Metacognition - Blogging Journal Reflection

The activities such as searching YouTube for clips and such have really helped my understanding of the units we have viewed. I got to see what other people thought about our 6 main ideas instead of just looking in a dictionary to see the literary definition. I got a more of a global definition of the word, and I think that is what is important, because that way we can apply it to our own lives. I think that the approach we have used (blogging and using web 2.0) has really helped with my learning. I haven't just learned about our 6 main ideas, and Macbeth, but I have also learned about using these programs. I think that it has furthered my learning more then it would have if we had limited everything to classroom work. This way you have opened our learning to the vast land of technology. I also think that it is more interesting and compatible with my lifestyle seeing as I spend lots of time on the computer already. It made sense that eventually my homework would be on here as well. I think I have a way better understanding of Macbeth because I have searched the web and found many interpretations that help me figure out what my own interpretation is.

I don't think that there was anything what wasn't helpful. There might have been some things that I already knew how to do and that I found boring, but review is good right? I think that everything that we have done has been helpful. I have learned so much about the internet and I don't think that I would have thought of using YouTube clips to help me with any assignment for school. In saying that though, I think that the most helpful thing that I learned thus far was how to create links, I have created links on my blog, videos, picture, sites, and also I have created links in other places, like e-mails, facebook, and on my Google documents. I think that this has been really helpful because it is more efficient and something that I can use outside of English class.

I think that the activity that helped understand Macbeth better was the activity where we chose a passage from the first Act and stated how it answered one of our essential questions. I think that this really helped me understand the play better because each group chose a different passage so I saw practically something from every act, which eventually made me understand the whole act better. I also use the link that I previously posted to help make sense of the rest of Macbeth, it is a simplified version that gives a synopsis and a description of all characters, then it has the play below as a reference so that I don't have to have my book out, but still have the play with me on any computer at any time. I also use video clips on YouTube also, these are very helpful because they are visuals and I think that sometimes, I just need to see or visual things to understand them better.

I think that this term I have grown as a learner because I am starting the look at things from more than one "angle". Because of all the YouTube clips I have looked at and all the comments I have read on the class blog, I have really been exploring others views and taking that into account. In the beginning of the term I talked about how our class doesn't really listen to instructions well, while on the other hand I could have taken into account that some people may have been trying to listen but others had been distracting them instead. I know this because it has happened quiet a few times to me in class. Then at the end of the term while I was writing about how ones self worth is ever changing I began to realize that my examples could have caused either an increase or decrease of self worth. Some could argue that by killing Duncan, Macbeth's self worth could have raised instead of decreased like I said because he might have been very proud that he had done that. I think that I am starting to look at things from other angles without even realizing it and I think that using the internet has really helped me with this because you can read about many different points of view. While in a classroom no one really likes to share their ideas and then when one person does everyone agrees with them so they don't have to talk. I think that my goals as a learner for next term is to really give more specific examples and go more in detail in my writing, I feel that sometimes I am too vague and don't give the reader enough to think about.

I think that my strengths this term have been finding proper and relative examples, finding connections to my own life and to the world around us, and seeing more than just the first "layer" of the plot (deeper meanings). I think that a challenge was the post card because I didn't really take much time to do the assignment; I feel that I did the bare minimum by just answering the 2 questions that you asked rather than going in-depth and giving more of an explanation. I think that this is really going to help me in the next term because now I have so many more sources to turn to that I never thought of before. I think that YouTube is one of the best sites, because I get to see different people’s visual interpretations of what we are currently learning. Also I think that using either my simplified version of Macbeth or spark notes, etc, will help me in further understanding the rest of the play and or upcoming novels.