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Bob Barker’s Reflection

Rough Draft

HMNT 1001

Part 1: Today I am…

I am a student taking online courses. The freedom of being able to complete my assignments on my own time, still being able to work and be a father to my kids, allows me to wear many different hats at once. Walden University has provided me with several different tools to be successful in an online community. The course work is organized with very clear instructions on when and how an assignment needs to be completed. The online class also provides several tools to help complete the assignments, such as, access to the online library and online database of articles, links to specific articles, notes on content and interactive self assessments. These tools and supports are very valuable to me as a student and allow me to accurately complete my assignments. The tools are also very convenient and allow me to complete my assignments in a timely manner in order to manage other areas of my life such as work and my family. The key to being successful in an online course is time management and the tools provided do just that.

I promise to work on my skills while taking this and other courses at Walden University. The self assessments were also helpful. I am not going to walk away because I want to pursue my dreams of obtaining a degree and I know that I have my instructor, my advisor and other resources available to me. One set of self assessments focused on life factors, individual attributes and learning styles. Another set focused on familiarity with technology and knowledge of technology. The first assessment was about life factors, or factors that affect one’s ability to attend school and manage their life at the same time. This assessment focuses on time, place, reason, resources and skills, which all would affect one’s ability to be successful in an online environment. I scored in the 75-100% area for all categories except for time. In the area of time, I scored 65%, which shows that there is a minor concern with the amount of time I have to focus on school and school related activities. This is a minor concern because of the other responsibilities I have such as, being a father and working. However, the online tools provided and good time management skills have successfully allowed me to complete my assignments with little concern for time. The next area was individual attributes, which focused on academic attributes, help seeking, persistence, procrastination, time management and locus of control. Individual attributes are something we as people have control over. For example, I scored lowest in the areas of procrastination and help seeking. I was moderately comfortable seeking help; this is mostly because I first like to try to solve problems myself. I also do have a tendency to procrastinate at times. However, after I took this self assessment, I decided to work on procrastination and on the particular discussion that week, I was one of the first to post my response and it did feel good to accomplish something early and before the due date. The self-assessments can clearly be helpful in identifying areas that need improvement. The last area of this particular self-assessment was learning style. My learning style interpreted by this assessment is social. Being a social learner means I am most comfortable learning around others and this I would attribute to being a people person and constantly dealing with people in my career.

Another set of self assessments focused on technology, social media and knowledge of technology. In the beginning, I felt very weary of technology and even thought I was less familiar with it then most. However, after the technology assessment, I found that I am quite familiar with technology. I attribute this to my job as a nurse and always using computers, as well as utilizing my I phone to accomplish various tasks. Technology is clearly something that will only continue to grow and can have tremendous impact on people’s lives. For example, in the article about Second Life, people with debilitating diseases were able to live a second life and find enjoyment in a virtual world. This speaks volumes for the implications of technology in this world.

How will I become apart of the Walden community? Moving forward, this course has really opened my eyes to the progression of technology in our lives. The field of technology will only grow and advance and in order to flourish one must embrace technology and become comfortable with it in many different aspect. I plan to maintain contact with some of my classmates and my advisors after this course ends.