Hi..
I will start by stating the three things I learned most in this class and then, explain why, or how, I did so. The three new things to me were: Blogging, the game, and the using of the hashtag #equityunbound.
To start with, the concept of blogging was brand new to me. I have never been exposed to any websites about blogging, and I have never contributed by writing anything in a form of a blog. After I have taken this course, I was introduced to WordPress.com and have been asked to blog, a lot. Which was kind of new for me, the whole concept of writing something for an academic class, but in any desired format. Like I start my blog posts with a “Hi” and still discuss something that is worth some grades. I guess it kind of added to the content. In other words, it does not matter where I write and how long I write, but the light is more shed on the purpose behind the writings themselves, while the main concept is delivered.
Second thing is, the game. Two things about the games that we’ve played, and the ones we’ve designed were of importance to my learning process. The first thing is that I have been introduced to the academic concepts we’ve been discussing in more effective ways. I even suggested the game “spent” to many of my friends, and they were inspired to design their own, while using the ones already designed to deliver their points of view in different student activities and classes. The second point is, this was my very first time to have been introduced to use google slides and google forms to a very different purpose, like designing a game. This part it technical, but I still learnt something new.
Third thing is, the hashtag Equity Unbound. During the course I came to acknowledge the fact that there are universal hashtags that people use all over the world to communicate the same thing in an academic context. I was never a twitter user so the hashtags weren’t ever in the field of my knowledge or use. However, I’ve been witnessing my professor using the hashtag each and every time we do something that is under the same umbrella, or theme. Which basically allowed everyone, all over the world, to exchange knowledge and interest more effectively.
What helped me learn these three major things, firstly blogging every assignment, secondly, that we didn’t just play the game in class, but also design one of our own and taking a class workshop on how to do so, and lastly, witnessing my professor use the hashtag #equityunbound in class, and online.
In respect to what can be done in future for this course, I believe that maybe we can be introduced to ways we can develop our blog posts, bearing in mind that many people aren’t that familiar with blog posts before taking the course. Also, I believe the assignments (blog posts number) were quite too much. In some cases I wouldn’t be able to find something to blog about, because I believed there was nothing much to be said about the topic. Maybe we could have done something different to reflect on our understanding to the topics. And, the long readings in class were slightly discouraging, I favored it more when we used videos while we stop in the middle and comment about them (but still maybe that is a bit personal preference that I liked videos more than readings). To conclude, these are all suggestions, but the overall experience in this course was different and beneficial.
Amena 