Metacognition Blogging

In this class we have taken a most unorthodox path to our learning. Straying from the traditional paper and pencil path, we have chosen to use the internet and blogs in order to post our assignments. Although it is very convient to be able to look back on your homework in such an organized way this method does lack some qualities such as in depth class discussions. Although the information is always there for us to look back on, it is impossible to ask a computer for anymore information than what it knows, meaning that the only group discussions we can have are those that we already posted, no more no less. The unit we are currently doing is Macbeth, we are learning to decipher the meaning of the book and put it into a more modern form so that we may understand it better. Although the internet is handy for somethings it is not good for imaginative ideas thus the learning is somewhat strained as there is a lack of class human relation and the only thing we have to rely on is the cold hearless words written on the blogs themselves. The internet overall has had a negitive impact on my learning seeing as most of the information is used over and over again and it is hard to ask questions to a vacant screen. The class activites we have done have a much greater impact on my learning but in a positive way. By communicating with my classmates face to face we are able to continually produce new ideas and compare the old ones to the new ones. By talking in class we are given the chance to ask questions of one another with a almost immiediate answer, unlike through blogging which again has only a limited source of information. For instance in class we were told to answer an esstential question using one of the acts. My partner and I chose to use Act1 scene3 and answer the question "What is integrity". Although it was still blogging I had a classmate there to help me formulate ideas and build on them instead of just having to look at the examples of other students, which for the most part were either very hard to follow or had nothing to do with my piece. Another way I make sense of Macbeth or of the other stories was by thinking about them very carefully and reading between the lines. Although the short stories were very simple to follow Macbeth was not. The internet provided some videos but they were very hard to follow as it was extremely hard for me to go back and read again so that I could make sense of it. The book was much better and much easier to follow. Looking back on my previous projects my progress and growth as a learner has not been very high. Although the experience was somewhat fun it was very hard to follow and thus left me confused with many questions as I am not very good with computers. My goals for next term are to simply do better, build a better understanding of our next novel and learn to ask more questions so that I am not left confused with only a computer screen to help me. Although some of my work has been strong("what is integrity") many of my pieces on this blog have been very weak and uninteresting("what am I learning", what do I desire most...."). I unfortunately only see this helping me next term as a source of error, although we learn through our mistakes the amount of mistakes on this blog is fairly disgusting and I will use this to teach myself to become more attentive so that next term I may do better.