Online Learning Record

Course: E 309M

Note: material submitted for the midterm Learning Record is in black type, material added for the final Learning Record is in blue type. Links are green.

Part A

A.1 Interview with another person who knows you well--for example, a parent or other family member, close friend, or teacher. The interview should focus on the person's impressions of your development as a reader, writer, and thinker. If you have completed an interview like this in a prior class, please pick a different person to interview for this assignment.

Pete Barrera is a second year biology major. He grew up in what is called the Valley which is located in South Texas.

In high school, Pete felt as if he was average to a little above average in his reading and writing skills. He knew he had the ability to improve in both of these subjects. He has taken two previous English classes here at the University before his present enrollment in this class. Pete felt that this class would help him to improve in both reading and writing as well as make him have a little more drive to start reading for pleasure.

As for the technology part of the class, Pete feels as if he is above average with the knowledge that he has on computers. He is not afraid to try something knew as long as he has a little confidence that he knows what he is doing. Pete said that he enjoyed to just play around with his computer at home to see what all it could fully do and to improve his knowledge with both the computer as well as academically.

Pete hopes that this class will enhance his knowledge and confidence in the reading, writing and technology while he earns an 'A-B' average.

A.2 Reflections on your own development with respect to reading, writing, speaking and listening, and technology.

For this assignment I interviewed Cyndee Barrera who is my sister. According to Cyndee, in the transition from high school to college there was an improvement in my writing ability. For example, she says I give more support to my arguments and use a more effective form of research than in the past. Cyndee also says that I read more than in high school, but I read mainly to get an overview of the material and do not focus too much on small details. She says that she has noticed that I think more open minded because of the knowledge gained in college and find more possibilities when faced with a problem.

Data Collection

1. Observations (made periodically during the semester). Observations should include a range of interactions: individual activities, small group work, whole-class activities. These are very brief, informal notes.

* Observations of reading and research activities
* Observations of writing activities
* Observations of collaborative activities
* Observations of technological activities

1/25/96 Platinum Blood I found the reading to be a little strange since I am not used to reading stories like this, but found it to be interesting. I could focus on what I wanted to read and skip through other parts. My attention was actually focused on the story because of the hypertext format.

2/22/95 I feel that after creating the project 1 final, I found using the hypertext easier to understand. When writing the draft, I found it confusing trying to fit the information into the boxes and linking them. After working with the final draft I finally understood the concept and found it easy. I have also noticed with this second project that now I can find more to say when writing a paper.

2/27/96 Today we exported our Storyspace documents to html format. This showed us how our document would look we posted it on the web. It wasn't difficult to understand since the program did most of the work.

3/28/96 We turned in our drafts of project 3 today. I am understanding html more each time I work on my project. I have added some things to my project, but not too much. Since this is only a draft, I think that I will add much more by the time I'm finished.

4/2/96 I have been working on my project and trying to understand html. From what I've experienced, html is not as hard as I thought it would be. I am actually having fun writing in html.

4/6/96 I have learned how to do more things in html. I found that the easiest way to get ideas is to view other pages and view the source. Viewing the sources of documents helped me how to do different things in html. My final project 3 looks and sounds very different from my draft. After talking to the professor, I understood the project better and what the purpose of our document was supposed to be.

4/11/96 Today our groups had to turn in our topic proposals for project 4. Since project 4 was an open topic, we decided to create a men's magazine. We figured we could make our project and have some fun in the process.

4/25/96 Our project 4 drafts were due today. We have some work done on it, but are in no way finished with it. We had a little trouble arranging times to meet and distributing the work, but we were able to work things out.

5/2/96 Our project 4 is finished and so is the class. We finally found time to meet and get the project functioning like we wanted it. I really enjoyed working in this class and I feel I learned a lot.

2. Evidence

* Samples of written work (formal and informal writing)
* Samples of comments by others (professor, other students)
* Samples of other activities (i.e., interchanges, notes, planning diagrams, and so on)

1. A response to one of the readings

2. First draft reviews by B.V.P. and H.M.

3. Project 1 final draft with comments by professor Syverson

FINAL SAMPLES

To my samples from the mid term portfolio I have added the following items:

1. Project 2

2. A folder containing Project 3 draft

3. A folder containing final Project 3

4. G.W.'s response to my project 3 draft

5. A folder containing our Project 4

6. E.W.'s response to our Project 4

7. A.E.'s response to our Project 4

8. A folder containing my Project 1. I have worked on my project 1 since converting it to html.

Part B

B.1 Summary interpretation of observations and evidence in terms of the four major strands of work and the five dimensions.

Four major strands: rhetoric, research, technology and collaboration

five dimensions:

* confidence and independence
* knowledge and understanding
* skills and strategies
* use of prior and emerging experience
* reflectiveness (critical awareness)

I feel that I have been improving in the work that I have done for this class. I am a little more confident of my own writing. Before I would ask someone for help or ideas and I have tried to keep from doing this to help improve my writing. When we started this class I felt that I was comfortable around computers, but the thought of writing in hypertext did make me wonder. In my first draft of project 1 I had trouble arranging the information and figuring where to link things. I wasn't sure how to link the text to a box or how to follow it. In the comments that I have included from other students they talk about how I needed to balance the information and how I had too many links. When working on the final draft I rewrote the document and cut out a lot of information that I had left in the first time around that didn't need to be there. I figured out how to link text and follow the link. I also added pictures to the document and arranged the information in a way that wasn't confusing to the reader. I also feel that when writing I can express my opinion better than before. I usually am at a loss for words, but now I can think of more to say when I am writing.

In the second half of this semester I feel that I have learned a lot in this class. When I use to surf the internet web pages I always wondered what it would be like to create those pages. After working in this class and understanding how these documents are created I am even more interested in setting one up. I feel that in comparing my draft of project 3 and my final project 3 I can see how I've improved not only in creating web pages, but in my writing as well. Everything in this project comes straight from me which is a surprise because I¹m used to writing papers and quoting others. I included G.W.'s response to show others thoughts about my draft. I added project 2 to my OLR because I feel that it shows how I work in a group. Neither B.V.P. nor I wrote this document on our own. What we did was combine our thoughts into one document. I think we did a pretty good job of this. I added our project 4 also because I also feel that this is a good representation of how we work in a group. We decided to have some fun with this project and figured if it was something we would have fun making, it is something others would have fun reading. I included A.E.'s and G.W.'s responses to my portfolio because I think they support the fact that our draft was fulfilling its goal to entertain the reader. I added the folder containing my project 1 because since we exported it to html I have been experimenting with it. Whenever I found something that I wanted to add to it I would. I think it shows how I was interested in the class and how I was putting to use everything I was learning.

Part C

C.1 Midterm portfolio

* Estimated evaluation in terms of grade
* Suggestions for your own further development during remainder of the semester
* Suggestions for class activities or for the professor to better support learning

At this point in the course I feel my grade should be around a B. I feel that I have improved in my reading and writing skills as well as in my knowledge of computers. I still feel that my writing can use some improvement, especially when it comes to expressing my own views and not just using information from other sources. I also feel that my reading can use some improvement. By the end of the semester I hope to be able to evaluate what I read better. Now when it comes to computers I think there is always something new to learn.

C.2 Final portfolio

* Reflections on semester's learning experience
* Any supplementary information or comments not included in Parts A & B
* Any suggestions for the professor for future classes
* Estimated evaluation in terms of grade

Overall in this class I feel that I should receive a grade of around an A or a high B. I feel that I have learned a lot from this class and have improved in all the aspects of the course. I think that the samples I provided and the reasons for including them support the fact that I have improved. I feel that in comparing my work throughout the year you can see improvement. I have learned the material taught in this course to the point where I feel comfortable explaining things to other students that don¹t understand all of the material.

I really enjoyed this class and I learned a lot from it. I am presently trying to get ideas to create my own homepage to place on the web.

One final thing I want to say is that I really liked your class and think that you are a good professor. Thanks for everything.