Fall Semester Reflection

Do you read your colleagues’ work online?  How often? What is it like to read their work? How does being able to see everyone’s work online at any given time change the way you do your work?

-I do read my other colleagues work online maybe 4-8 times a week. The way it changes my work is that I’m able to compare their ideas to mine and possibly look at the assignment in a different way because of their understanding of it.

How has the publicly and always visible course blog made this course different from one without a blog?  How would the course change if the course blog disappeared tomorrow?

-The blog has enlightened me in the sense that I thought that it would be the same as just writing out my paper and handing it in like my other teachers without blogs that can only lecture us at one given point during the day while Dr. Preston gives us information outside of class time that is relevant to the course. If the course blog were to disappear then I would probably flip my computer because of all of the blog work I have done. I would have no idea what to do, and I think that Dr. Preston would go back to our old ways of writing on the board like how Sophomore year was and we’d be taking some steps backward.

Has publishing your work for the public to see changed your approach to completing an assignment? How so?  How would your feelings about the course change if you couldn’t publish your work that way?

 -Publishing my blog for the public has made me more aware of the fact that people are viewing my work. I have to have more integrity in order to complete these assignments to my fullest capabilities because everyone is viewing it and seeing my standards. If I couldn’t publish my work that way I feel like I’d be wasting a lot of paper for all those assignments.

Has your experience of the physical classroom changed because of the open & online aspects?  Where does your learning actually happen? 

 -My view of the physical classroom has not changed because I still believe that all the real magic happens there because I can hear more perspectives and be able to ask direct questions with an automatic response. However, I do think that all my actual learning happens when I’m comparing my points with other students by viewing their blogs online.

You were described in the Macarthur Foundation/DML  interview as “a pioneer”— how do you describe the experience on the edge to people who haven’t been there (friends and family)?

 - This class is not for people who think they can get by by just doing the work and posting it on the blog, you need to be active in making sure you help make a better understanding of the assignment. You need to take the assignment beyond the average because DP is expecting so much of us.
 However, if you want to try to hack the curriculum with us there is plenty of room for success and collaboration is open-source learning in which everyone helps each other out.

How do they respond when you describe the brave new world in which you’re working?

-Whenever I tell my mom about whats going on in this class she’s always assuming that I just slack off and that there’s just assignments posted online. When I showed her she was highly impressed with how all of the students were learning as a whole instead of being on their own time in a dark room with a big ass textbook.

What do their responses mean to you?  What effect(s) (if any) do they have on you?

-I think it shows them how innovative and creative the youth actually is, we play a big part in society and the adult-half of society thinks that its like pulling teeth to get us to learn when in all reality we can show them something new like this course. I feel like my confidence is boosted based on how much I impress people with our new way of learning.