Reflective Blog Post

This class was a surprise. A big surprise. I had no idea that when I click the add button I was agreeing to a semester of changing paradigms, steep learning curves, and life lessons. I didn't think that school could be this interactive and that a simple GE class could really do so much for my education. Ariel talked about regular classes not being good enough anymore, that she expected more than she was getting, and I think I am coming to understand that.

Learning Outcomes
1. History
My historical Period was the 20th century and I loved it. My assigned reading was about progressivism, and again, I was extremely interested. I real enjoy learning about societal changes and how our focus and a nation changes over time in relation to politics.

• Education Now
• Romanticism- Can I Sign Up for That?
• When is Relativism Okay?

2. Digital Concepts

Of all of the digital concepts, I have certainly most enjoyed learning about participation. I am so interested in how participation is changing and working in this social media world, and how we monitor and denote success through this participation. Over this semester, I know that i have certainly participated more than I ever have, not just though my blog, but through Google+ and all kinds of news sources. I have loved being able to use Google+ as a more academic social sphere, and have appreciated being able to share what i find interesting even more than talking about it myself. 

3. Digital Literacy

• Consume- I have certainly consumed a huge amount of varied information this semester. I have been able to see so many sides of so many arguments. One that comes to mind is privacy. I have posted a few times about how much we know and how much the proverbial "they" know about us. 
• Your Personal World: How Much They Already Know
• Create- Creating all of these blog posts has certainly been a change in my normal schooling paradigm, but I think that the creating I am most interested in of this semester has been the creation of dialogue. I have loved being able to give and reticence feedback through Google+ and the others in class. My favorite posts are the ones that received the most comments. Creating the event was also a fun and intensive part of my class experience. Planning a function based on the core values of the class made me really think about each of them. 
• The New Vote
• NY TImes Article on prescription drugs
• My Focus: Participation
• Does Equality Dumb us Down?
• Connect- Perhaps I touched on this in the section above. Connecting with other students and with others around the world has been a huge bonus to this class. I have a lot more confidence now to join in conversations on the internet and am more willing to say what I think. 

4. Self-Directed Learning

I feel as though this whole semester I have been teaching myself. At first it was to keep my head above water, but now I find that I really do enjoy it. I appreciate being able to say, hey, I want to know more about this, and being able to do it. I love learning from those who probably have very different opinions than I have. Mother Jones, for example, is an extremely liberal on-line magazine, but I love it because it makes me think. 

5. Collaboration

Oh boy, did I collaborate. The historical and digital group presentations were all about collaboration, and working so closely with a ton of people on the event was certainly the most collaborating I have ever done.  We all had to work closely together to accomplish very large goals, and I truly believe that this is one learning outcome that was hit right on the head for everyone in the class. We accomplished amazing things, and I am glad that I was able to be a part of that learning process. 

This class was crazy and slightly unorganized and moderately petrifying, but we did it. I am proud of what I accomplished, not just as a whole with a successful event and an e-book on the way, but as an individual with a broader outlook on my role as a digital citizen.

Event Report

Though technology seemed to be dead set against us, I am very pleased with how the event turned out. Hwanhi and I put a lot of work into this event, and I am so glad that everyone in the class really engaged and made it the success that it was.

My personal efforts to organize the event, and acquire and audience were moderately successful and quite varied.

• I made announcements to over four hundred students in classrooms
• I ensured that the poster went up all over campus from the information desk
• I personally invited my friends and family and my 10 "special" guests who were:
• Harly Richards- International Development student, acquaintance, interested in the idea of the CC and how that works in respect to our current economic system. She was able to attend for most of the event, and was impressed with how broad our expanse of information was in a single night
• Lindsay White- Accounting Student, Friend, Was able to attend, loved the arts presentation. 
• Cassie Reed- Accounting Student, Acquaintance, I invited her because she had expressed interest in my talking about the class before, and always asked questions about how and why we need to be more involved digitally, was able to attend in person. 
• A.J. Butler- Water Polo Coach, interested both in me and my welfare, but also in how he can improve the standing and success of his team through social media, attended on-line. 
• Austin Wheeler- Cadet at West Point, interested in how traditional education is and should be changing, wasn't able to attend at all. 
• Suzanne Whitehead- Works for Hope International raising money to fund a school in the DR Congo, wants to be able to increase technology in their education eventually attended on-line.
• Heather Desmond- Elementary School Teacher, interested in changing education. Wasn't able to attend.
• Dr. Monson, my Political Science Teacher- I extended him a personal invitation, and then extended one to the whole class at his urging. Interested in how Social media is opening government. Attended on-line. 
• Kristin Rob- Old friend from Germany, she and I played on the same team when she was a foreign exchange student to my high school. She loves anything to do with American Politics, and really enjoyed the event. Watched on-line. 
• Eli Pariser- The author of my assigned reading, "Filter Bubbles". Never got back to me, so I doubt he watched, but it was exciting contacting him in the first place. 
• I organized the order of the presentations
• I put together the presentations which was a disaster. Right here I have a huge suggestion for the next event: Formatting. The reason the transitions were so bad was because all of the groups had different formats and different links. All of them should have been using one thing, so all Prezi or all google ppt. This would dramatically help the event, and would have made it more fluid. 
• Collaborated with Hwahi on the script, the event philosophy, the purpose of the event, structure of the event (TED style blitz's)
• Acted as one of the MC's
• Organized music that we didn't actually get to use.
• Worked with individual groups on their presentations, formulating ideas and editorializing some. 
• Picked up the food with Dr. Zappala  

I learned an amazing amount of information from the planning process. It was great being able to work with Hwanhi, my superior in every way, who has had so much more experience planning event and organizing functions. I thought I was experienced, but now know that I have so much more to learn. It was a great experience and I am very grateful that I was on the event planning production team because I know that I will be much more prepared to do anything like this in the future. I enjoyed being part of the show and got a lot of joy trying to think about all of the ways we could ensure people had a great time and got what they came for.