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| I feel like the character Flynn in the movie Tron because this class has thrust me into the digital realm. Or in other words I have been "digitally reborn." |
I've been in a Digital Civilization class for almost a month and its time I take some time to look back, look to the present, and look forward, and find out where I am in the class.
Looking Back: Where was I Pre-#digiciv?
Before this class I had finished a History 201 course which focused on civilizations up to 1500 AD. The class was taught by @lisa_maren (i.e. Prof Lisa Halverson). It was interesting because she encouraged the class to use some new digital tools that I had never used before. For example, she used the LMS BrainHoney, rather than the BYU staple LMS, Blackboard. She also asked us to use Twitter and tweet about what we were learning with the hash tag #hist201. So I got my first Twitter account @xinianlai. Besides this, however, my digital literacy was still just average. I used the basics" like Gmail, Facebook, iTunes, Microsoft Office, YouTube, and occasionally watched the NBC Nightly News video podcast. Instead of learning history the way I do now, I would read hours of text from my history book. My digital literacy started to change when I got my new phone and I started to learn history different once I came to my Digital Civilization class for the first time.
Looking at the Present: How far have I come in #digiciv?
Since being in this class I have learned a lot. I have really enjoyed making the connections between the digital revolution we are in now and the changes that took place in Western culture in the past especially with the advent of movable type, the Protestant reformation, and the Enlightenment. The way I have been learning the historical content for this class is by looking at learning objectives for each lesson. I will look at the prominent themes/ideas, major events, and influential people/works. I will try to read all the assigned readings first, then I use those as a springboard into helping me learn more. Earlier in the class I would use Google/Wikipedia to do me self directed reading and learn more about the historical content.
Lately, however I have been able to find and consume better content because I've been going through several of the digital literacy labs. In learning how to use Diigo, mindmaps, Prezi, Twitter, and Blogger I have had digital doors open me up to better content. These platforms have often been my new starting point in consuming content. These avenues have also helped me focus on learning the computing concepts and digital cultures. I always try and guess what the teachers had in mind when they relate various computing concepts to certain historical themes/events. I also really enjoy and appreciate the help my classmates give me in creating Diigo bookmarks and making page annotations/highlights. The Diigo bookmarking has become one of my key portals into the internet rather than Google (at least for this class).
In the last paragraph, I mentioned how Diigo has helped me with one of the three C's, that is, consume. Diigo has also helped me with the other two C's of the class (Consume-Create-Connect). Each time I make a bookmark, I have created content on the internet. It is a way of micro-blogging what I have been up to because it documents where I have been and what I like. (I even use the "like" feature on Digiciv Diigo Group). This in turn has allowed me to connect content with other users and discuss the website via comments annotations, and highlights. I also connect with others online by commenting on everything I read.
As far as creating with blogging. Blogging has encouraged me to both consume and connect because both are necessary to produce relevant content for my blog. If I wanted to write a good blog post, I needed to research and learn about what I was going to talk about. The more I have blogged, the more I have researched and the more I have researched the more I have wanted to blog.
Looking Into the Future: Where could I improve?
I can think of two areas where I could impove the most that will help me make the most out of this class. First I need to better learn the historical content. For the past week or more, I have been focusing more of my attention to the digital concepts portion of the class rather than the historical. If I want to count this as a civilization credit for my university core I need to put more effort into making sure that I have learned the historical content.
Second, I could work on time management. I know we were encouraged to use the 3 hours out of class for each hour in class rule. The challenge of this class has been that I want to consume a lot of content because that is what I am best at rather than create or connect. So I need to work on equally partitioning my time so that I create and connect as much as I consume.
