Unit 3 Reflection
For my unit 3 project, I chose the topic that I have been researching throughout the semester, and that was technology in the classroom. I decided that I wanted an audience that I could closely relate to and research about, and I was among them – students in college. In the beginning, I wanted to argue about how technology was hurting students’ education, because I felt negatively towards it, and that was my argument for the unit 1 project. I felt negatively towards it because I would always experience negative effects when I use technology, so I wanted to dive deeper into it. For the second unit, I dealt a lot deeper into this topic and discovered many new things. I started realizing that technology had a lot more benefits than I thought, and some of its negative effects aren't directly correlated with the use of technology. For example, I thought that the blue light coming off of our devices were the direct causes for symptoms like headaches and eye strains. But, the more I researched, the more I found out that the reason for these negative effects is because of how focused your eyes get when you’re doing work on your device: you forget to blink and it gets irritated as well as dry, so experiencing discomfort is normal. Additionally, this discomfort in the eye can be a result of a lot of different things if you don’t let your eyes rest properly. Nevertheless, once I started gaining a better understanding and more information regarding this topic, I tweaked my argument for the Unit 2 project. Instead of arguing for why technology should not be used in the classroom, I wrote my argument about how technology should be encouraged in students’ academic careers, but limited. I didn’t want to argue for technology in the classroom completely because I came across research that proved technology slowed the rate of retention in students, but I felt that limiting the usage was a solid argument. Students should be mindful of the effects of technology if it’s used for too long, and other factors along with it. I feel much better about this change of opinion, and I think this shows in my writing, because it felt much more natural when I was presenting my points in my slideshow.
I thought that a slideshow was appropriate for this project, because my argument felt like something that needed to be persuaded. Additionally, it had multiple different points, and I didn’t want to make something like a Canva or an instagram post where I would have only one slide to work with – it would feel messy because I’d need to jump from one point to another.
To begin with my pitch, I chose to interview some of my audience; my friends, peers and people in college that were of similar age (undergraduate), and I asked them certain questions regarding how actively they used technology in the classroom, how they felt about it, how they feel about it compared to handwriting, etc. and I took note of their answers so I could use them later on in my writing piece. I used direct quotes from my interviews so I could exaggerate, or emphasize some points in my writing. I also wanted my audience to have a big idea of how significant technology is in the classroom now, in case they didn’t know.
I would like it if my audience looked through my slideshow and took note of the points made there, because a lot of students, myself included, weren’t aware of its negative effects, like how long periods of time studying without giving your eyes a rest can cause fatigue and headache for students.
When I was in the process of peer reviewing, I chose to follow this comment strongly:
“I love your intro so far! It gives a good background before you go more in depth into your body paragraphs. I would include pictures to break up your text more, and also include your research question in your post so readers know exactly what you are answering!”
This comment was written under my draft for my Unit 2 Portfolio, and while it was still a very rough draft of my portfolio, I was still a bit foreign to the idea of incorporating technology into my writing pieces, because it wasn’t something I was used to so I didn’t think much of adding any visual elements at the time. However, after I chose to take this comment’s advice, I found it easier to structure my ideas apart by using visual texts. I chose to add data/graphs from experiments I mentioned, I included an informative Youtube Video, and some visually pleasing photos from the Internet. I wanted to keep a simple, yet effective theme and in order to do this I needed less words and more pictures; I thought it would be easier for the reader to follow this way. After I incorporated this theme, I noticed other changes in my writing piece as well. First, I was able to add more information into my writing piece, such as the YouTube video of the doctor explaining the effect of blue light on the human eye. It was a first hand source, and I wouldn’t have been able to explain it that well, or go that much into detail if I hadn’t added this piece of media. Additionally, I found that it separated my ideas and body paragraphs apart from each other very effectively. It looked more visually appealing to the reader, because it was spaced out more, and with multiple things to look at, it became more engaging overall. I am thankful to have taken this advice from my peer!
Finally, in terms of challenging myself to improve my blog, in terms of the expectations of my chosen audience, I did some things. Firstly, my chosen audience is people who are currently in school, with a majority being young adults, and people who teach at educational institutions. My challenge was when I tried to add information that was relatable to both students and educators. I wanted my slideshow to be something that anyone associated with an educational institution could look into and seek information about. So, although my thesis statement heavily focuses on students, I tackled the pros and cons of using technology through both perspectives. For example, I stated “There are more access to resources,” “There are more ways to present information,” in the third slide, where these bulleted points can be applied to professors and others who teach in the classroom.
I thought that a slideshow was appropriate for this project, because my argument felt like something that needed to be persuaded. Additionally, it had multiple different points, and I didn’t want to make something like a Canva or an instagram post where I would have only one slide to work with – it would feel messy because I’d need to jump from one point to another.
To begin with my pitch, I chose to interview some of my audience; my friends, peers and people in college that were of similar age (undergraduate), and I asked them certain questions regarding how actively they used technology in the classroom, how they felt about it, how they feel about it compared to handwriting, etc. and I took note of their answers so I could use them later on in my writing piece. I used direct quotes from my interviews so I could exaggerate, or emphasize some points in my writing. I also wanted my audience to have a big idea of how significant technology is in the classroom now, in case they didn’t know.
I would like it if my audience looked through my slideshow and took note of the points made there, because a lot of students, myself included, weren’t aware of its negative effects, like how long periods of time studying without giving your eyes a rest can cause fatigue and headache for students.
When I was in the process of peer reviewing, I chose to follow this comment strongly:
“I love your intro so far! It gives a good background before you go more in depth into your body paragraphs. I would include pictures to break up your text more, and also include your research question in your post so readers know exactly what you are answering!”
This comment was written under my draft for my Unit 2 Portfolio, and while it was still a very rough draft of my portfolio, I was still a bit foreign to the idea of incorporating technology into my writing pieces, because it wasn’t something I was used to so I didn’t think much of adding any visual elements at the time. However, after I chose to take this comment’s advice, I found it easier to structure my ideas apart by using visual texts. I chose to add data/graphs from experiments I mentioned, I included an informative Youtube Video, and some visually pleasing photos from the Internet. I wanted to keep a simple, yet effective theme and in order to do this I needed less words and more pictures; I thought it would be easier for the reader to follow this way. After I incorporated this theme, I noticed other changes in my writing piece as well. First, I was able to add more information into my writing piece, such as the YouTube video of the doctor explaining the effect of blue light on the human eye. It was a first hand source, and I wouldn’t have been able to explain it that well, or go that much into detail if I hadn’t added this piece of media. Additionally, I found that it separated my ideas and body paragraphs apart from each other very effectively. It looked more visually appealing to the reader, because it was spaced out more, and with multiple things to look at, it became more engaging overall. I am thankful to have taken this advice from my peer!
Finally, in terms of challenging myself to improve my blog, in terms of the expectations of my chosen audience, I did some things. Firstly, my chosen audience is people who are currently in school, with a majority being young adults, and people who teach at educational institutions. My challenge was when I tried to add information that was relatable to both students and educators. I wanted my slideshow to be something that anyone associated with an educational institution could look into and seek information about. So, although my thesis statement heavily focuses on students, I tackled the pros and cons of using technology through both perspectives. For example, I stated “There are more access to resources,” “There are more ways to present information,” in the third slide, where these bulleted points can be applied to professors and others who teach in the classroom.
Comments
Post a Comment