Reflections II

This class has been very different. I have tremendously enjoyed some aspects and have been stretched in others. I love history and really enjoy the historical concepts we cover in class, although I have already covered many of the topics in previous classes. I also enjoy learning more about computer technology and how we arrived at where we are today and the possibilities the future hold. The difficult part has been consistently keeping a blog.


1. Historical Content; 2. Computing Concepts and Digital Culture; and 3. Self-Directed Learning.





Historical Content: I feel fairly comfortable with the historical content we cover in class, from other humanities and history classes I have taken. I do seem to have a problem blogging about them. My problems come from assuming I need absolutely new material, or that I need to read all the material available to me, which with the internet, is a lot.


Computing concepts and digital culture: I have enjoyed learning about the beginnings of computers and how the effect our lives everyday. I have done a better job about blogging about the digital labs than I have about the historical content.


Self-directed learning: This is the most difficult for me so far. I feel that I have improved since the beginning of the semester but still feel a sense of dread every time I go to research a topic. I think my reluctance to research on the internet comes from the overwhelming amount of poor websites that are not user friendly and completely covered in ads. While I probably won't be able to fix that this semester I have been able to take advantage of the social discovery that Professor Burton mentioned in his blog. He said, rather than researching in isolation, find someone currently involved in the field you are interested in and network with them. Since the last midterm I have connected with Cody Campbell the CEO of Bazari and Rod Hawes, who visited BYU campus. Both of these experiences were encouraging to continue social discovery.


I let the ball drop after last midterm and got really behind on my blogs. There were a lot of main concepts that I missed out. So I made a commitment to blog every weekday. Since then it has become slightly easier. Easy in one aspect because there are so many topics I need to catch up on, but easy in another aspect because I am getting more in the habit of writing. I also noticed something about my writing style.

I am a finance major and do not get many opportunities to write long papers. So my writing skills have gotten a little rusty. I noticed that my blogs were compilations of ramblings with no definite purpose or direction. I noticed that I would have an idea for a blog and start writing. I felt that I needed to introduce my idea first, so I started my blog with a lengthy discussion and wouldn't reach my main point until the last paragraph or so.

I realized that this is less effective. Especially in the blog format. So, I decided recently to apply a more journalistic style to my blogs. The journalism format is called an upside down pyramid. This means that the most important information should be at the top, then tapering down to more details to fill out the story if the reader wants more information.

My commitment for the rest of the semester, in addition to writing a blog every weekday, is to work on journalism style writing. As I review this post I notice that I should have put this commitment at the top, since it is the most important  information. Oh well, no better time then the present to start changing right?