Finally!

I took this class to finish up my business school requirements. I’ll just say that it was a huge mistake to put it off to the very last possible minute (aka my last semester). I dunno, maybe some of you really did get something significant and usable out of this class, I just don’t think I did. Andi I promise you that despite my absences I never lost track of the class, in fact I worked diligently to stick with the class despite everything else going on in my life (none of which the University would have approved of I think).

I’ll start off with what I liked:

1. Prezi – many, many thanks for the introduction to this great tool. I’ll definitely be using this in the future.

2. The class blog – I had a love/hate relationship with this thing. What I did like about it was that it was a nice departure from the somewhat one-way street of Blackboard

3. The guest speakers/TED lectures – My favorite was Lisa Rowan. She probably had the most practical advice in terms of the class and presenting/speaking. My own personal TED recommendation: The 3 A's of Awesome

4. The fact that my group still communicates through our Facebook group. The class Facebook group was ok, definitely left something to be desired but it was a good attempt. I don’t think this should be any reflection on you Andi since this feature of Facebook is/was new to everyone.

5. Andi you were definitely relatable and down to earth. I really did appreciate that. I have had so many professors that could give less of a sh*t about their students and have genuinely made zero effort. Even though that 11^th hour class cancellation was less than awesome, I commend you for sticking with the class and doing your best to keep it on track.

The dark side of COMM107 this semester:

1. The content: I think everyone in this class could have benefited more from frequent speaking (i.e. students presenting short speeches) and then analysis of those speeches. I don’t think it’s really necessary to know the technical terms of eye contact (I mean really who cares… no one in the real world refers to it as ocalics) or psychological vultures (seriously?).

2. The grading: I still don’t understand how I achieved the grades I did (or how some others achieved their grades either – no offense!) or how I will be graded for participation (that’s more because I don’t understand how you will quantifying our contributions). The blog posts too – like many things grading just seemed so arbitrary and we couldn’t even discuss our grades if we wanted to because we have no idea where they are coming from.

3. The Facebook group – I personally think I should never have to rely on Facebook as much as I did for this class. I never ever got a response to any of my emails but lord knows if I slacked on checking my Facebook I could miss some serious information. I don’t even use Facebook like that. It isn’t a terrible idea and I appreciate the effort to stay modern but there’s gotta be a better way…

4. The blog – I read every single post on this blog. I even read every single post on the other class’ blog (ok I know that’s overkill but seriously I did). I think I may have fallen woefully short of the one comment a week assignment but as someone else said – forced commenting sucks. It really sucks. I could speak to anyone in the class about their topics but I feel like just because I didn’t comment on their posts, I apparently don’t care? Far from the truth but oh well.

5. The slides for this class kind of fell short. I know that you may not be teaching this class for the rest of your career at UMD but if you are teaching for at least 2 more semester, I really do recommend making those presentations more interesting. Use prezi or something -- I really mean no disrespect by this but I kind of thought it was hypocritical of you to engrain the idea of making our presentations interesting but the presentations you used were far from.

6. Last but not least – I take issue with the final question on our final. We have not really been asked to analyze a speech for the entire class. Even when we discussed the TED lectures, Andi – you did most of the talking and kind of just told us what to think of the lecture. All that considered, where did that question come from? If you do use a similar question on your next final, please allow the class to watch the speech twice. I am pretty sure I blew that question because I could not collect my thoughts fast enough to answer the questions and still pay attention to Mr. Super G.

800 word post. I hope this helps Andi and that I wasn’t too harsh. Overall I did like this class, don’t know if it helped my public speaking skills but the practice didn’t hurt. Have a great break everyone and good luck in the future!