This semester has been crazy. It's my first semester as a married student. I'm working two jobs, with a total of around 30 hours a week. I'm trying to spend time with my wife and both our families. I'm serving as the Ward Mission leader in my ward. We live in Springville, and haven't had a car, so we have been taking the bus, which takes longer than driving. And on top of all of this, I'm taking 16 credits here at BYU and trying to keep my head above water. It's been rough. But I've been doing alright.
Having said all that, this class has probably taken up the bulk of my time to do homework. I think I work on this class more than any other class I'm taking. The only one that is close behind it is my Linear Algebra class, which also takes up a considerable amount of my time. So, all in all, I have been doing my best to keep up with this class, and learn all I can, and it has been a very difficult, but wonderful experience. I really have learned a lot, and it has stretched me more digitally than any other class I have ever had.
Lately I have been trying to focus on connecting to other blogs within our class, and building off of others' ideas. I have also been trying different blog types, such as my Rant, or the fact that I have figured out how to embed videos in my blog and have been using this as a wonderful tool.
The best part has been the learning in this class. I have loved reading the assigned readings, and using them as a catapult into the digital sea of information. Understanding the historical concepts has taken on a whole new meaning, because I get to find more information on my own on each historical event, person, or period of time. The computing concepts have also been a wonderful thing to study along with the historical concepts, giving me a completely different view of history, and of todays computers. Diigo has become one of my favorite tools, giving me the ability to see what others have found on the class topics. I have also started to love Google Reader, which gives me a tool where I can see things happening all over the internet in one place. As I have grown better and better at my self-directed learning, it is becoming quite enjoyable, and I love being able to connect to things that you would never connect to in a normal class.
Although I may not be the best blogger in the class, or the most involved, I have done the best I can, and I have kept up with the reading and the blogging. It has been a wonderful class experience, and I have learned so very much.
Keep swimming, Kevin! I feel about the same as you do about this class; it has challenged me more in ways that I've never been challenged before, and I have to be careful that it doesn't monopolize my time with everything else that I have to do. However, as with most things that challenge us, I feel that I have learned more from this class than almost any other I have taken. Best of luck with everything! Everything will turn out all right.
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