HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving is going well. This will be one of my last posts for this semester. In my last Adult Learning class my partner and I got to facilitate a lesson on the attribute Motivation. This was Knowles' last attribute and one of my personal favorites. I happy to say that I only have two more projects left and then I'm finished. Next week both of my classes will be meeting for some food and drinks. This past Sunday my friends and I went to an awesome concert at the Starland Ballroom. It was an amazing show! My band has opened up for major acts at this location multiple times. Seeing these bands play made me miss the felling iof playing on that big of a stage to that many people. Hopefully we'll get a chance to do it again!

Almost Done!

This semester is winding down, and while I have had a lot of fun, I can't wait to start a new. This Wednesday, we had our last class for INTC 5001. During this class I got to present my tool time on Photo Peach. I did really enjoy this tool, but there was a lot of things I could see that could have been fixed. During my Adult Learning class we went over the 5th attribute which was Orientation. It is very interesting to see how all of these attributes begin to intertwine with one another. All of these attributes are truly important when looking at how we learn as adults.  I have one more Adult Learning class left in which my partner and I get to facilitate our discussion on the andragogical attribute, Motivation. This is a particularly important one for me and has been throughout my life.

A Slow Week

This week was kind of a slow week for me. I didn't really get much of anything done. I only have a little bit of work left to do for both of my classes which I will hopefully finish by next week. I've been more interested in searching different Universities that I will apply to next year. That has honestly been my motivation for this current week. I'm really excited to start this journey, but I just wish it was here already! In other news I will be attending the Atlantic City Tattoo Expo tonight at the Tropicana Casino! Most people who know me, know that I love tattoos in addition to having plenty of them.....but I can never have enough!

Experience and Respect

In this past weeks facilitation on the attribute Experience in Adult Learning, I began to see how each attributes are beginning to intertwine. Experience is key in learning, but with this attribute doesn't include only positive aspects. There are plenty of negative aspects that become of our experiences. Though this may be the case, without negative experiences, we as individuals could not continue to grow. Both positive and negative experiences bring about an outlook that shapes who we are and who we will become. With experience also comes the biased view that we may have. This bias is often hard to break without the will to change. I have been a master in Tae Kwon Do since I was seventeen years old. Often times when teaching classes that include adults who are twenty or thirty years older than I, comes a sort of resistance. It is often that older adults don't really want to learn from someone much younger than them. Though I've been doing Tae Kwon Do for twenty years, I still have much more to learn; I will never stop learning. Many of the adults may not understand that I've been state champion as well as national champion and junior Olympic champion (which is just a step done from the Olympics and includes the best of the best from around the world) multiple times throughout my life. Older adults may have a bias that believes that they can't learn from someone younger than themselves. For me, this is a challenge that I never back down from and I always come out the better person for having changed someones mindset. This website provides a great look into how our environment shapes our experience and thus our perception. The last bit of this blog entry is going to be on respect. In both my Adult Learning and Instructional Technology in the 21st Century classes are full of respect. Each and every person in both of my classes are respectful to each other. I have never experienced this in any of my undergraduate classes. Everyone is so happy to tell each other great job and to always help out. It's refreshing to see that people like this still exist in this world and I'm truly happy to be a part of this family. 

Self-Concept

This week in Adult Learning, we presented our andragogical map for self-concept. This particular attribute really meant a lot to me in many ways. I recently decided to stop the MAIT program so I can begin my journey to aqcuire my PhD in either Politics in Communication or Political Science. I am self-motivated to become the best person that I can be. Determination is something that I have always had throughout my life; from Tae Kwon Do to playing the guitar in a band to school. I don't mind the long journey ahead of me, because I know that this is what I truly want to accomplish. This realization took a little while, but when I discovered what I truly wanted to do I knew that this would be my future. The cost of war is a great website that gives an insight into the type of devastation that occurs when war ensues. I bring up this website because, foreign politics as well as national, are what inspire me to keep learning more and more each day
On a lighter note......we reached the half-way freeze!!! I'm pretty confident that in the next week or two, I'll be finished all my work for Instructional Technology in the 21st Century! 

Half-Way Freeze!

The half-way freeze is almost upon us! With October 22nd marking the date of the half-way freeze, I am ahead of my mark. I have completed three wildcards as well as the group IT mapping project. Though these projects definitely take a lot of time to accomplish, they weren't as bad as I thought. The Sound of Music is a survey I created using Survey Monkey. This is definitely a good site, but the only downfall is that after ten questions you have to start paying for it. This limited the amount of questions I wanted to ask everyone. I decided to pick the ones I thought were the best and send everyone my survey to complete. I also created a powerpoint for Tattoos around the world and a socrative quiz to go along with it. The last project I created was a trivia game on edcreate. My trivia game was on the Church of Satan. I am not a Satanist by any means, I just enjoy learning about all religions; seeing what each culture believes and how they worship is a very interesting subject to me. 

Presenting the IT History Project

My group member and I just recently presented our IT History project on the history of distance education. I really enjoyed researching this project to see how far distance education actually went back. It's crazy to think that in 1782, Caleb Phillips, "advertised teaching of a new form of short hand through lessons that were mailed weekly." When most people think of distance education, they don't think all the way back to this first account; but rather to how distance education is right now. To think that distance education started so long ago is somewhat unfathomable. This project really opened my eyes to how far we have come. Technology is becoming greater with each passing day. What is in-store for the future of technology?

 

Dropping the MAIT program

I recently found out that one does not need to acquire their masters degree first in order to start their PhD. Upon looking into multiple different Universities, I came to the University of Maryland. I saw that it said, plan to earn a PhD in Communications with a B.A. in Communications.....needless to say, I was surprised. I looked into a few more Universities and got some more info from one of my former Professors. After this semester I will be dropping the MAIT program to apply for five different Universities that have a PhD program. I am very excited to have found this out but am also said to have started something only to find out this piece of information. You live and you learn though. I will still be giving this semester my all, as I always do. I am enjoying the projects we are creating in each of my classes. Just last night someone showcased a website called Quizlet. This web 2.0 tool is a way to create flash cards online. You can play a few games in order to better attain the knowledge of the flashcards you have created. There are pre-exisiting flashcards that other people have made. Soon I will need to take my GREs. I am able to go onto this tool and search for ones that people have already made to study them. This will be a great tool at my disposal!

Not as Bad as I Thought!

Coming into the third week of my first Graduate semester, it doesn't seem so bad anymore! While I still have a ways to go with this semester, the workload seems a lot more manageable now that I'm getting back into the swing of things. I've already started a few of my projects, so I am a little bit ahead right now. I truly am enjoying this semester so far! This just makes me more excited to continue my studies and reach my goal of earning my PhD and becoming a professor! Seeing as how I've just talked about my classes in the past two blogs, I figured I'd give a little bit more on who I am. This past weekend my best friend had an amateur fight for MMA at the Taj in Atlantic City. While I don't do MMA, I have done Tae Kwon Do since I was three years old. I am a fourth degree black belt master and have achieved a lot throughout my life in Tae Kwon Do. I haven't competed in about five years, which is sad to me. I have been state champion, national champion, and junior Olympic champion multiple times in my life. Seeing my friend fight really just made me want to train more so I can compete in this upcoming year. I was worried about having so much work that I wouldn't be able to train, but as each passing day gets easier I can tell that I'll have plenty of time to train. For those that don't know. this is Tae Kwon Do sparring and what I compete in. In the coming blogs I'll not only talk about my semester, but add a little bit about myself each time.

Dropping IDD

Coming into my first graduate semester I didn't really anticipate the workload to be any different than when I used to take five classes each semester during undergrad. I figured if I only took three classes that it would be fine.....I was wrong! Even though I was warned already about taking three classes, I didn't listen. It's hard to explain to someone until they actually experience it for themselves the amount of work that is required for graduate classes. After my Adult Learning class on Monday, I tried to figure out a way for me to be able to take on three classes. I tried and tried...and tried some more, but to no avail. Last night at my Tae Kwon Do class, I was explaining to one of my friends in the class (who is a Stockton professor) about having to drop a class. She told me that it truly is hard to explain how different graduate is from undergrad; especially to someone who hasn't experienced it yet. I'm very happy with my decision of dropping Instructional Design and Development. I wish there was a way for me to do three classes and still maintain my sanity, but that would not happen. Next time I will heed the warnings of my Professors.

My First Class as a Graduate Student

I have a long way to go but I'm excited for the journey ahead. My first class was great, minus the technical difficulties on two computers! Not really knowing what was going to come of my first class, I was thoroughly excited to see what we're going to be learning. I want to one day become a professor and my class Instructional Technology in the 21st Century Classroom is going to shed some light on the way I can use technology to create a great learning environment. I'm excited to see what's in store for the rest of the semester!