Category Archives: School

One of my worries about taking classes online was the quality of education I would be getting. Being in an actual classroom and interacting and discussing topics with other students and your teacher can lend valuable insight to a subject. It can also enable the teacher to bring in knowledge from his or her personal experiences and sources outside of the textbook.

This lack of personalization really worried me and I am sad to announce that I have experienced it and happy to announce that I also haven’t. As I have discovered, some teachers put in about as much effort into online classes as the majority or students and some don’t.

Several days before class started, my psychology teacher e-mailed everyone to let them know she was setting up the online site and how it would work. In fact, she gave us the first week entirely to familiarize ourselves with the site. Since then, she has posted an announcement at the beginning of every week including assignments and she also e-mails us these weekly announcements as well as special announcements, such as when she has completed grading an assignment.

Assignments themselves consist of textbook reading, reaction papers and discussion participation on the forums. The reaction papers, while relevant to the section of the textbook, do not follow it exactly and require a bit more thought. The same can be said for discussion questions which require each student to answer the question and then respond to others’ answers as well. The assignments also include sources and work outside from the textbook to give us a little more variety.

Overall, I have been pleased with this professor. She adds the human touch and I am getting more out of this class than if I were to just read the textbook which is absolutely necessary in my opinion; otherwise, why am I even paying for the class if I can just buy the book?

On the other hand, my accounting class is quite sterile compared to the ‘loving touch’ of my other professor. With only one announcement in over 3 weeks – and that one was after the class began, to boot- it’s increasingly obvious that this professor does not think highly of online education or wish to enhance the information in the book in any way.

The only thing he updates is the assignment list. Assignments are very cut and dry; read a chapter, do the questions and check back next week to see if your answers are correct. Each section has an online quiz and exam which is timed and because assignments are not checker or graded, these are the only scores which count.

In my experience the time alloted for the quizzes and tests is many times the time necessary and provides time for reading the text if you have not already. Combined with ungraded assignments and there is really no reason to do any of the work.

If the tests and quizzes were adequate, this might not be an issue as test grades often make up the bulk of your grade in college courses. Of course, all of the questions were true or false because they were entered into an automated system so there isn’t much room for discussion, argument or even thinking.

As someone who likes a challenging class and strives to feel as though she is actually learning something useful, I am quite disappointed with that class.

Overall, I am both relieved and disappointed with my experiences. While one professor is going beyond the bare minimum and I am getting my money’s worth, the other is barely doing that and I would be much better off if I had simply read the book.

When it comes down to it, quality of education probably has more to do with the teacher than the medium.

Samantha’s walking now. I don’t know if she’s early developing or not but it sure seems quick. She’s crawling on my side currently. She seems to be a really intelligent baby, and I know people say that about all babies, but I’m not a baby fan at all.

I think Ben and I may go into a sort of business venture together. This could benefit me in many ways, I believe. If I did make any sort of money that’d be great, and working it’d be a great experience for me as well. It’s just so hard to get a hold of him. Let me rephrase that; I don’t call people. Although, I did call him last night because I think I broke Ashe’s comp. I wonder whether or not that has been fixed.

Well I know have an hour and a half off at the end of every day because I dropped calc. I wasn’t doing well, but I know I could have done well if I’d put any effort into it. I didn’t try and I feel as though I let myself (and Roch) down just walking out the easy way; however, I do feel relieved and I will devote more time to chemistry, and it’s not like I need it for any of the colleges I’m looking at. Yesterdya I felt bad aobut this. I felt as though I had done the typical thing people in my family do: run away from their problems. It’s probably the only thing I really regret about my life so far.. So in a way i’m punishing myself by not letting me go back; I made mymind and I have to deal with the consequences which means I will learn from my mistakes. Don’t I sound like a psycho?

In other words Valarya gave me an xmas card and she drew a little comic book thingy. It shows our tree falling down on us and me dying. It’s true except for the dying part. ^_^

I have one more college ap to send off and if I didn’t tell you I was accepted to Collins as well. Mom needs to sign something and we fax it in then I’m all done! I’m so excited

Tomorrow is our last day of school and the only class I’m doing anything serious in is chemistry. We have to finish the lab we started today and I really had no idear what i was doing. o.0 But I think everyone was behind and not just us. In every other class I have some sort of party. I’m going to get fatter than I already am. All I can say is wow, I though this was high school? -laughs*

Anyway I love Rian

Daily Dirt
1. What’s your favourite celebration ever? I don’t really plan things like this. If it happens it happens and I go along with it and things are much more fun when they’re spontaneous anyway.
2. Where do you love to celebrate your birthday? I don’t anymore. It’s been forgotten for the past two years and I have learned not to get my expectations too high. Whenever I have parties there are fights or I wind up not being the centero f attention and feel like no one cares and I get all melodramatic and then the shit really hits the fan.
3. Do you celebrate anniversaries? On the 7th Rian and I always say happy anniversary in some way…
4. What other stuff do you celebrate that does not have an exact dates? Floppy’s birthday.. I don’t know when it is, but sometime in may I tihnk. This year he turned 4 and I bought him a pink catnip mouse!
5. Ever celebrated anything alone? I don’t know..

oh my fucking sweet goddess of all mercy!

last night i went to the junior girls, winter formal. it started with pictures at school, in the auditorium lobby. there i saw someone else wearing my dress. i went with Brian, as friends, however his girlfriend also went. i felt rather uncomfortable, but he looked nice. no flowers, my fault, i told him he didnt need to do anything ritualistic, my bad. -l* dances aren’t my strong spot. so we have pictures taken, i think they turned out well, but i wasn’t feeling especially pretty. my hair wouldn’t hold a curl. when we took the curling iron off it wasn’t even curled! i had wanted to be beautiful. yuck.

Next was the grand march, which we skipped. we went to the green mill, the restaurant where Mary Ann works. we ate. (we being Mary Ann and i and our dates) she booked a hotel room for the girls for last night. we wound up being a little late. Mary Ann was doing 100 on the way back to wausau.

we entered the elks club, to eat, even though we had just eaten. there were not enough spaces to sit. this i don’t understand because they had a list of everyone who was planning on attending and their dates. in any case they should have had extra seats. Mary Ann and i sat together, our dates were on their own. josh Mary Ann’s date, was all by himself. so i ate quickly, the food was gross, and sat by him.

my date had eventually found his girlfriend. by the time the food showed up, a good 45 minutes late, we were rushed the eat. they cleared of the tables while i was eating my cheescake! then it was time to dance. my shoes were hurting my feet, the night was not going well, and i didn’t have a date. i didn’t want to dance.

Ramon had proposed we would all go bowling, so i made sure Brian would have a ride home. we hung up his jacket, but then everyone wanted to dance. i really despise club/dance type music. and i don’t think people should skank dance in formal wear. we were also hanging out with some people i really despise. i think i was having as much fun as most of the guys there. :\ Scotty left because he wasn’t having any fun, he looked so cute though!

i finally convinced everyone to leave, by threatening to walk home in freezing cold weather. i felt bad. really bad. but i wasn’t having any fun. this was also after Skelly told me that if her boyfriend asked me to dance i should dance because she had told him to ask me! i know she was trying to be nice but she did not succeed!

so we left, and went bowling. and had lots of fun. we bowled in formal dresses and tuxedos. we laughed. we went back to the hotel, and were planing on just hanging out until everyone had to leave. Mary Ann’s sister was there, along with her husband and their friends. they told us to shut up every time we spoke. seems like they did their best to make us seem really young. her sister dislikes me almost as much as i despise her. stupid cunt.

they finally left around 1, when they should have been gone by midnight. Katie and mike stayed. she whined until he came back fro driving everyone home. she accidentally turned off the heat. it was 55 when we woke up. she also was having nightmares to halfway through the night she opened the curtains and turned on the big light next to me. i was freezing and had light shining in my eyes. i also had no socks for today. -lol* not like it mattered because the shoes i was wearing couldn’t fit socks anyway. i forgot to bring any others.
ugh.