Online Education Review

While I have had friends who had bad experiences with online classes, I feel like I have been very fortunate. I've taken four classes that were completely online, and they were all fantastic.

All of my online classes have either been with Laura (Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics) or Sterlin Mosley (Intro to Women and Gender Studies and Gender Communication). Both teachers have been great online instructors and really helped and taken an interest in the student's education. The flexibility that online courses offer is so convenient. The ability to work ahead some and have multiple days to do reading and assignments (instead of like one set class period) is great, especially when I've been taking other intense, traditional classes.

While my women and gender studies online classes definitely taught me how to use the web services of the school (like D2L), one of the things I've loved the most about Laura's classes has been getting to learn about other internet tools, like blogging and website building sites. The tech tips and helped me so much! Because of Laura's classes I've learned how to set up blogs for my outside writings as well as for projects for other classes. Last August, when I began looking over our first week assignment for the Myth-Folkore class, I was kind of scared and overwhelmed with all of the new technological things I would be learning. However, Laura made it simple to learn with her guides and it's been a lot of fun to learn. I've learned so many useful technological things in the class that I will be able to use throughout college and far into my career.

Internet Tree. Pixabay.

General Education Review

I think I am one of the few people who didn't take the Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics classes for gen  ed credit (One counted for my religion minor and the other for my anthropology).

In general, I've had an okay, but very limited experience with OUs gen ed programs. I was concurrently enrolled in high school my senior year so I came in with quite a few general ed credits already earned. However, I have had a couple of great gen ed classes, and a couple not so much. Most of my gen ed classes have been good experiences, and I think that gen eds are important, especially early on in college, to help students try out new things. I changed my major three times before finally deciding on professional writing, which I hadn't known existed until my adviser had me look into the program and recommended taking the intro classes to get into Gaylord College of Journalism. I think that first year especially gen ed classes helped me see what I did, and equally important, did not want to study for the next three years.

I think my favorite gen ed class was an Intro to Astronomy class that I took freshman year. Science and math have never been my favorite subjects, but I've always been interested in astronomy, so I decided to take that class for my lab based physical science. To this day, that is one of my favorite classes. We would have regular lectures that were always interesting but then one night a week we would go to the observatory and do hands on work with the telescopes and comparing different planets and stars that we saw. It was a difficult class, but it was extremely interesting and rewarding.

I have definitely had some bad experiences with gen ed classes too, but I won't go into specific classes. The biggest problem always seemed to be when the professors didn't put much effort into the gen ed classes. Another gen ed class I had freshman, I was really excited about at first because I thought it would be interesting. But unlike the astronomy class, the professor always showed up late, never had lectures prepared, and outright told us that it didn't matter because we were all just there for gen ed credits so she wasn't going to spend time on it. That was probably my worst gen ed experience at OU.

Timeless Books by Lin Kristensen. Wikimedia

College Writing Review

I'm a professional writing major; so, writing has played a huge role in my college career thus far. However, the types of writing I do for classes has changed a lot over the past couple of years. Before, in Gen Ed classes and in my minor classes (religious studies and anthropology), analytic research papers were the only type of writing I did for classes. This all changed when I switched majors into PW. In the last year, my class writings have shifted from more academic papers to creative papers.

Every class inside my major has been extremely writing intensive, from Intro to PW, Short Story, and as I'm now beginning to prepare for the Novel class. Outside of my major, I have had some religion and anthropology classes that required a couple big research papers, but none as much writing overall as my major classes. Besides research papers, the two classes I've taken with Laura, Myth-Folklore and this Indian Epics class, have been the most writing intensive outside of my major. That is one of the things I have loved about these two classes. Having at least a story a week to write, along with reading journals and possible outside projects has helped me continue to improve my writing a lot.

The amount of feedback we get in Laura's classes, both from her and from fellow students has been a great help in making me more thoughtful observant in my own writing. Being required to edit and comment on other people's blogs and comments has given me things to pay attention to in my own writing as well. Outside of my major classes, the Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics classes have helped me more in my writing than any other. I've recommended both classes to a lot of people both inside and outside of my major. They have been some of my favorite and most rewarding classes in general, as well as helping my writing improve.

Power of Words by Antonio Litterio. Wikimedia

Un-Textbook Online Reading Options

1. For my first experimentation with the online reading options, I used my laptop computer.

2. I used Google Chrome for my browser. For the PDF option, I started out looking at it in Chrome then downloaded into Adobe Reader.

3.I liked the PDF option the best, although I also really liked Hathi. I think the reason I liked PDF the most is because it's easily downloadable onto a devise, so internet wouldn't always be needed. Also, most online readings I have for other classes are on PDFs so I know how to operate them. That being said, I liked the layout and format of Hathi a lot and I wouldn't mind reading in that at all either.

4. There were none that I would be opposed to reading in, but I didn't think Archive or Google Books were quite as good as the other. For one think, I think the ability to download online reading is important. When I went home for spring break, I downloaded all of my readings onto my tablet so I didn't have to use internet and since they were on PDFs it worked perfectly. I like the viewing options Archive gave, but the play button was completely unneeded and I wish it was more connected to the rest of the site, like how Hathi had the side and top bar if you wanted to look for something else. And Google books is easy to use but you can't download and it's pretty basic too, so I would prefer Hathi or PDFs to it.

5. Most of the longer texts that I have read are either on PDFs, whether downloaded from D2L or database sources (particularly for my anthropology and religious studies minors.) I've read quite a few classic texts from PDFs, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and different writings by Homer, as well as modern anthropological journals. Whether I read online or offline depends on what I'm doing. If I'm going to be in my apartment for the entire reading and will only need it once, I read online. If I will need the reading more than once or am traveling, whether across states or going back and forth to campus, I am more likely to download the readings and read them offline if that option is available.

6. I don't have many online note taking strategies. Most of the time I have a spiral notebook that I put all of my notes in for a class. Physically writing notes helps me remember it more than typing it. However when I'm short on time I use Microsoft One Note and have different sections for different readings in that but they all get kept close together so I don't have to go between document files, just tabs on the program. I use this more often for notes for long research papers.

7. I don't have a different strategy for PDF note taking, either pen and paper or One Note. However, if the document is typed in PDF rather than scanned, sometimes I'll change it to Microsoft Word and use the comment tools on that to make notes. That is rarely an available option though, so once again, most of the time I use pen and paper with the occasional use of One Note.

8. There are a few times when I'll print out hard copies. One is if the professor doesn't allow devices in the class, I'll print out the reading to make notes on during the lectures. I'll also print out readings if I will need to use them often throughout a semester so I can write notes on the hard copy as the semester progresses. I'll also print out a copy if its either a really important reading or really difficult. I find that I can usually focus better if the reading is extremely hard if I can shove the paper into my face rather than on a screen. Where I print the hard copies really depends. If its short or at night, I'll print it in my apartment. If it's long or I'm on campus already, I'll print it in the Gaylord computer labs.

9. When I have a hard copy I am much more likely to highlight and make notes on the reading, however, that often leaves the notes fragmented. I do like online reading because if you take notes, whether in a notebook or a document, they are more together. I also like the availability of online readings when you don't have to remember to grab a book or hard copy before leaving home. That is one thing I have loved from both of your classes. There's been many times when I've been waiting for my friend at lunch or between classes when I've grabbed my ipad and read a story or two from the Un-Textbook.

Week 14: Jatakas Tales: Shedlock (Extra Reading Diary)

This week, for the essay option I decided to read the first half of Shedlock's verison of Jataka Tales. The stories I'm going to talk about in this post are The Hare that was Not Afraid to Die, The King who Saw the Truth, and The Elephant Honored with Old Age.

The Hare that was not afraid to die was the first story that really caught my eye. Most of the animals who actually could have helped the poor by some small hunting or foraging, instead stole the food that they then tried to give away. That seems like it is something that would happen if there was readily food available instead of working for it. I thought the Buddha-bunny was very brave to not only, offer himself up for a meal, but also protect the poor man by jumping on the flames himself so the Brahman didn't have to kill on a holy day.

Black Naped Hair. Wikimedia

The King Who Saw the Truth was a very similar story but I thought it was also very brave, especially since eyes are something that most people would be unwilling to give up. This story continued in the long line of stories where the Buddha was a good and righteous man who promised to do something that most people would never do and when tested, fulfilled his promise.

The last story I'm going to talk about was my favorite from the first half of this unit, The Elephant who was Honored with Old Age. There have been stories I read for the Myth-Folklore class and stories I read for this class that dealt with the issues of humans casting out animals once they become less useful. This was my favorite story that was in that same moral. Most of the times the animals are always cast out, sometimes they may find a way to live a happy life, but often they don't. I liked that in this one, the Buddha/Prime Minister fought for the elephant to be restored to her place of honor and not cast aside after all her long years of service to the king.

Week 14: The Clever Monkey (Storytelling)

Once, a monkey lived along the shore of a huge river. He would swing from tree to tree along its bank, looking for the best fruits to eat. There was also a small island in the center of the river. To get to the island, the monkey would jump from rock to rock over the river until the island was just a leap away.

Most monkeys were afraid to go to the island.  One, however, was not. This monkey was brave and clever and since he was the only monkey who would venture over the river to the island, he had all of the ripe fruits on the island to himself. He would often go there and feast on the many fruit trees the island possessed.

Still, the monkey wasn’t always happy. From the island, could see even more good fruit trees on the opposite riverbank. But there were no rocks on that side to jump across. Still, he’d often sit on the island and think about one day making it all the way across the river.

One day, he got up early to go to the island. When he got there he ate and sat, looking across the river at the other side. He was startled when he heard a voice down below him.

“Hello, Monkey,” the voice said. When the monkey looked down, he saw a crocodile swimming down below, right along the edge of the island.

“Hello, Crocodile. What brings you to my island?” The monkey asked.

“Well, you have a beautiful island,” the crocodile said, “but the trees over on the far side of the river look even better. I could take you over there if you’d like…you could ride on my back.”

The monkey watched the crocodile cautiously. The monkey was smart and knew that this was probably a trap because crocodiles loved eating monkeys. But he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to try the fruits on the other side of the river.

“Alright,” said the monkey, as he hopped down onto the crocodiles back.

The crocodile swam towards the far riverbank for a while, then suddenly, he dove beneath the water. Money was terrified. He couldn’t swim, so he had to keep holding on to the crocodile who seemed to want to kill him. After a long minute, the crocodile surfaced again, with the monkey clinging to its back.

“What were you doing?” The monkey coughed and shook, trying to dry off.

“Killing you,” said the crocodile. “I want to eat monkey heart for dinner tonight.

The monkey thought quickly, devising a plan. “Well,” he said slowly, “that’s really too bad. You see, I left my heart on the island. If you just would have told me, I would have brought it. Why don’t we go back and fetch it?”

The monkey could see the crocodile thinking, but crocodiles were not known for their intelligence. “Okay,” said the crocodile finally. “We can go back and you can get me your heart.”

The crocodile, with the monkey on its back, swam back to the island. As soon as the crocodile swam close enough, the monkey leapt and scrambled up a tree on the island’s shore.

“You’re very stupid, Crocodile,” the monkey said. “My heart is not on the island and now you can’t reach me.” The crocodile was angry at himself and Monkey for the trickery. But he devised another plan to catch the monkey for dinner.

The crocodile watched as the monkey went back to his feast on the island. The monkey ate all the fruits he could and was about to return back to his side of the river. It was just getting dark. Crocodile swam up, stealthily, and tried to disguise himself as one of the rocks Monkey jumps across to get home.

When monkey got close, he noticed that the rock was higher than it should have been. To see if the crocodile was hiding, the monkey called out, “Oh rock, shall we talk as we always to on my trip home?”

The crocodile, thinking that the monkey and rock were friends, answered, trying to convince the monkey he was a rock. “Of course, as we always do,” the crocodile said, trying to make himself sound like a rock.

“You are the crocodile!” the monkey yelled. “But, I suppose you have trapped me! Why don’t you open your mouth and I’ll climb in?”

The crocodile was giddy with monkey’s surrender. He did as he was asked and opened his mouth wide.

Monkey took this opportunity and jumped over the crocodile’s open mouth and onto his head. As quick as he could, the monkey jumped from the crocodile, to the rocks, then to the shore.

“I have outsmarted you again, Crocodile,” the monkey said.

The crocodile saw that the monkey was once again out of his reach. “Yes,” he said sadly, “you have. I won’t continue pursuit of you, Monkey. You are too hard to catch.”

“Nonetheless,” Monkey replied, “I will always watch out, as you almost ate me twice.” With that the monkey and the crocodile parted ways, they never saw each other again.

Author's Note: The original story was called The Monkey and The Crocodile from the Jatakas Tales (Babbitt) reading unit in the Un-Textbook. The story is about a crocodile and a monkey. The crocodile keep trying to kill the monkey, but the monkey keeps outsmarting the crocodile. 

I kept most of the story the same. I added more background for the monkey, such as him being the only monkey who would venture onto the island. I also condensed the story. Originally it was in two parts and the two parts were weeks apart. I changed them to happen in a singular day, one event right after the other. Besides that, the main events of the story are the same. 

Story Source: Story source: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, illustrated by Ellsworth Young (1912).

Week 14: Jataka Tales: Babbitt (Reading Diary B)

This week I read Babbitt's Jataka Tales unit from the Un-Textbook. The stories I'm going to talk about from the second half of the reading are The Golden Goose, How the Monkey Saved his Troop, and The Elephant and the Dog. (Story source: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, illustrated by Ellsworth Young (1912).)

The story of the Golden Goose was what I expected from the White Elephant story that I talked about in the first reading diary this week. The goose was so kind to help the mother and daughters by giving them golden feathers to sell. Not only did the goose give the women one feather, but he continued to return and give more and more feathers to the family until they were rich. Of course, it was not enough for the mother and she caught the goose and forcibly plucked all the feathers.  I was so glad that the woman didn't benefit from her violence towards the goose, as all of the goose's gold feathers turned white when the mother stole them.

The next story I'm going to talk about was How the Monkey Saved his Troop. I really liked this story, not only because of the monkey chief's ingenuity but also the respect and honor the king showed the monkey. I was a little frustrated by how the king just took over the entire tree and tried to keep all the monkeys after it and ordered his arches to shoot any that tried to come down. However, I thought the monkey chief was really creative to make a bridge out of his body for his entire troop to escape on. I was so glad that when the king saw how the monkey saved his troop, the king decided to help and take care of the monkey for the rest of his life.

My favorite story from this entire unit was the story of the Elephant and the Dog. I love friendships between different animals. And this one was so sweet. I loved how happy the dog and the elephant were together and I felt so bad for the elephant when the dog was sold to the farmer. I was so happy though when the king saw how sad the elephant was and decided to pay to bring the dog back. The dog and elephant's reunion with the elephant lifting the dog over his head was so adorable and I'm so glad they lived together happily after that.