Semester End Game

1. Do you read your colleagues’ work online?  How often? What is it like to read their work? How does being able to see everyone’s work online at any given time change the way you do your work?            -Only ocasionally. I generally perfer to do stuff myself at my own pace. I find I learn better by figureing it out for myself then trying to look at what other people swim. For me at least the mentality of building a strong foundation on an assinement myself, is much more benificial. For instance with the dickens books everyone did a Lit Analysis on. I could have looked at other peoples when I did mine, but for me at least, that wouldn't help me master the book. Mastering the book for me, is thinking about it myself. I usually get better results doing things myself. Thats not to say I don't get anything out of it. I checked a few blogs on "A Christmas Carol" to see what others thought. I was genuinely surprised at how cynical  Abby Kuhlmans thoughts on it were. Especially after reading Conor Macknamera's analysis(He is thought of as very cynical)
2. How has the publicly and always visible course blog made this course different from one without a blog?  How would the course change if the course blog disappeared tomarrow?                                           -The publicity of the course blog has been interesting. We've heard from random people stumbleing upon it which was cool. It's nice to be able to check up on the homework at anytime and find all the readings in one place. Its also cool to say be in calculus, and wonder what were gonna do for the day and whip out my smartphone and find out.
3. Has publishing your work for the public to see changed your approach to completing an assignment? How so?  How would your feelings about the course change if you couldn’t publish your work thatway?                                                                                                                                                 - -  -  - - - -It has made me consider that people may actually look at mystuff. It encourages a higher standard of excellence when you know someone might read it. I'd probably be relieved if I couldn't publish my work over the blog. It's allot easier to write for an audience of one(the teacher) then an unknown audience.             
4. Has your experience of the physical classroom changed because of the open & online aspects?  Where does your learning actually happen?                                                                                                          - - - -I have found that most learning happens at home over the internet. Just based on the quantity of time available in class. Everything in class just kind of flows over onto my computer.
5. You were described in the Macarthur Foundation/DML  interview as “a pioneer”-- how do you describe the experience on the edge to people who haven’t been there (friends and family)?           - - I don't describe it to them. I show it to them. It is so much easier to just pull up the course blog and let them see for themselves. Or say the hamlet blog the Josh Ng and Chris Green made. Which was just stellar by the way.
6. How do they respond when you describe the brave new world in which you’re working?                   - - -Usually they are surprised. Its never quite what they expected. But with the visual component they can really see what's happening
7. What do their responses mean to you?  What effect(s) (if any) do they have on you?                              - -To me its not strange. So in my mind I'm like "Pffftttt Get with the program grandma". That being my reaction when I showed my sister.