Reflections on Day 1-13 of Educ190

1. Personal Reflection Extract #1
When we first had a look at the course outline, I honestly wondered
whether I would be able to survive the class. Just from browsing the syllabus I had a
feeling that I wouldn’t be able to understand half of the things that will be discussed in
class. I really felt bad that I didn’t make enough of an effort at keeping up with the new
technology that’s available out there.
However, I must say that I was surprisingly pleased to find out that when
topics like Open Source were discussed, it wasn’t actually that complicated. I mean,
sure my knowledge on programming and developing these OS programs is still nil, but
at least I know how to use them not only for when I become a teacher but also now that
I’m still just a student. For example, I’ve always wanted to study journalism and how to
layout newspapers but I knew I’d never be able to afford a copy of Adobe Pagemaker or
Photoshop. But when I did a bit of Googling about OS alternatives, I know now that I
can download these alternatives instead. Plus, who knew that saving text documents
in .odt formats would save you disc space? I’ve been a Windows and Microsoft Office
person for so long that I never even thought there could be an alternative. I don’t think
I’m quite ready to make the switch to Linux, but I am now more open to switching to
OpenOffice instead of MS Office. I plan to download OpenOffice on my laptop
eventually but right now I’ve started practicing saving my text and powerpoint files in
odt, odp or pdf. It’s just too bad that the rest of my family can’t do the same since our
PC’s MS Office can’t save in OS formats and they’re not really too keen on switching to

2. OpenOffice yet. I will try to get them on it though. And I’ve already emailed everyone I
know the “No Word Attachments” article in hopes of raising awareness about OS.
I even learned so much from my classmate’s reports! And I rarely learn
anything useful from reports. I only wish I was able to list down all the internet resources
they mentioned because I’m positive they would have all been useful for me. I’ve never
been a huge fan of using the internet when I’m doing research or when I have to do
lesson plans or other projects for class since I love locking myself up in the library and
poring through books. But, for those times when I’m really crunched for time and I need
an easier way of getting things done, I now at least know where to go.
I’ve so far mentioned two of the most useful things I’ve learned from this
class: OS and useful and credible internet sources. This last one is the most surprising
change for me since I never thought I’d actually really like it: Twitter. Way before
Filipinos even started using twitter and I only heard about it on E! News and
Entertainment Tonight as the new way to get a glimpse on star’s everyday lives, I
already thought it was a complete time-waster. I was still active on Multiply then and I
got so pissed off at those people who would post blog entries and notes on the most
mundane things. As I saw it, twitter was dedicated to being a platform for these people
who had nothing better to do than let other people know that they were “umm…taking
out the garbage ryt now, so gross!...” But now that I’ve actually given it a try, I was so
surprised to find out that there were also a lot of intelligent people on twitter who posted
interesting insights and links to great and -more importantly- useful articles about
anything under the sun. Now, whenever I’ve got nothing to do, I’d open my twitter
account and check out the links posted by the educators and organizations that I follow.

3. And of course, if the link is interesting, I’d bookmark it on delicious. I think twitter is an
excellent way for me to slowly acclimate myself again to social networking sites. I mean,
the reason I swore off social networking sites in the first place was because I didn’t see
any reason why I should post photos or blogs and let everyone know every detail about
my personal life. But now I’m beginning to see that there’s so much more to these sites.
Before I started this course, I was rarely online. I only used my laptop
either to play games, make slides, or write papers. And I would never even consider
using an internet source for a research paper. But now, I make sure to check my email
and twitter at least thrice a week, I hunt for software that might be useful for me on the
internet, and I’ve found ways of looking for useful and credible sources. Who knows
what else I could be doing on my computer by the end of the sem?