This term has flew by!  It just seemed like yesterday I was trying to figure out what a google doc was (my wife is so patient with me) and now I am doing one of my final posts of the course.  As a new online learner, these past 9 weeks have shown me that I need to take the initiative and do the assignments as soon as they are available.  Next thing I know it is Friday night and I am trying to make weekend plans, but low and behold there is a discussion board staring me right in the face.  They say the early bird gets the worm, and my worm is a school-free, relaxing weekend enjoying life.  I am also not a great procrastinator, so I have to allot myself extra time to get over any speedbumps.  To all the successful procrastinators out there, I SALUTE YOU!  I have come to realize that my reading comprehension may need some work.  I have to figure out how to be a more proficient reader before I get into my core classes for Earth and Environmental Sciences.  From this class, I have realized the importance of goal setting and To-Do lists.  I utilize both in my professional life and it was a nice realization that the two just mapped right over to online learning.  I have to tell myself that if I write down a task and don’t complete it, that maybe I should break down that task into subtasks.  Progress is progress no matter how big or small!  My strategy of staying ahead of schedule has worked thus far for me, so I will try to continue down that path for as long as I can.  Having a 7:00am to 3:00pm work schedule, two dogs and no TV really makes me able to stay on top of school assignments.  Again to all the students out there who work multiple jobs, have children and work on school well into my bedtime, I SALUTE YOU!  I envy students who get to live on or be in such close proximity to the main Corvallis Campus.  I really missed out on “college life” when attending a traditional school way back when.  I heard it was just like Animal House!  No, but really, I would love to get involved with the KBVR-FM student radio and the Memorial Union Program Council.  Beaver Radio is pretty sweet to listen to as you are studying away (and I think you can make requests).  The Program Council puts on what seems like some pretty cool events on campus.  I think my long term goal is similar to most people:  GRADUATE!  As of now, I am only planning on taking no more than 6 credit hours each term, so my graduation date may be later than most everyone else!  I enjoyed the required reading from the textbook and the Ted Talk video this week.  It was a nice motivation heading into the last few weeks of school.  The speaker had some poignant words that I will keep in my brain bank:  “Choose Now, Choose Well.”  “Living an incredible life is no accident.  You have to do it on purpose.”  With this new chapter in most of our lives, dedicated to online learning, we must all remember that as long as we set clear objectives and goals and maintain positivity, we will all come out successful.  The textbook stated that “We must enjoy the journey of education.”  We have a similar saying in the Gaither household.  On a trip to San Francisco, my in-laws encountered a gentleman by the Golden Gate Bridge that gave them a piece of advice that we have now adopted and continue to pass when out in the world, “Wherever you go. Whatever you do.  Enjoy the journey.”

Cheers,

Justin

The strengths that I have identified in myself really focus on how I am able to learn through various means and specifically how I can take what I have learned in class and apply it to personal projects. This strength is helpful, since if I take a class that requires a lot of writing I am well versed in that field while I can still take that skill and use it when I need to create something for a project.

Surprises that I have encountered in the first two weeks include how easily it is to misrepresent time in my schedule and how little goal setting I have done this term. When I plan out my week, I usually block out time during the evenings that I normally do like cook and exercise. However, I have underestimated how long it takes me to complete assignments in this class. I think I am going to shift from working on an assignment just one day to working on assignments multiple days to ensure I get completed results. As well, this week we learned of one specific type of goal setting, SMART, and in thinking about how I have done goal setting in the past I realized that I haven’t done much of that this year. And while I have general big idea goals, I really haven’t broken down those goals into smaller goals like the book suggests to do. I think I am going to go ahead and schedule some time this week, probably this Tuesday and do that goal setting. One example that immediately comes to mind how I want to have no debt, specifically academic debt in three years, just a year after I will have finished this program in getting a second bachelors in computer science, but I haven’t planned to apply to scholarships or set up a schedule of how I would pay my debt as I worked.

Struggles that represent the challenges of online learning include technological problems and bad time management. I have had some issues recently on getting my web browser to correctly represent different web pages that we use in class. This week when I was navigating to the pearson online tools the pages would not appear on my safari application on my laptop. I also noticed that some of the canvas web pages did not load as quickly or ad all when I used safari. In one case, when I tried to download a specific type of files (python) for my computer science class the files would download in html instead of python. As well, during the week my girlfriend had landed a job interview in a city four hours away on Monday. I was unable to reschedule what I had planned for the weekend and evenings in order to include this new event, where my girlfriend and I had to drive there and back. What is worst, when both struggles, technological and scheduling, happen at the same time it makes getting assignments done harder. As far as resolving this for the future, I plan to only use Firefox for my online classes. I will also start completing assignments on Sunday the first complete day of the week to work on online assignments.

Hello everyone, this is my first blog in this class and my first blog ever. Going into full time online learning has been a little bit harder than I thought it would be. One of the strengths for me when it comes to doing online classes is that I get the freedom of doing my work wherever and whenever I feel like. This has been very nice for me because I have such a busy schedule. This may be my favorite thing about online learning, and it has been very nice compared to doing things in a class room.

A big surprise that has been shown to me by being at school here at OSU is the amount of work that each class has. I have gone to two other colleges and OSU has the most challenging academics that I have seen so far. This is a good thing I think because even though I am surprised about the level of academics I am learning, it is good for me to broaden my knowledge of the things I learn. I think no matter what you do in college or any level of school there will always be surprises in the things you learn or experience. My personal view is that these things are what make up learning. I think realizing that learning is full of surprises can make the learner use this as a strength.

My strengths of online school for me are a few different things. The first thing that is a strength for me personally is I am good with computers and typing and online learning seems to have a lot to do with those two things so far. Another strength that i have been shown through online learning in the past three weeks is that being flexible with your hours is okay in school too. I am always on the go and I have two jobs, so being able to use my crazy schedule with my school work really helps me. The last strength that I have noticed I have with online learning is that being a outgoing and talkative person can really benefit you. I am naturally a outspoken person and not actually being able to be with your professors makes it harder sometimes to get help when you need it. I have seen that all my professors are every willing to help me as long as I reach out to them through an email or something else. This has really helped me when things get confusing or become very tough.

My biggest struggle relates to some things that i said earlier in this blog which is the amount of work that i have. It goes hand in hand with a surprise for me as well as stated earlier. In all honesty the first week and a half of school was pretty overwhelming for me. I kind of got freaked out and I just felt lost with all my work and all my classes. After persevering through it for the past two weeks has made me realize that I can do my work I just have to be very organized and structured. If I procrastinate or get behind on my work, I have seen that it is super hard to catch up. So a goal for me personally throughout this semester is to minimize procrastinating and to make sure that i am always doing my work. I hope the past three weeks have been good for all of you guys.

-Joey Cramer

This term really seems to be flying by. Here we are nearing the end of week 3 and I still feel like this term just started. Although it is moving fast, I have already learned a significant amount about my-self in regards to how I learn and more specifically how I learn in an online learning environment.

I have taken online classes before and with those classes, I quickly came to the realization that online learning can be significantly more challenging then a physical campus environment. Some of the challenges that I have faced in the past with online learning is self-motivation and maintaining good study habits. Over the course of the last three weeks, I not only discovered more about my learning style, but I learned how to leverage it in order to improve the way I learn. My learning style is multimodal, meaning that I learn from a series of methods, but that also doesn’t mean that I can be successful by selecting and using just one. Multimodal learners tend to learn best by utilizing the full spectrum of their learning styles.  In the past, I have always believed that I was mostly a visual learner; I tend to use charts, diagrams, pictures, and examples to learn best. After taking the surveys for learning styles, I can actually say that I was surprised by the results and wasn’t sure as to the accuracy, however after reflecting on past classes, personal habits and techniques that I found to work for me, I decided that not only were the survey results a good fit, but they really explained a lot about how I learn. For example, I discovered that I am left brained; I like things to be neat and organized and perform best in such an environment.

After completing my second degree, it has been about five years since I have taken any classes at all, and this time around I am facing an abundance of new challenges that I didn’t have to worry about in the past. I work full-time in the semiconductor industry which is sponsoring my education, but only if I maintain good academic standing. I am a father, and a husband. In addition to family and work I have other commitments such as maintaining my property, vehicles, and financial responsibilities. In the short period of time that I have been back in school, I have found that these things can really have a profound effect on the way I manage my time and approach my education. My biggest challenge this term and through the remainder of the program, will be balancing the time I spend with my family and the time I spend with everything else. So far I am finding that this class was just the tool I needed in order to help me maintain that balance which will ultimately help me to achieve my goals.

Three weeks down, seven to go; midterms approaching and projects on the horizon….

The past three weeks have been full of introspection and some self-discovery. For instance, I’ve known I’m a visual learner for many years but I’ve had some difficulty hitting my stride in some of my distance education courses. The readings and exercises of the past two weeks have helped me make the move toward taking notes while I’m reading (as I would do during a lecture if I were sitting in a classroom), which I know will help fix the important terms and concepts in my mind.

This isn’t my first term with online learning, but last term was a tough one for me and I was hoping to find some tools to help me get through my last few terms. I am not one to explore journaling, goal setting, etcetera on my own (I feel as though I’m always running!!) so I appreciate that this course requires some dedicated introspection and thought and I even had an epiphany while doing the case study exercise last week! (Which, frankly, surprised me!)

The discovery was in regard to my peak and valley times. As a night owl, I generally do my best work between 10 pm and 1 am. This began as a teenager and has continued throughout my life, being especially valuable now as a divorced mother, I can accomplish great things after everyone else is fast asleep. However, I received some feedback from a well-intentioned friend who suggested that perhaps I would be better served to go to bed earlier, get up earlier, and accomplish things before others awoke. I tried this Winter term and rediscovered that I am really not very accomplished at getting up early for the sake of getting up early. I didn’t realize until I worked through the case study, that I effectively robbed myself of about 17 hours a week of prime study time which led to a sort of vortex where I couldn’t figure out why I could not accomplish anything and got very self-critical.

After this discovery I found a free downloadable scheduler that breaks the day down into fifteen minute increments and I took about ten minutes to plug all my scheduled activities into it (two kids to two different schools, chauffer to dance, Scout meeting, etc) and what I found was pleasantly surprising- it seems as though I may have quite a bit of study time, if I get more organized and structured about using it. For instance, I know it’s more difficult to study when my nine year old is home, so perhaps I’ll use that time to grocery stop instead.

I know when I feel stressed I tend to have difficulty focusing, so I have identified a goal of trying to be more structured, though I’m still working on the SMART parts of the goal. I also know I feel better when I run, so I’m prioritizing that in my schedule as well. And, finally, I want to journal, but have always struggled with it, so I plan on trying some of the suggestions from our text over the next few weeks because I’m contemplating some big life decisions right now and think I could benefit from the outlet and process!

Cheers!

Jessica

I always felt I had a pretty good idea how I retain information the best. I had already finished an undergraduate degree, work full-time in a job that requires me to constantly think on my feet with new ideas…of course I figured I could just ease right back into school…..Yeah, not so much. These last few weeks have been eye opening on many levels. First off, I was under the impression that I could just hammer away for several hours at night after working a full day and retain information like I used to…Nope, not happening. I was also hoping that classes were not going to take up THAT much time so I can have some semblance of a personal life…….sort of, but not exactly.

The biggest things that I have taken away from starting school again is that I have changed. My circumstances have changed, and I have had to come up with a new game plan in order to succeed in an online environment. I learned early on that after working 10+ hours a day, the last thing I want to do is come home and study. I would come home and get myself prepared to do work, but would always find some other thing to distract me because I just couldn’t sit my self down to do more work. So the first part of my routine I changed is WHEN I work. Instead of trying to be up all night reading, I started going to bed earlier and waking up earlier (something I tried from my assessment). I have found that I am able to retain information better in the morning, and stay more focused, then I have after working all day. While this took me about a week or so to figure out, it has enabled me to stay on top of my classes better, and be more efficient and be able to stick to my game plan if set for myself to accomplish my work.

Well, right off the bat I would have to say that there are some unexpected struggles that have occurred this year as an online learner, one is that the weather for the most part of Winter Term and now in Spring Term has been amazing. Is it awesome or what?? And two, when I say bat I mean my favorite time of the year – baseball season! When I can get outside working in the yard, on the boat, or watching baseball, it is a challenge to put those things aside and concentrate on my class work. These distractors away from my computer can be a problem whether on campus or online, but there is for me a huge advantage with online classes because I can for the most part choose when I want to engage with my class work.

Having been an educator for 18 years, I have had to attend school to keep my teaching certificate valid and to keep myself up-to-date in the changes in technology and I wish online learning had been available during those years. I started my first off-campus learning experience in 1988 with a class from Texas Tech University, a computer software class that utilized cd’s for the instruction and I mailed my completed assignments from Germany to Texas each week. The course the material was dry and boring and the inability to have contact with an instructor was brutal.

I struggle to identify any strengths that I didn’t already know existed prior to these last three weeks but I guess I could say that my ability to recognize my limitations and be able to make adjustments in my routines, is a strength. It also helps to have a caring and loving wife that is able to recognize when I am struggling and can offer the solution that works. In my lifetime I have never gone to school by myself, my wife has always been here giving me positive reinforcement when I have needed it most. We had two kids when I first started school in 1981 and three by the time I finished and she was always there sometimes working two jobs just to get us through to graduation, my wife is my greatest strength.

My greatest surprise was to find out that online learning has progressed enough to have the ability to have online group project requirements. I wasn’t too keen on this idea and dropped the class, but I do think that it is an interesting option. It must be a challenge for more students because at the end of the paragraph explaining the group project requirement, the instructor wrote that this kind of format may not be for everyone. I was clueless, I didn’t know that group projects were common place in online learning. I just didn’t want to take a chance of letting my group down if I were to have a busy week and wasn’t able to give my 100 percent attention to the project. Maybe I will feel up to it next term.

Overall, it has been a great experience and I am looking forward to the rest of the term.

Before this class, I never really took the chance to find my “Inner Online Learner”. I was always the traditional classroom type of student. I had always been told that taking online classes were not as valuable as actually being in the classroom and that they would be a waste of my time. Honestly…I did not know what to think. Now I have had the opportunity to take a few classes online, I have learned just how valuable they can be. So far, I have learned a lot about myself and have learned skills that I can take with me and apply to other parts of my life. I have found that my “Inner Online Learner” is very visual oriented and hands on. Unlike my classroom counterpart, my “Inner Online Learner” takes initiative and stays on top of things. He likes the challenge of learning new material and researching to find out more. While exploring this new territory, I have also found how hard online learning can be as well. Depending on the type of learner you are and the amount of time you are willing to put into it, things can get a little hairy and overbearing. The biggest struggle that I have had and have seen other people have with online learning is procrastinating. It is a lot easier to just say “I’ll do it tomorrow”…or…”It isn’t that hard so I can do it later in the week”. It doesn’t take much and time will catch up on you (it’s not fun when you are up all night trying to make the deadline). This class has really helped me to stay on top of that and put things into a better time frame. I have really enjoyed this class and the things that I have learned in the first two weeks. As of right now, the only surprise that I have had is the amount of valuable information that I have gotten from this class. To be completely honest…I thought a lot of the stuff we would be going over in this class is stuff that I had already learned or that was common sense…but I was wrong. I have learned more about myself in two weeks than I have in my whole college career. All in all, it has been a wonderful experience and I look forward to the upcoming weeks.