Online Interaction

I feel that the blog posts are very effective for our class. However, I do not believe that they are necessarily physical conversations outside the classroom. I would assume that if no one was required to write blog comments that they would not occur very often. Although I am glad that we are required to do them because of their helpfulness, they still do not seem to strike any real conversation. Personally, when I comment on blog posts I do it so that I can receive the credit and to give my peers in the class good compliments on their writing and my own opinion on what they say. I do not mind giving comments either although I do not believe that they serve as a good way to start an interesting conversation. I feel that the blog comments are only really statements that we make to each other complementing our work. A conversation could possibly be started, I guess; however, I do not think that that happens very often. Most of us state what we need to then just let it be. We write a few compliments and constructive sentences and are done. I usually write what I agree with that the writher of the blog said then tell them that they did a great job because everyone always does. Personally, I do not really ever converse with others that have made comments on my blog or other peoples blog. When I have to do my comments, I pick two people at random, read their blogs and then comment on what I took from reading what they thought. Although I do not believe that blogs start conversation, I do find them very helpful because it is nice to see what people have to say, and I feel like they are very honest in their opinions and give good compliments. I also like to see what other people have written for the same topic.

If I had to choose between blogs and forum discussions, I would most defiantly choose blogs because I like them a whole lot better. They are more beneficial to me because I like to write and express my own knowledge; whereas, I feel like in forum discussions we are more asked to read and respond rather than tell what we think or know.  I am a great deal better at writing what I am thinking or giving my own insight on a subject than I am at reading comprehension and responding to texts.  The forum discussions are not very interactive to me and defiantly a lot less interactive than the blogs. Although it is possible to comment on people’s forum responses, not many people do that; thus, making the forums not very interactive.

Altogether, I think that the all of the online interaction we have had has been successful. Even though I do not think much has occurred other than what we are required, I think that everyone pays attention to what they read and works hard to give effective feedback.

Qualitative Research Concerns

            I feel that I might be somewhat more prepared to write this research paper because I have done one before. In my junior year of high school we had to a research paper using MLA format and it had to be at least six pages in length as well; however, we could pick whichever topic we wanted. I do not think that the open ended questions will be difficult to me because we had to do interviews for the paper I did in high school and I did very well with them. Another reason I think that I will have more of an easier time with the questions is because I was also in newspaper and yearbook in high school, and we had to do interviews almost every day. I think that it might be kind of hard for me to stay away from quantitative research because that is the most comfortable form of research for me; it’s not that I have done more of it I just think that it comes more naturally to me to do research that way. It is harder for me to think more in the aspect of understanding why we do the things we do and going in depth on that topic.

            In contrast, I think that I will do quite well on this research paper if I go ahead and get started on it and do not procrastinate. I like writing papers and doing research to support my arguments. I feel that there are endless resources that can be used, and that I need to start using them. I think the best aspects of writing qualitatively will be really grasping how to do it and, once I get into it, being able to go really far in depth in my research and reasoning why a novel was changed into a movie; I want to be able to learn how to research why we did this and learn how to interview to support what I find.

            The main challenge I except to face with this research paper is simply grasping what qualitative is and how I need to do it.  Sometimes it takes me more time to figure out what I am doing than it does actually doing the task. I want to make sure I have a complete understanding of this type of research before I start my paper so that I will not have to redo anything or lose points to a misunderstanding in the directions for this paper. Although I think that interviewing and writing questions will be easier for me, I also think that I may have trouble figuring out who to interview or where to find interviews pertaining to my topic of choice. I plan on doing the Twilight series and how it was put on the big screen because of how popular the books were. I am not sure if I should interview people around campus about the topic or just search the web. I think we should have a forum discussion on this!

Learning

I think that there are times when I can tell that I have learned from an experience and times where lessons were learned but I may not be able to explain it or know that it actually happened. It is more obvious to know when I have learned from a course because the factual knowledge is more comprehendible compared to life lessons. To know that I have learned a lesson, I look at the evidence from similar occurrences that happened post the event where a lesson was learned. In a simple example, after making plans with a friend and her bailing on me twice, I learned to not make plans with her again unless it’s more of a last minute thing. I do not think that it matters what type of learning is occurring as long as leaning does occur in an experience. I feel that on a basic level most of the lessons I learn from experiences in life do not alter my world view. I always learn something, but the lessons are more of something that would carry me through the next similar experience, not something that would completely change my world view. I have only had one experience that I thought would change my worldly view. I went to a Christian church cam in the mountains for a week over the summer and it made me have more of a religious outlook on life and that it made me think that I need to be a better person and give more back to society that I am taking; the feeling lasted for a little while after I left camp; however, after being back at home and getting back into my regular routine of working and being with my friends, who had not been at the camp, I soon went back to the same mindset that I always have had before I left for camp. I have been to this camp four times and have had the same experience every time. I do not know what it would take to make all of those new outlooks stick for me, but I know that it would have to be a lot of determination which I did not have at the times.

I think that similar experiences help me connect to my peer a lot better because it gives a common ground to base conversations on; however, I think it is a lot harder to relate to teachers on that same level because I think of them more as my superiors and not my equals so I do not necessarily feel that it is a good thing to relate to my teachers on personal of a level. I think that everyone learns in a different way and some people may be able to relate to each other better because of that common ground and for other it may be more difficult. I do not judge the way other people learn and I feel that others do not judge me, mostly. The evidence of learning can defiantly be communicated outside of class just as well as inside class to me. To the only difference is being in a classroom setting.