I apologize for being so blunt but I am not going to try to sugar coat it like most of you have; I found this class to be more or less unhelpful. Indeed I came to every class I could trying not to miss a single one (I believe I failed to show up entirely twice) but it was not out of excitement for the class. I have a policy for not skipping class; I know being a college kid thats a paradox, but I find that if I am going to be paying about a hundred dollars per class I might as well go to them. There were of course times where I learned; you cannot go to a class three times a week and not learn a thing, but I would of done better studying for another class.
The lectures were somewhat useful but only to an extent. The professor was upbeat and energetic, perfect qualities in order to engage people in discussion of topics, but sometimes things came up short. Most of what was said in class was just a summary of the book, same as most classes, but the lectures didn't go into much depth, just an explanation of the information. There was of course some discussion of the topics earlier in the year when we had the time but as the year started winding down We had less time and it just seemed that we were being talked at. This was in large part due to the professors injuries; I'm not trying to blame her because of it but it was what caused a lot of classes to be canceled. When there was discussion, the ones talking were usually the same half of the class, and being a small class of about twenty, on communication no less, You would expect everyone to participate equally; I'm not saying that some didn't participate, I'm just saying that some did more than others, while some wouldn't let others participate and dominated the conversation, and this was allowed. On top of all this a lot of the information presented in the lectures was repeated. The last three or four chapters were all on the same topic. I think it would of been more productive to combine all those chapters into maybe one weeks worth of classes, rather that the multiple weeks that we did spend on it.
The usage of technology in the classroom via blogger and Facebook was a great idea, however I would of liked it to of been less heavily relied on. Being in college, we are constantly on some sort of electronic networking group and accessing this truth was genius on the professors part; the way it was done, however, seemed to be a little bit less useful than at first thought. The fault in the blogger account was a small and simple one, yet caused a massive amount of problems. The thing with blogger was that not a great many students had used it before this class and were required to obtain yet another account to keep track of. Most students have an unnecessary amount of accounts with different websites, and it can get confusing. With Facebook, twitter, and all the other social networking websites out there that the students have been checking constantly, adding another one to check would be hard. It becomes a habit to do certain things once logged on, for me its check email, then elms, then Facebook, and then play Robot Unicorn Attack. Because this is so ingrained in my mind, it becomes hard to just add another thing and not think about it. I have to actively remember to sign on for a couple of weeks to actually check without thinking, and the blog is not exactly updated every day. Because of its stagnancy at times, one becomes bored with the webpage and forgets about it. It is usually around that time that something important happens on the blog and I miss it. I may only forget to check for a day or two but that makes all the difference, as a lot of projects' parts were due within the next two days that they were assigned. The addition of a Facebook group was a good way to get around this; however, I was never invited to it and also was never able to find it so as to sign myself up, making it, for me at least, a useless attempt to communicate, failing due to too much interference (see I did learn some things).
If I walked away with anything from the class it was that even if technology can be fickle, it is a great resource that has a lot of great uses. Through the use of blogger we were able to get our views and what we learned out on the internet for all to see. Though many forms of technology, we were able to create our own presentations in a unique and interesting way. And finally, the TED talks all were very interesting, helpful, and gave me something productive to do when bored.
The class as a whole, students and professor, were all well prepared to work every day, and the class seemed to be productive to an extent, but I found that it could of been better.
Bang!
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