Proof of Learning Week 4

The focus of this last week of class was our final research report. I was a bit hesitant to start the research report and it seemed a bit daunting but the report really came out to be the most interesting activity we have done in this class. It was very beneficial taking the skills that we learned in this class and applying them to something within my major. This really helped me connect to the information more then if I was just researching a random topic.

What helped me the most when researching for this project were the interviews I did with the different professors. I wanted to learn about how they learned graphic design when they were in school and how it compared to with how they currently teach design and I really learned a lot from talking with them. Having the personal experience as the main study in the research project was very interesting because I got to have personal perspective of technology.  This perspective was the thing I was really aiming to research, not so much how technology has changed in the last 10 years for graphic designers, but how we as students are affected by this rapid evolution.  I concluded in my study that as students in the age of advanced technology we are getting the short end of the stick because we are no longer being forced to do things the long tedious way, we rely too much on the computer to do our work for us.

I wish for this research report that I would have had more time because I would have liked to interview more professors and also do follow up interviews. But this was hard because I am not currently on campus and it was hard to receive responses from faculty via email. I think if I would have more perspectives from professors and compared them to students the research report would have been more complete. I also wish I could have made some sort of solid way to tally my data into some sort of graph or chart to really begin to understand technology’s affect on students being good designers.

What I really took away from this research report is that I want to really start understanding graphic design without using technology and not relying solely on technology to help me.  Technology is good and it has been invented to make the process easier but to really understand how to do my job I should first learn what it means to have good design by hand and then I can add the computer. This class in general has really helped me with my critical thinking skills and I am really glad I took it. I look at the world and want to question things more so then before.

Proof of Learning Week 3

For our third week of class the subjects of the articles were more open ended. There were three articles for the entire week but they lead to a very good discussion between my classmates and I.  I think that the most interesting aspect of the week was the discussion on online classes vs. in-person classes. This topic is something that is very important to students now a days and discussing the pros and cons with classmates was informative, and is what really helped me connect these readings to my real life. I was also very interested in the Online Research Methods Knowledge Base. I am very appreciative of Joyce giving us this resource because it is online and always accessible, it is also presented in a way that is easy to navigate.

In talking about online class communities and the pros and cons of them vs. face-to-face class communities with my classmates many points were made that helped me assess my feelings towards the subject. I think some of the best points were made by Jeffery Mason, “I am not sure that these classes would work with everyone or across age groups. This course is a summer course and sometimes it is difficult to manage a class during work, nice weather, and summer in general. This being said there must be a certain internal drive to motivate an individual to get their work done on their own.” This statement is something that I felt like I could really connect with and I felt the same way about online classes in general. But there were other points made by students that I would have never thought of about the pros and cons of online classes and that is why I think I benefit the most from these discussions. The post by Jamie Coit really surprised me,  “I think online discussions give students who might not normally participate in class to interact online. Another positive thing about online discussions is it allows students to actively formulate a response instead of having to say it right away”. I never really thought about how much better a discussion could be if students had time to fully develop and understand their own thoughts before posting and the benefits of this are extremely positive. This way you can have an affective discussion.

The use of the online research textbook was helpful this week as well. The fact that it was spit into sections that were easy to navigate through was very helpful. I thought the introduction to different research designs was interesting. The site defined research design as “the structure of research -- it is the "glue" that holds all of the elements in a research project together. We often describe a design using a concise notation that enables us to summarize a complex design structure efficiently.” This was useful because I could connect it to the research project we are doing for this class. I found on this website that the type of research that I will use for this project is known as group research. Vaguely put towards my project each group in a design is given its own line in the design structure.

Throughout the next week I will be using this online textbook to help with the final project for this class. I think it will be interesting to also tie in some of the class discussion topics on online classes and technology. I think that after the online discussions I have come to realize that although online classes sometimes are annoying because everything you have to do is on your own time, there are so many more benefits. But, I still feel like I personally benefit from taking a face-to-face personal class.

Proof of Learning Week 2

This week of class was all about online dating sites and how people interact with in these communities. Dating Sites, which have been in the mainstream for a while now, are something that I haven’t really thought about a lot, but it was interesting to analyze them and learn more about why humans feel the need for these sites.  The discussions in the class were very eye opening and hearing every one’s opinions and thoughts about online dating helped me understand why people go to these sites to find someone to have a romantic relationship with. It wasn’t so much the information we talked about that I cared about learning but it was the broad relationship to human interaction and how I should use the way we learned about this subject and apply it to other things that I have a view on.

I think what I learned most about this week was taking a subject that you don’t know a lot about and by discussing it and thinking critically (asking those ‘Why do we need this’ questions) your views of a subject can change from your initial reactions. I had one view of online dating but once thinking more about it and understanding it I changed my views. This whole class has been doing that to me a lot and has taught me to really give subjects a second look and take a little more time to understand things before thinking of your stance on the subject.  After realizing that once you learn about something and understand it you can have a more open mind comments like Ryan Wriggly’s started to bother me. He said “The leaders with these online dating companies do a fantastic job of marketing their products. People are suckers and will usually buy into something if people appear passionate or supportive. This article serves as the support to a certain degree.” Makes me a little frustrated because he doesn’t seem to understand the point of these discussions is to rethink things where we think our minds are made up.

I have no preference whether or not someone wants to date online, it is their decision, and I did not find our classmates debate on whether or not online dating is good very informative. But, what I connected with in general is how people have taken something so broad like the Internet and used it to develop subcultures on VC’s as well as dating sites such as eHarmony. The article on Wednesday really helped me come to understand this broader concept when it talked about the difference between VC’s and DS’s, and the different users that go along with these sites.  This classes subject have really become a study on human interaction in general and since humans are such social people and we desire the need to feel loved and accepted it is very interesting that we have developed all different and new ways of accomplishing these connections over the internet. What got me thinking about this was Anthony Martini’s comment, “This kind of innate human tendency to distort information (both provided and received) highlights the need to appropriately gauge the role of online dating as one that provides the initial steps of the relationship -- bringing two people together -- and is not a substitute for personal interaction and development of the relationship offline” was the main comment that got me thinking about why sites like eHarmony even exist. It is so interesting to me to study human interaction and even adaption. (adapting to how to communicate on the internet) We have this need to be loved and understood and that is why these communities have come about on the internet so people who need to be accepted that are seeking some love, can find it over the web.

So on the topic, I am pro dating sites and think they are a good resource to use to meet new people and to take a relationship from online to personal. I think they let people meet new faces that they would not meet in person. I am slowly learning how to develop my thoughts and put them into writing in the discussion and have started to be more critical of my fellow classmates posts, I don’t want to just agree with what they are saying but I want to read and understand and then develop my own thoughts on the subject we are studying. I also liked the comparison between the different generations again with the use of technology but also how they view the world in general and I think this type of topic would be very interesting to use in my research for the final project.

Week One Proof of Learning Report

This week was at first a confusing week, but as the week went on I started to be very interested in the class discussions. Jumping into an online class is always confusing at first because of the lack of face-to-face communication. Ironically this is what most of our class discussions were about this week. Talking about social online communities, the class discussed the advantages and disadvantages of having online relationships vs. having personal / physical relationships. The most informative part of the week was the first day of class. Watching those videos and learning about all the amazing types of technology that are out there was eye opening and it really got me thinking about the huge part technology plays in our everyday lives, in everything we do.  In the first PBS video the use of magic to help discover how the brain functions was very interesting and something I had never thought about before. Using illusions to stimulate different parts of the brain was an amazing discovery and this could help in future research on the brain, which would be positive to the medical industry.

The reading about Reputation Management was also something that impacted me during the week. I am one to keep close tabs on my Facebook and because of this it was interesting to learn about the different dynamics that older vs. younger generations have on their security of their Facebooks’.

Before watching the PBS video, I had little to know knowledge of how people were learning about the brain. I knew that this piece of tissue was a powerful organ but I had no idea just how powerful. When the doctors decide to work with magicians to study attention and awareness of the brain I was skeptical about scientificness of using magic, but once I watched I realized that it is not about the magic itself but it is about our perceptions of the tricks that the doctors were studying. This helped me realize that you can take one thing that seems to be fun, and by studying human interaction with it you can learn about people itself. This concept can be brought into any aspect of human life, such as technology. How we interact with this technology as humans can teach people about human nature in itself and that to me is very eye opening.

In the class discussions about Reputation Management I learned that many different people have different opinions on who should be allowed to monitor your reputation. This can be seen when we were talking about if companies had the right to tell you how to run your Facebook. To me, I think that companies have no right to control your personal life but many other students had a different idea of how they would like companies to control their social networking online. Sara Ownes opinion was very different from mine when she stated, “I actually disagree. If you are making this information public for anyone to see, then I believe it is reasonable for employers to be concerned with what you are making public.” So it can be seen that on some topics we have different opinions but, most of us did agree with the subject of the article.  The article stated that, “When compared with older users, young adults are more likely to restrict what they share and whom they share it with.” Since the majority of the people in this class are from one generation (the younger one) I think it was easier for all of us to agree on this subject. The article also talks about “Young adults are the most active online reputation managers in several dimensions. When compared with older users, they more often customize what they share and whom they share it with.” Again, all most of the students said that they agreed that instead of just not putting up typical “college photos” they change their settings so certain people cannot see it. I also do this, but didn’t really know why until I analyzed it in this class. I hide my photos from certain people because I want to share my life with my friends, but I also want to create a professional facade in front of my boss or my parents.

I am excited for the next 3 weeks of this class. The subjects we have talked about this week are interesting and they really are something we should be talking about as college students because online communities affect us everyday and in the “real world” after we graduate we should understand how to navigate them successfully. I also scarred to start my research project that is coming up and have a lot of open-ended questions about the specifics of it. I think at a later date in class this will be talked about and I think I am going to enjoy putting the concepts we have learned this first week, and continue to learn into practice for the research project and for life.