Text Processing

‘Text processing’ plays an important role in online learning as it determines how well the readers will understand the materials taught online. Among those factors that will cause misunderstanding, I think the most significant is the reader’s mental representation. Regardless of how good the web site is, it will be useless for a person if his or her personal experience and knowledge are not good enough. How can people understand an online material if a topic is not familiar? Thus, I totally agree with the authors’ ideas to create a link or even a video to enhance the understanding of the topic.

Moreover, the text should be easy to navigate and comprehend. International students, generally speaking, do encounter a language barrier in learning. Therefore, language is another important factor to be considered in online learning. Also, online learning does not have any body languages to assist the understandings. To make the learning process easier, easy texts, visual representation, videos, and images should be included in the web pages. These factors are particularly useful for international students. Nevertheless, English as first language student will also find these factors beneficial.

As an international student myself, I usually will not go through web sites that contain only text not written in my mother language if it is not mandatory. Without a doubt, visual representation, easy text, and the links to various objects will enhance my understanding when I encounter difficulty to understand the online materials. Therefore, the links to various objects (video, image…) and easy texts are necessary to make the online materials easier to understand. Hence, it can attract more people to go through the web sites.

SDL and Onling Learning

From the few challenges that the author stated in the article regarding SDL in online learning, I believe motivation will be the most difficult to overcome. Human have a tendency to put education after luxury because education, generally speaking, is not fun as well it creates more work for them. To overcome this challenge, the learning subject must be attractive to the extent that the attractiveness can motivate the learner to work (study) prior to doing any kind of luxury activities. Yet, there are many students in one online-learning context, it is nearly impossible to satisfy all or even half of them from the same subject. Therefore, I believe that to improve learners’ motivations strategies that should avoid procrastination and create meaningful interactions are the most indispensable area to achieve.
I mostly agree with Candy’s Four Dimensional Model in the three existing perspectives on SDL that was stated in the article. Nevertheless, I think personal autonomy and self-management can be combined as one dimension under personal attribute. Personally, the way I look at the word personal autonomy has the same meaning with how Candy described self-management, “willingness and capacity to conduct one’s own education.” Instead of personal autonomy, I think time-management can be replaced as the dimension under personal attribute. It is different than learner-control as time-management includes managing all activities in a day, not only in educational settings. Yet, this is only my opinion regarding the model. I still think Candy’s Four Dimensional Model has described SDL most accurately and it is closed to what I believe.

How blogs can be used to enhance online learning

I think blogs can be used to enhance online learning because it is more attractive to students comparing to normal educational web pages. Blogs provide a very convenience channel for teachers and students to share opinions on the same subject, which can assists in developing a better relationship among classmates. Other than sharing opinions, students can also leave questions on the blog. Since all students have the ability to see the questions, answer from teachers will most likely be more detail because this prevents the issues of replying to the same question for more than one student. Entries in blogs can only be deleted by the user, which give students the ability to check any assignments or important information while they are looking through the teachers’ blog. Blogs is such an innovative and convenience medium for learning, it will greatly increase students’ motivation to work harder, also to get a better grade overall.
Using blogs for online learning not only is beneficial to students, it is also beneficial to teachers. Blogs can save tons of paper works for teachers because only keeping a list of website of all students’ blogs will give them access to all information they need from students. Also, being able to check archived entries on the blog can assists teachers to keep track of any improvements a student might have throughout the course. Furthermore, blogs is more convenience when giving students the links to any useful sources. This is better than sending email using a class list to avoid any issues with students emails (inbox full, not in class list, etc) since all students in the class have access to the blog.

Self-introduction

My name is Ricky Ho. I am currently enrolling in the Bachelor of management degree program, majoring in Finance. Few years ago, I went from Hong Kong to Edmonton to continue my high school education. Then I came down here to the University of Lethbridge to get a degree in Management. My Family are all living in Hong Kong, and occasionally I will go back to visit in the summer. The only job I have had during my post-secondary education years is a student marker for the Management 2070 course. Although it is only a temporary job, fortunately Professor had given me the offer for several semesters. I will be seeking for a full time job in the spring as my graduation will also be in the spring next year.