Week 8: Commenting Review Week

So, in all honesty, I didn't look at any of my comments until this week. After writing a post, I don't really go back to look on what people think of it. I know that that is probably not a great attitude for the class, but that's how it's been. After reading some of the comment I received, I thought that they were all very nice and had good input. I don't believe I'm making good connections with other students in this class through blogs, because all in all, I haven't really had any back and forth conversations. It's really hard to create connections through an online course. I think the comment wall is probably and really good way to fix that, but if there's no effort put in, then it kind of doesn't work. I don't really know how you could improve on this. Maybe if each student was just assigned a buddy for the entire duration of the class, instead of changing every week, students would get a better chance to connect. This would also keep feedback consistent for the storybooks and blog posts.

(Baby Bells. Personal Photo)

Week 8: Writing Review Week

I really don't know what has been my greatest writing success so far in this class. I guess it might be that I'm writing at all. I think it's really helped that I'm actually interested in what I am writing. For instance, I am very much into my storybook for this class. It's something that I feel I can actually write about, and it just makes it that much easier. As I was looking back on my old storytelling posts, I noticed that I actually didn't retell very many stories this semester. It's kind of hard to figure out what my good strategies are when I really wasn't doing the assignment. I do think some weeks it was easier than others to retell a story in my own words. It was very easy to retell stories from units that I really enjoyed, but harder for units that I didn't necessarily understand the language.

(Abandoned Pet 26. Source: deviantart)

Week 8: Reading Review Week

So, I'd like to start off by saying that I am not a very big fan of reading in general. I did though, very much enjoy the reading experiences that I've had thus far in this class. Although it may take some major effort on my part sometimes, I definitely got something out of reading every unit that I chose. I think the thing I like most about our readings is that we, as the student, get a choice of what we want to read. I read many things over the past 7 weeks, and enjoyed almost every one of what I read. In particular I was very impressed by the Aesop Winter and Aesop Jacobs units. I thought it was extremely fun to read about animals in different contexts. I always love stories with animals, and its fun that they always have lessons to go with them.

In all honestly, while reading, I have no note-taking strategies. I really just try to read through all the stories and then sort of pick what I want to write about while I'm reading. It makes it easier that I can just read the stories, and then, by memory, go back and write a blog post on what I enjoyed the most. I would definitely say that after looking back on my reading diaries they help me recall a lot. I don't have a very good memory, especially since I already forgot what I read last week. Being able to go back and click on the Reading Diary label was so much help for this week. I wouldn't be able to pick out what I read without it.

(My Fox Tattoo. Personal Photo)