Blog Post 9

I've never been opposed to the idea of distance learning given that when the pandemic began, I was finishing my junior year of college. I've already experienced the hectic mess of trying to find parking, the lack of motivation to show up to classes at times, and I was in a constant rotation of going to school, sitting there for a few hours, coming back, going to work, then doing homework, ya know... college things. Given that I am a theatre major, it was so different experiencing some of my classes virtually. Now that I am in my senior year, I found myself having more flexibility to form healthier habits throughout my day and to go about my classes. There are some limitations, of course, such as class being less interactive, sometimes it is harder to engage with the material given that you can easily find yourself doing other things while in class, and certainly I do not wish for this to be a lifetime experience. I see it as a quick little break to focus on ourselves and recognizing what others may be going through around us. In a year, if I have started my master's, I would like to go back to in-person classes and start gaining hands-on experiences again while building bonds with my fellow peers and professors. 

At the beginning of the year, I always find myself wishing that professors were more open to open educational resources. The cost of textbooks is expensive, and most of the time, I only crack the book open 3-4 times a semester. When using open educational resources, students have the ability to learn from resources that are mostly free or very inexpensive and more current/relevant to today's timeline. As I researched various OER materials, I came across a link that gives you access to a google doc that lists different OER links/materials by subjects. I clicked on the art subject given that is what I am most interested in and it provides everything from media sites to art education sources. Their google drive link allows you to view each google doc that is categorized by subject. 

As we worked on the powerpoint assignments, I am actually very surprised by what I learned. From the first assignment, I actually never recorded myself giving a presentation so I learned how to navigate that. I quickly realized it is important to speak clearly and allow yourself to flow throughout the presentation like you would do in person. The second PowerPoint assignment is where I actually learned many new things. I, for one, had no knowledge of how to create games via PowerPoint so learning how to link action buttons or any button to another slide on the page was very unique to me. I actually became excited because I realize, there are so many things that are accessible to us in order to make our classroom settings engaging and creative, which the past two assignments have taught me how to do so.  There is actually nothing I would change about the past two assignments except for extending the time for the second powerpoint assignment we have worked on given that it is a little bit more time-consuming than our other assignments and tedious work, especially for those who shoot for the high pass grade.