Reflective Letter
This course, Writing, Research, and Technology, has broadened my knowledge in different areas. Below I will go into further detail about each and also discuss the projects we did this semester.
Writing:
When I signed up for this course, I was nervous about how much writing I would be doing this semester. I was enrolled in six classes, four of them being writing courses. I was prepared to be overwhelmed with work but this course turned out to not be as much as I had orginally expected. Being in this class has allowed me to learn different styles of writing. I learned about different forms such as found poems and micro fictions. We also discussed narrative inquiry A LOT! I really enjoyed taking this class while taking Creative Writing 2. I felt that both classes went well with each other because in both we discussed poetry and short stories. I was able to use my knowledge from both classes to help me complete tasks. I am not very good at writing or analyzing poetry so that was kind of difficult at some points, but I had a good time learning these different techniques.
One of my least favorite parts of this class was the blog writing. I think it was pretty clear that I did not want to read 30 page articles and then blog about them. I couldn't find it in me to read it, analyze it, and write a meaningful blog about it. So it only hurt me in the end, making my blog weak and boring. I tried to make them more exciting once in a while but I wasn't very good at it. However, blog writing was much easier when we were given a topic to write about. Towards the end of the semester when we got to blog freely, I often sat at my computer trying to think of what I could possibly write about that would be significant. Many of the blogs during that time were short but a little more interesting and more laid back.
Also, writing solo vs collaborating was interesting as well. I am not really used to writing with other people. Whenever I have tried previously one person generally takes off with the idea and the others are trying to keep up. I think to avoid this problem, my group and I split up sections and sent them to one another. When it came time for the intro and closing sections, one personal wrote it and emailed it and we each emailed back by adding a sentence or two, editing errors, etc. So in a sense we were writing together. I prefer to write solo, I feel that I can get more done and be less distracted, well obviously right?
Research:
Research is something that i never have really enjoyed to be honest. The word research makes me instantly think of all the projects I had to do in high school and in the beginning of college for gen ed's which consisted of staring at the computer and taking long notes about something you have no interest in. Then when your brain is just about fried from staring at the screen you have to get the energy you need to write a 10 page paper on it. Nothing about that seems pleasurable to me. Research in this class was different though. The basic techniques on the computer were present, but we also did interviews. This was a nice change and it definitely helped. We were able to choose our topic for the project, which made researching it much more interesting. I was able to learn more about interviewing a person in this class and also with my journalism class. It was ironic how much my classes overlapped this semester! The article Like It Was was very helpful in informing us on how to interview someone.
Technology:
I feel that I have a pretty good grip on technology. I am always connected to the the technology world whether it is through my computer, television, or my cell phone. I am constantly up to date with what is happening. In this class I was introduced to Weebly and I was asked to use Twitter and have a blog. I didn't mind this at all. I have had a Twitter for a while now, my brother told me I HAD to get one and at first I absolutely hated it. I never went on it. Eventually I understood it more and began following many celebrities and thought it was neat to see what they were doing. After some time, many of my relatives were on Facebook so they could always see what I was doing and that annoyed me, so I turned to Twitter and used it as an escape. I wrote about my feelings or things that I didn't want to come up during Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family. I began using it on a daily basis, and now I used it constantly. Although I basically knew a majority about Twitter, this class helped me to understand lists and hashtags a little bit more. I will definitely continue to use twitter, so feel free to unfollow me if i take our your feed! haha!
Blogging is also something I have done before. When I was younger I had an Xanga, I wouldn't really say that this counts but I used to write about my best friend or boys I had a crush on, cheesy I know. But anyway from there I used Tumblr and Weebly. Tumblr is only used once in a while, when I really get upset about something or angry. I use it as a way to vent. Weebly on the other hand, as I mentioned before, was strictly for this class. We blogged about readings and about research. I enjoyed the idea of the blog, but I felt like I couldn't really express myself as I can in Tumblr. I'm not sure why I felt this way, I guess it is because I was writing about a reading rather than my life.
Some other technologies that I have become quite familiar with are Windows Movie Maker and Youtube. Every fall for the last three years I have made a video which includes pictures and videos from the summer time. I have so much fun making them and they usually turn out really well. I even made one for my Twitterive. The problem that we faced in our time in the class was converting files to get them onto youtube. Generally when using Windows Movie Maker on my laptop, I have no problem. But that wasnt the case for our oral history assignment. Through trial and error we were able to make it work. I will used what I have learned in this class for the rest of my life.
Twitterive:
This project was hard for me to get started. We were asked to tweet about a familiar place and an unfamiliar place. I chose my bedroom and a hockey rink. Well neither of them really had a very big impact on me and looking back at my tweets I noticed that I always tweet about my feelings. Which include how upset I get at Rowan compared to home in Ocean City. This gave me the idea of writing about my experience, in third person, of going away to college. After come reviews from my teacher and class, we decided that I should change the project and make it more based on the place of Ocean City. So that is what I have done.
I am not totally in love with the idea, although I do love being home in OC. One thing that I did like about this project was the different genres. This semester has helped me to see that I really do enjoy creative writing, it is not time filler like I had previously thought. This project allowed me to use several different genres ranging from poems to stories, lists and pictures, and more! I liked going over these in class because I was able to see other peoples products which gave me ideas of what I could add to mine.
Oral History Project:
This project seemed so much less complex than we were making it out to be. We were stressing for a while about what we were going to do and what direction we were headed in. Once all was said and done, we finished with two great interviews and worked together to make the videos and transcription. Although I felt as though I could have helped out more, I think we worked well as a team on this project.
Collaborative Research Project:
Ugh this project was killer. We started out with a great topic, or so we had thought, and began researching what we wanted to do, meeting together and coming up with surveys and other method of gathering information. We met with our professor who said that we were looking at the wrong part of the topic, we were focusing too much on money and not on food. This cause us to scramble and find another topic, fast. We searched and searched until we found the Slow Food Movement. None of us had any idea what this movement was about so we thought it would be a good topic to research. Our professor approved and we began researching and compiling information. We had very little time to come up with a project, not to mention a majority of it was to be worked on during the weekend of my 21st birthday. It's safe to say that I struggled to get my work done, but I did, I refused to let my group down.
It was kind of difficult to work with one another via email and Facebook. Since I was at home and two of the other 3 girls commute, it was hard to meet up and work on the project. Not to mention the work load that we had for our other classes. But somehow we managed to finish the project and to learn a great deal about the issue. I am planning on using the techniques that we discussed in our project in my life.
Overall:
I have had a really great time in this class. It was nothing that I was expecting and I loved it. I couldn't have asked for a better professor. He really connected with the students and was very animated, making class seem to go by much quicker and pleasurable. Although I wasn't very fond of the blogging and long articles, I really learned a lot about many different things. The projects were very interesting and a little difficult at times but they also broadened my horizon on current issues. I wish that I would have devoted more time to certain parts of this course, I think that towards the end of the semester, having 6 classes started to get the best of me and the stress levels just continues to sky rocket. If I could go back and re-do these projects I'm sure that I would.
Writing:
When I signed up for this course, I was nervous about how much writing I would be doing this semester. I was enrolled in six classes, four of them being writing courses. I was prepared to be overwhelmed with work but this course turned out to not be as much as I had orginally expected. Being in this class has allowed me to learn different styles of writing. I learned about different forms such as found poems and micro fictions. We also discussed narrative inquiry A LOT! I really enjoyed taking this class while taking Creative Writing 2. I felt that both classes went well with each other because in both we discussed poetry and short stories. I was able to use my knowledge from both classes to help me complete tasks. I am not very good at writing or analyzing poetry so that was kind of difficult at some points, but I had a good time learning these different techniques.
One of my least favorite parts of this class was the blog writing. I think it was pretty clear that I did not want to read 30 page articles and then blog about them. I couldn't find it in me to read it, analyze it, and write a meaningful blog about it. So it only hurt me in the end, making my blog weak and boring. I tried to make them more exciting once in a while but I wasn't very good at it. However, blog writing was much easier when we were given a topic to write about. Towards the end of the semester when we got to blog freely, I often sat at my computer trying to think of what I could possibly write about that would be significant. Many of the blogs during that time were short but a little more interesting and more laid back.
Also, writing solo vs collaborating was interesting as well. I am not really used to writing with other people. Whenever I have tried previously one person generally takes off with the idea and the others are trying to keep up. I think to avoid this problem, my group and I split up sections and sent them to one another. When it came time for the intro and closing sections, one personal wrote it and emailed it and we each emailed back by adding a sentence or two, editing errors, etc. So in a sense we were writing together. I prefer to write solo, I feel that I can get more done and be less distracted, well obviously right?
Research:
Research is something that i never have really enjoyed to be honest. The word research makes me instantly think of all the projects I had to do in high school and in the beginning of college for gen ed's which consisted of staring at the computer and taking long notes about something you have no interest in. Then when your brain is just about fried from staring at the screen you have to get the energy you need to write a 10 page paper on it. Nothing about that seems pleasurable to me. Research in this class was different though. The basic techniques on the computer were present, but we also did interviews. This was a nice change and it definitely helped. We were able to choose our topic for the project, which made researching it much more interesting. I was able to learn more about interviewing a person in this class and also with my journalism class. It was ironic how much my classes overlapped this semester! The article Like It Was was very helpful in informing us on how to interview someone.
Technology:
I feel that I have a pretty good grip on technology. I am always connected to the the technology world whether it is through my computer, television, or my cell phone. I am constantly up to date with what is happening. In this class I was introduced to Weebly and I was asked to use Twitter and have a blog. I didn't mind this at all. I have had a Twitter for a while now, my brother told me I HAD to get one and at first I absolutely hated it. I never went on it. Eventually I understood it more and began following many celebrities and thought it was neat to see what they were doing. After some time, many of my relatives were on Facebook so they could always see what I was doing and that annoyed me, so I turned to Twitter and used it as an escape. I wrote about my feelings or things that I didn't want to come up during Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family. I began using it on a daily basis, and now I used it constantly. Although I basically knew a majority about Twitter, this class helped me to understand lists and hashtags a little bit more. I will definitely continue to use twitter, so feel free to unfollow me if i take our your feed! haha!
Blogging is also something I have done before. When I was younger I had an Xanga, I wouldn't really say that this counts but I used to write about my best friend or boys I had a crush on, cheesy I know. But anyway from there I used Tumblr and Weebly. Tumblr is only used once in a while, when I really get upset about something or angry. I use it as a way to vent. Weebly on the other hand, as I mentioned before, was strictly for this class. We blogged about readings and about research. I enjoyed the idea of the blog, but I felt like I couldn't really express myself as I can in Tumblr. I'm not sure why I felt this way, I guess it is because I was writing about a reading rather than my life.
Some other technologies that I have become quite familiar with are Windows Movie Maker and Youtube. Every fall for the last three years I have made a video which includes pictures and videos from the summer time. I have so much fun making them and they usually turn out really well. I even made one for my Twitterive. The problem that we faced in our time in the class was converting files to get them onto youtube. Generally when using Windows Movie Maker on my laptop, I have no problem. But that wasnt the case for our oral history assignment. Through trial and error we were able to make it work. I will used what I have learned in this class for the rest of my life.
Twitterive:
This project was hard for me to get started. We were asked to tweet about a familiar place and an unfamiliar place. I chose my bedroom and a hockey rink. Well neither of them really had a very big impact on me and looking back at my tweets I noticed that I always tweet about my feelings. Which include how upset I get at Rowan compared to home in Ocean City. This gave me the idea of writing about my experience, in third person, of going away to college. After come reviews from my teacher and class, we decided that I should change the project and make it more based on the place of Ocean City. So that is what I have done.
I am not totally in love with the idea, although I do love being home in OC. One thing that I did like about this project was the different genres. This semester has helped me to see that I really do enjoy creative writing, it is not time filler like I had previously thought. This project allowed me to use several different genres ranging from poems to stories, lists and pictures, and more! I liked going over these in class because I was able to see other peoples products which gave me ideas of what I could add to mine.
Oral History Project:
This project seemed so much less complex than we were making it out to be. We were stressing for a while about what we were going to do and what direction we were headed in. Once all was said and done, we finished with two great interviews and worked together to make the videos and transcription. Although I felt as though I could have helped out more, I think we worked well as a team on this project.
Collaborative Research Project:
Ugh this project was killer. We started out with a great topic, or so we had thought, and began researching what we wanted to do, meeting together and coming up with surveys and other method of gathering information. We met with our professor who said that we were looking at the wrong part of the topic, we were focusing too much on money and not on food. This cause us to scramble and find another topic, fast. We searched and searched until we found the Slow Food Movement. None of us had any idea what this movement was about so we thought it would be a good topic to research. Our professor approved and we began researching and compiling information. We had very little time to come up with a project, not to mention a majority of it was to be worked on during the weekend of my 21st birthday. It's safe to say that I struggled to get my work done, but I did, I refused to let my group down.
It was kind of difficult to work with one another via email and Facebook. Since I was at home and two of the other 3 girls commute, it was hard to meet up and work on the project. Not to mention the work load that we had for our other classes. But somehow we managed to finish the project and to learn a great deal about the issue. I am planning on using the techniques that we discussed in our project in my life.
Overall:
I have had a really great time in this class. It was nothing that I was expecting and I loved it. I couldn't have asked for a better professor. He really connected with the students and was very animated, making class seem to go by much quicker and pleasurable. Although I wasn't very fond of the blogging and long articles, I really learned a lot about many different things. The projects were very interesting and a little difficult at times but they also broadened my horizon on current issues. I wish that I would have devoted more time to certain parts of this course, I think that towards the end of the semester, having 6 classes started to get the best of me and the stress levels just continues to sky rocket. If I could go back and re-do these projects I'm sure that I would.
