My Online Experience

Next semester I am taking Stats 371, except it is the online version. It is different from this class because it has no lectures, but there are optional discussion sections. We received and email from the professor explaining how the class would be structured. Instead of lectures, the material would be self-taught with  lecture supplements. I am excited for my stats class, and I feel like all of the online learning for this course will prepare me for it.

I think that the online portions were very beneficial to this class. It helped give real world examples of the information society, and it helped with my understanding of the material. Before this class, I have never blogged. Now, I might start blogging in my free time. Since online participation was required, it helped me be more active on our blog. Instead of just posting our opinions and leaving it at that, we had to comment on another blog post, which meant we ultimately had to read other opinions. Sometimes, this challenged my opinion, and it helped me see things from different viewpoints. I think online portions should be considered for classes, but not all. There are some courses that could benefit from online participation, but it would be very dependent on the course and also the material being presented in the course.

When I first signed up for this class, I was not sure what it would cover. As far as the course material, I liked that we learned about a variety of topics. I think I would have enjoyed the readings more if they weren't so lengthy. Once I got myself to sit down and finish an article, I realized that they aren't so bad after you get into them. The blog posts made me stay active within the course, and they helped me better understand the material. I really enjoyed the lectures. I liked that they weren't stuffed with material. I did not take notes because I found it better for me personally to listen and comprehend the martial being presented, rather than quickly trying to write everything down.