-textbooks, so students would have access to all of the textbook materials online, for free. We figured that universities have enough money to cover these costs and that it would be less stressful for students.

For our second issue of large class size, we decided that for elementary level courses, we would use well-designed online courses instead of in-person courses. This way, there would be many more professors to teach the higher level courses, while the number of students stays relatively the same. In this system, the class sizes would go down, because the students could be split into many more classes than what was originally available, because of the change in the number of professors. 

For the issue of sleep, our system would have classes no earlier than 11 AM each morning. This would allow all the students to get their rest, and come to class ready to learn. This could lead students to improve their health while also being able to focus more in class since they wouldn’t be as tired. 

Reflecting on this assignment, first of all, it was exciting to participate in the chat for this course for the first time! It is always interesting to converse back and forth with those online, and this course is no exception. Compared to just posting on the discussion board and having people read it later on, this chat function allowed for immediate feedback which was nice!

This also was a good experience to start bonding with my fellow classmate in my discussion group. By discussing college issues as well as potential fixes, Weiyan and I were able to learn more about each other and what we want to improve in the college education system. For example, it required us to work through different ideas and find out where we agree and where we disagree, which lead to some growth in our group bond.

This also was another example of covering the same content multiple times. We interacted with these topics in unit 3 assignment 1 as well as unit 3 assignment 3, so this was our third time in which we either read about, posted about, commented on, or chatted about issues prevalent in college. I am super confident that I will be able to retain my knowledge on these issues going forward.

We are still early on in the course, with many different chats left to go. I look forward to chatting about different topics and growing closer to my chat group throughout the process!