Concluding Reflection: Online Courses

Taking this class certainly proved to be an interesting experience. Prior to enrolling in this class, I had taken a few online classes before, one at the college level. The online class that I took in college was Orchestration. I wanted to register for an in-class section, but my schedule would not allow it, so I had to settle for the online version. I was not too worried about taking this online class, as I already had significant orchestration experience at that point. In addition, the only technology (other than a computer) that the class involved was the optional use of either Finale, Sibelius, or some other music notation software, and I already had significant experience with Finale. The class ended up being a breeze for me, and the fact that it was online allowed me to forge ahead with the due dates and do the work at my own rate according to my own schedule. Overall, I would have liked to learn a little more in the class, but the class was still a positive experience for me.

My feelings prior to enrolling in this class were quite different. The situation was similar. I could not fit the only in-class section into my schedule, so I had to go with the online section. This class, however, dealt with a subject matter with which I was not already familiar. In addition, I was worried about the fact that I would be relying only upon technology to complete a class that focused on technology. From my experiences with technology, I have noticed that it tends to go wrong. There is really no other way to put it, as sometimes it just does not work like it is supposed to. In addition, I sometimes have trouble figuring out how to use new technologies without physical guidance. For example, when we reached the Max/MSP unit in my Music Technology class, I was completely lost all the time unless I asked the professor or someone else in the class to help me on a one-on-one basis.

To provide an example in the case of this class, I have not had a great experience with Google Docs. I had used it minimally before this class, but I had never created my own documents or made any considerable contributions to any documents before. Figuring out how to create spreadsheets in Google was a difficult task, and I had to spend a considerable amount of time looking up specific details. For example, creating a hyperlink requires typing a special formula as opposed to just clicking a button. Instead of hitting the “enter/return” key to go to the next line, you must press “command” + “alt/option” and then add “enter/return.” Steps such as these are not intuitive, and I had to research them on my own. Despite following all the listed steps to embedding a spreadsheet in blogger several times, I was still unsuccessful. I read countless other reports on how to do this, but none of them yielded the results that I was hoping for. Despite minor technical difficulties, such as these, that make learning technology using only technology difficult, I still feel that I was able to keep up and follow along in this class pretty much all the time while learning a sufficient amount as well.