Reflections

I must confess, after essentially living in the Tanner building for the last two and half years, it’s been a refreshing and eye-opening experience to come out of my accounting “cocoon” and take part in a fascinating digital civilization class. It’s been intriguing and stretching for me. I feel like my major (accounting) has helped prepared to better under concepts from this class (especially the computing concepts). However, there are some many topics that I have been very unfamiliar with (e.g., digital culture concepts). I have enjoyed expanding my horizons and learning concepts that I have enriched my perspectives on my major and life.

An example of this is our discussion about Open Government. This is a concept that I feel is very closely tied to accounting and has many important accounting ramifications associated with it. Because of this, I ended up writing a post about it and, as a result, have learned more about some important current events in accounting.

In terms of computing concepts, I feel like I have been familiar with many of them. However, it has been intriguing to me the parallels and similarities that exist between computing issues and historical issues (e.g., blogging with print and print culture, databases and the Enlightenment (the gathering of knowledge).

I feel like learning about important issues of the past through the lens of the digital technology movement has helped me to better understand the age in which I live and significance of it. This class has helped me to understand many of the big issues that are going around me, see/determine how I feel about them, and has allowed me to comment personally on them (e.g., post on new algorithms). It’s been a great and stretching experience for me.

1) Digital literacy has assisted my self-directed learning because it has helped me to find better content to consume. The use of blog searching tools has helped me to connect with others and to be able to consume content that was relevant to what I was looking for. Additionally, open course ware has led me to find some original essays and works by historical figures. I think what has impressed about the most about the digital literacy tools that I have been using is the enhanced ability they bring to find rich and relevant content to a greater extent than I was able to before. I think before, I was definitely stuck in a Google search trap.

2) The creation of blog posts and digital media have impacted my learning because I feel that you really have to know a topic before you can teach or write effectively about it. Knowing that I would be writing about topics has helped me to pay greater attention to what I was seeing or reading. Also, I think because I am writing about the topics that I am researching, I constantly look for connections, themes, and ideas among the digital media/literature that I consume. In essence, knowing I was going to create has helped me to become a better consumer.

3) I think commenting on each other’s blogs has been a great way to connect with other members in the class. I think that becomes especially exciting when there are topics that people feel passionate about (e.g. openness of government, capitalism, etc…) Also, as I wrote in my last Connect post, blog search tools have been another way that I have been able to connect with people from all over the world (and in Provo as well).