Thoughts about Assignments

I have only had one online class before, and so far it seems to be nothing like this course. Although the other class consisted of readings, videos, and commenting on others' posts, it was far less interactive than this class seems to be. I've had to blog for other classes before, but I rarely really used my blog besides a couple assignments. For this class, I'm excited about the storytelling assignment. I used to really enjoy writing, but have noticed I enjoy it less since arriving to college where almost all my writing assignments have been research papers. I am looking forward to being able to write creatively again. Honestly, though, the extra credit options seem the most interesting to me. I am particularly excited about the Tech Tips, Wikipedia Trails, and HEART options. I am not very tech-savvy, so I think Tech Tips will be beneficial for me. I think Wikipedia Trails looks interesting because there have been many times I have found myself clicking through links in articles and ending up on an article that is seemingly completely unrelated to the one I started on. I haven't heard of HEART, but I enjoyed learning about Growth Mindset, so it seems like it's something I will enjoy researching.

Heart by Kevin Dooley. Source: Flickr

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Story Lab: TED Talk Videos

For this Story Lab, I watched Ted Talks about stories and storytelling . The first video is the TED Talk of a woman named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Nigeria. From a young age, she has been a storyteller. She read foreign books for much of her childhood and based the stories she wrote based on what she read in these books. She eventually discovered books and she learned that writers could look like her. When she came to university in the United States, her roommate was surprised to learn Nigeria has English as an official language and that she was familiar with many of the comforts of American life. She believes people like her roommate have a view of Africans because of writing that portrays them as living in a dark place. When Chimamanda wrote a book, her professor told her the book was not "African enough" because the characters were similar to him, a middle-class man, and they drove cars. When she visited Mexico, she realized she saw the people there as poor immigran...

Tech Tip: Word Counter

This word counter is so helpful! I usually go to a word counter website and write my text in there, then copy and paste it. This extension makes it easy to just write where I will posting my text so I don't have to flip between tabs. I usually am worried about meeting the minimum word count, but I usually don't have an issue hitting, I am just afraid that I won't. I think I am generally bad in estimating numbers in general, so I probably would be very off in my estimate if I just tried tried to guess how long my writing is.

Time Strategies

For this class, I think what will be most helpful is setting "class times" for myself. Since there are no set meeting times, I can give myself times set aside solely for this course instead of just working on it during my homework time. The first article I read was Amanda Oliver's " Time Management Tips Just for Creatives ." While most tips in this article were written for creative careers such as artists or designers, many of them can be applied to an academic environment. A couple that stuck out to me that I think I will be able to use in my classes this semester are to manage your energy instead of just managing time and to start with the most daunting task while ending with your favorite task. I also read the article " 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time ." The best tips that are applicable to this course are to schedule and prioritize. The article that resonated with me most, however, was " How to Beat Procrastination ." Th...

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