I possess strengths of motivation and organization that will help me succeed in online learning at OSU. However, in some classes I tend to procrastinate, which for me is a result of indecisiveness over which task to complete first. The less urgent tasks are set aside for more urgent tasks. Eventually the non-urgent become urgent as deadlines approach, in which case everything becomes urgent! I believe motivation and procrastination are not mutually exclusive tendencies, however one does hinder the other. To avoid this conflict in the future I plan on using the SMART goals model. This model promotes accountability to one’s self and helps avoid procrastination.

Tools that I can use with my learning style include OSU’s Table Top study groups for math and science, Khan Academy (I created an account and have been working through videos and practice problems), and drawing more diagrams, tables, and charts to help with the retention of the materials I am studying.

As mentioned above, I plan to use the Table Top study sessions on campus. In addition, through the Academic Success Center I can have access to academic coaches who can help with goals setting and attainment, as well directing me to other University resources I may be unaware of. I am drawn to these resources because they allow for personal and casual interaction. Each resource has a specific mission so it is nice to know where to turn when I need help in a particular area.

In the Smart Goal exercise for this week I outlined short and long term goals. One was related to a single class, and one was related to preparing for graduate school. To help me set these goals this term I spent time evaluating my interests and desires while balancing them with reality. Due to my work schedule and family dynamics (busy middle-schoolers and a partner who is in a career transition herself), I decided smaller steps are needed as I work towards my goals. The time to completion will be a bit longer, but smaller steps will assure that I arrive successfully.

I have found that my strengths as an online learner have be my diligence and lack of procrastination.  I do have to admit there were several projects that came down to the wire but it had to do with time constraints and pressure to commitments to the outside world. I have had to say No a lot, but it does become more and more difficult as the term progresses. Taking what I have learned about time constraints I plan to be more active in my planning of my term from the beginning. Before the first day of class I will set a rough schedule for the term in conjunction with work and family.

I am creating a new office where i can establish the ideal learning environment for myself. Next term will hopefully be a lot smoother when I do not have to hunt for places to get work done.

I am still not sure about how I feel about resources available to me from OSU, honestly I love my adviser and she has been very helpful with my success so far. I really do feel I am out here on my own, but I know that is more of my doing. If I do need assistance I now know where to look. The areas I am most interested in take up more time that I am able to give at this point in my life. I am looking forward to contributing to my school upon completion of my degree.

My goal for next term is to not lose focus. I recently got one of my top 3 jobs I wanted upon graduation. I was not prepared to start working full time before the completion of my degree, but I have to. I could not pass up this opportunity and I cannot miss out on receiving my degree, I am one year one term away. My plan is to not look to receive all A’s like I have in the past but to push for strong B’s and be ok with C’s. This is very hard for me, but I need to find a balance with the two. Next term is full time work, full time family and full time school; if I am to take this on I have to be realistic and evaluate what my priorities are at the beginning of the term. I am taking this summer off from school, and next fall I will evaluate if it is possible based on how difficult spring term is.

Good luck all in your future ventures!

I’m glad I took this class this term. It has helped me a lot. I was not good at managing me time. I got a clear goal in mind now. If I don’t use what I learned in this class, I will not be able to get my degree in a timely manner. I will be useing the library services a lot more while I’m getting my degree here at OSU. I don’t remember while I got my first degree if they had a Library that I could use. I’m sure that they did, but I did not know about it.

As an online learner, my ability to work independently, stay on-task, and seek help when needed are all strengths that work in my favor. Although I am a strong reader and able to manage my time pretty effectively (who knew?!), I still need to work on how I take notes and absorb information. I’ve discovered that writing things down with pen and paper works well with my learning style, but also takes a whole lot of time, so that is the main area I want to improve… remembering that even though it takes more time, it is necessary (and saves time when I’m trying to prep for exams)! I don’t think that I would have examined my learning style or what ways I could change my current systems to improve my learning if it weren’t for this class:)
I have also learned that sometimes I need to “revisit” how I’m doing things… I will be checking in with the online study tips each term to be sure I’m doing what I need to and remembering to apply what I’ve learned about my own learning style and preferences.
I will absolutely be using many aspects of the library services for assistance with my academic experience… everything from future research papers to finding online articles for classes! I’m also going to utilize some of the printable calanders next term to help manage my time more efficiently!
I didn’t know how long I had until I could earn my degree or how I was going to balance the different aspects of my life. By thinking about my goals – both long-term and short-term, I was able to prioritize what is really important to me, and what I can change/let go. I’ve also taken steps to determine when I can realistically complete my degree and what I need to do to accomplish that goal! Just having that goal, and a date to look forward to helps to keep me focused and determined!
The tips and discovery of online resources through this course have been so valuable, but I think that the introspective aspects of the class… thinking about my learning style and my goals have had an even bigger impact on me as not just an online student, but as a person!

Making the Most of My Education

When I started this course I would say I had very few strengths that would help me in online learning. I had taken a few online classes and made it through. I knew how to participate and what was expected and what to expect. I believe that my biggest improvement was in time management. It is nice being given a week to accomplish assignments but when it comes down to it you have to put in the time, or the quality of work I put my name on suffers. I want to put forth my best work all the time and not do partial work. I plan to use the research techniques and time management skills to help support my future classes. I believe that the surveys we took covering our learning styles helps me out in understanding how to approach all assignments.

I plan on trying to get as many resources like books or objects I can put my hands on to feed my learning style. I believe that over the next few years as I am taking classes and progressing toward my degree in the online environment that my learning styles will change some. I have already seen changes from high school to now in the fact that I enjoy reading.

I plan to use the OSU library the most. After our live chat I really think that there are some great tools to explore there. I understand that the OSU website is designed to cover every type of information for all degrees and support but there are so many ways to get lost. I really hope that I can become more efficient at the main page and get to where I need to be. I learned from our scavenger hunt how difficult it can be to find a resource if you are not completely sure what you are looking for. I hope that I am not alone on this frustration. I believe that my advisor is a great help for getting started in the right direction.

I do not have a clear goal any more. I started this term dead set on how I saw the next year of academics going and where I should be by the next New Year. After this class started I was taking an additional class in my local community college and was forced to drop the class for a conflict with work and timing. So that threw me off from the start. After going through a few weeks of this class I was still focused and planned on taking the class I dropped in the summer semester. Now over the past 2 weeks I have yet again been thrown in the deep end with no life jacket. OSU has not signed the memorandum of understanding with the government for military tuition assistance. They had until March 1^st to sign, or they will no longer accept military tuition assistance. Well according to my education office yesterday they still have not signed the memorandum of understanding. So I will probably not be attending OSU any more. I am exploring more options and other schools to attend. This is a very upsetting thing to happen and has changed my view on school and education yet again. For me I almost don’t have the drive to continue scrounging around to find what will work. I have to step back and rethink my approach and find out what is best for me and my family.

I could have sworn I left a post on this…but I guess here it goes again.  Well, I have no experience with bloggs or discussion forums and I think that the way we communicate in the present time keeps more and more people connected.  The only thing is we are all missing the face time and the face to face interaction between people.  If I had to choose between bloggs or forums…I would choose forums.  I have been told by friends that they talk more and find out more on forums than bloggs.  I still like to actually write out a letter or two to family.  Its a style that is going the way of the dodo.  Just curious…who here still writes letters with pen or pencil?

I just have to share this, hope you don’t mind, one of the least common perks I get from working at a wildlife rehabilitation center. Our goal is to keep them wild and get them back out to nature, so opportunities for bonding are few and far between. Only when an animal is deemed appropriate for education after it is decided it cannot be released, do you ever have a chance to get to know a wild animal on a different level.

Currently, we have a non-releasable raccoon that we are training to help place and a brown pelican that did not heal from a broken wing sufficiently enough to be released. This bird is my focus 🙂 He is a diva, would you believe it? He is not friendly where you can walk up and hug him, but he has started sitting on a high perch at one end of the flight and begs for food whenever you go inside. He is capable of getting down to eat on his own and certainly does so, but today I walked in and he looked down at me, stretched his head toward me and emitted a common vocalization for brown pelis – a kind of prehistoric hissing. What do you want, I asked him? He called out to me again. OK, fine, I answered back. I took a single fish from his bowl and held it high up to him between my fingers, and he stretched his neck a little further, then gently took it from me with the very tip of his massively hooked beak. Three more times we did this until I had to take care of another animal.

What amazes me the most is how dainty and gentle they can be. Believe me, this is not a typical behavior – they might beg for food (juveniles especially), but they have no interest in being nice to you when they are truly wilded up – and I have the scars to prove it! However, we have had this bird for quite some time and he came to us shortly after arriving from his travels away from the breeding grounds in the Channel Islands. It is amazing to see one of these birds dive, to sieve the water from their pouches and swallow their catch, to know how determined they are to survive (these birds are incredibly resilient), and then to have one ask you to so gently share with it a basic necessity – it’s a rarity that can really put things in perspective (and kinda makes your day). 🙂

Let us not speak of today’s math midterm. Shhh! Don’t speak. Instead, I hope that you and yours are able to have some special time in some special way, and may it be without having to succumb to the incredible price inflation on all things loving and romantic that miraculously settle back down tomorrow 🙂 I am not against romance, just being forced to pay for it! My youngest son so simply put a small heart sticker on my forehead after giving me a hug and telling me he loved me, and I wore it proudly until it fell off. How simple was that? Honestly, I hope everyone has had a great week and really do get to enjoy yourselves today!

(Also, I just published this and it says 2/15, but I swear it is still the 14th. I doubled checked!)

When thinking about this question, I initially was leaning toward the discussion board as the format I preferred more.  I was thinking that it was more organized in structure, but then I realized that the discussion board was actually sort of clunky in the way that you have to navigate up and down, back and forth, in order to  read the various threads and replies, while the format of the blog displays and lists all of the replies and the entirety of the thread on a single page in one chronological progression. I like this more. It’s easier for me to follow the discussion this way, where I don’t have to navigate back to some previous post, searching hither and yon for some statement of fact or opinion that I vaguely remember the point or basis of.  I would agree that the discussion board seems  more disciplined in terms of moderating or maintaining the topic of the discussion. But why can’t a blog be maintained with that same standard?

Blogs offer much more freedom, I think. You can submit your own topics, or spins on topics, and you don’t necessarily expect a response (even though it’s often nice to hear from people since you are posting something in the first place). You are just sharing your thoughts and feelings, even if there are some basic guidelines. Discussion boards are more about staying on a specific task, creating threads that purposefully facilitate discussion with others, and assuming response because of the hope of discussion. Depending on the subject matter, discussion boards can be more intimate because they are confined to specific people, while blogs are generally a public format. I feel I write differently in these blogs than I do in discussion threads, though my general voice is the same. I think blogs also might make one feel like they have to think of more to say to make it a meaningful post. It makes me think of my husband, who tends to be quite colorful and dramatic in his choice of words when writing – and he would be more so while blogging, while reigning that in a bit if he was on a discussion board (although it never really goes away – he can make a grocery list sound like a poem!).