Reading and Organizing Course Material

This week was an interesting one, to say the least! I had a complication Monday that made reading alittle hard for a few days! I am a horse trainer and I not only train other peoples' horses that just need work, but I also break horses as well. On Monday I got kicked in the shoulder and eye by a horse I was training. Luckily, nothing was broken, but my eye was swollen almost shut for a few days and it is still black and still has a cut. My shoulder is also still really bruised.











Anyway, week 3 was titled: Reading and Organizing Course Material. This was put into use alot this past week. I had to be really organized to keep up with my reading and assignments due to me eye and having to read slower because of it.
The objectives for Week 3 were:

• Read assignments for maximum retention and benefit.
• Take notes for in order to enhance learning: Cornell Method, S-Run-R, and Outlining.
• Complete homework assignments in order to enhancing learning and recall.

I learned some new ways to take notes and also some new tips on how to organize homework to make sure that it gets done. In reading the How To Do Homework page, I found that I already use some of the steps that were referenced. I did get many great tips from the reading though. I also learned this week, that I really like the Cornell Method of note taking. I had never heard of the Cornell Method before this course so that was something new to me. I had also never heard of the S-RUN-R reading/studying system before taking this course. That system was also very useful.

Despite being slowed down in my reading by my injury, I was able to take away from this past week alot of great tips and some new ways of reading/studying and also some new note taking methods.

Computer Skills: Word Processing Basics

This past week of class was about computer skills. Specifically, Computer Skills: Word Processing Basics. This was a refresher course on Word for me because I had recently taken a computer course at another college. It was still very useful though because I had forgotten how to do some of the things in the new Word.

 

 

The course objectives for the 2nd week were:

• Enter and modify text: size, color, font style, numbering and bullets.
• Realign text within a word processing documents
• Examine the spacing and margins within a word processing document and alter document as     required.
• Create a word processing document that includes a header and footer.
• Insert an image, textbox, and table into a word processing document.
• Identify the location of and use for symbols and equations in a word processing document
• Fully understand and exemplify academic integrity.

For the course this past week, there were two different readings about writing: Writing Basics and Writing Process. One of the main things I learned from the reading was that it is important to plan ahead. If you plan out your paper ahead of time, then it will be alot easier to write a scholarly paper. You should never wait until the last minute to write a paper because then you have to rush and you may unintentionally plagarize one of your sources.

 

Each of these readings had some tips and steps that you could follow to make writing easier. In each of the readings, they also referenced websites that you could go to for help in the writing process. The first (Writing Basics) had two wedsites that you could visit. The two websites were:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu.... and www.dartmouth.edu... .
The second (Writing Process) offered two other websites. They were:
http://www.bartleby.com/141/ (Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.)
http://englishplus.com/grammar/contents.htm (Online Grammar Handbook)
I will definitely be using them for future papers because I sometimes have a hard time with my writing process.

 

I learned some new and useful tips this past week and I look forward to what next week has in store.

Back To School!!!

This is my first week back to school I am starting back to finish my business degree I started 6 years ago. The only difference is, this time I am going to have to learn how to juggle work, family, and school. This is going to take some major time management!

The first week of class covered:
Moodle: Learning System System (LMS):
 The week's objectives were to be able to:

• Navigate and interact with Moodle; our LMS
• Appropriately respond and interact to in the discussion forums.
• Communicate with Instructor and classmates.
• Articulate the special requirements for successful online learning.
• Understand the basic requirements to prevent plagiarism.
• Demonstrate proper netiquette.

During the week, we had many different things to read. Some of these readings included: the basics of online learning, Netiquette, and the basics of quizzes and exams. One of the resources from this week that I found interesting and very helpful was the 9 Habits of Successful Online Learners. I found some very useful information that I definitely could use with this class, as well as my future classes.

Also during the week, we had to read the article Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in the Digital Age. I thought that the article was very interesting. I knew that plagiarism was a growing problem, but not in the magnitude that it seems to be in the article. I had no idea that there are so many people that do not know what counts as plagiarism and was does not. I also learned steps to avoid plagiarism.

I have learned alot of new information this week and I am looking forward to what's coming up for the next week.