Blog for final: Part 1

"Notes for the final" is actually pretty vague, (like 'guess what it is we are thinking' vague), so hopefully this is what it is supposed to be. Also, why call it a "salon"? That is a really random word (like provocative). When I think of salons, I think of going to get my hair done. I looked up the word, but I still don't really see the connection, unless the Maiser building is really a house in disguise and we are secretly living in the 17th or 18th century. There has got to be a better word somewhere, like "graded discussion" or "workshop" or something else.

Unit 1: Folk Knowledge
Self-directed learning
For this unit I did two weekly-type blogs and two project-type blogs. I researched the burial and mummification practices of a group of people in Ancient America, mostly because I wanted to do something somewhat unique. I also just became more aware of the way that we teach things to each other, since we talked about it in class, and then I would see it in the world around me. It was weird to think that there are a lot of things I've learned that I don't at all remember learning.

Others' blogging
The blog I remember from this unit is Alyssa's tattoo one. For one thing, I learned more about tattooing from reading it, but it was mostly just that I hadn't really thought of it as something that someone would have to learn how to do. There are so many things that people learn to do that I hadn't even considered. All the blogs on hygiene were also very interesting, and made me think about how I do things.

Collaborative learning
The main collaborative learning during this unit was that we got together as a group to discuss the things we were going to discuss during the midterm. Everyone actually showed up (which I'm not sure ever happened after that. We were able to discuss the things that we were learning, as well as our feelings about the course in general, which was good.

Projects / Activities
For this project we taught someone something and ourselves were taught something. For me, probably both would have been better taught by the internet, but that is probably my fault. I guess that that teaches me that teaching someone a folk-knowledge type way is really only useful if you are able to give them immediate feedback on what they do, the kind that you can't just get from a web-page. My violin lessons were like that when I was a kid. Constant feedback.


Unit 2: Oral Knowledge
Self-directed learning
I actually did 5 blog posts on this topic: one on the epics of Homer, two on Slavs, and two that were responses to others' posts. It was fun to research about Slavic languages, since I knew very little about them previously. The lack of information was frustrating, but I suppose that that in its own way is educational, because people from our generation tend to just assume we should have access to information on anything in the world we want to know.

Others' blogging
I loved reading about all of the different cultures. We got everything from Romans (which there is tons of information about), and Semites to Celts. I enjoyed Murphy's post on how Semites doesn't just mean Jews and Amanda's post on Bedtime Stories . It was also nice to know that other people shared my frustration on the lack of information. I imagine all historians run into that problem all the time.

Collaborative learning
I think I probably did some of my best commenting during this unit (hence the two whole response posts). I would take something from the other person's post and do my own research on it, which allowed me to be an active participant in the learning and knowledge. I was actually about to write that it made me remember it better. Unfortunately, I still had to look up the blogs to remember them, and I didn't even remember all of them, even the ones I did very in-depth, insightful comments on. Oops.

Projects / Activities
The project for this unit was the King Benjamin speech, which was really fun, partially because I like memorizing things (have me give you a list of the poems I have memorized sometime. I can recite for quite a while straight). It gave us a chance to feel the words, and to feel like we were part of a unified class project, rather than just doing something by ourselves. This was a good reflection of oral knowledge, since by nature it is a social medium.


Unit 3: Written Knowledge
Self-directed learning
I did four regular blogs and two project blogs for written knowledge, on a large variety of topics. It felt really good to be able to have a little bit more freedom of topic, since we no longer were required to do specifically our one culture. I was able to do a post on ancient Chinese oracle bones, which was awesome, and it made me think about all the ways writing has to do with various methods of divination. I also did a post on writing letters, which was interesting to research.

Others' blogging
Alyssa kept blogging about the Romans during this unit, and it was nice to continue to read about that civilization in more detail. She also interviewed my mother for her interview post (she was the only one in our group to actually do it). Kody did an interesting blog on Medicine, which is a very interesting topic to me, and I enjoyed reading about it.

Collaborative learning
By this time in the semester, Amanda had dropped out of our class, and Ryan and Murphy mostly stopped blogging (sorry guys, but it is true). Because of that it was mostly just Kody, Alyssa, and me, which almost made it easier to be involved in and keep up with all the things everyone else was studying. It was also interesting to be put into different groups for the project and receive feedback from people I hadn't worked with before.

Projects / Activities
The project for this unit was that horrendous five-hours-Saturday-morning block-of-stone one (which we brought upon ourselves...). My favorite part of this project was seeing the huge variety with which the people of the world wrote. Every group's artifact was so different from every other one, yet those types of writing worked for each of the cultures.


Unit 4: Print Knowledge
Self-directed learning
I did four regular blogs and two project blogs for this unit. My research was a tad bit more focused during this unit than it was during the other units since four of my six blogs were on approximately the same topic (which was book preservation). It was nice to be studying a medium that I was very comfortable with and be able to spend time with books, which I love.

Others' blogging
Everyone else's blogging also became more uniform in this unit. I got to read about several different people's experiences going to the same exhibit in the library, and several different people's experiences trying to find books for their annotated bibliography. I suppose that this mirrors the standardization of the whole world when print first became widespread. It probably wasn't meant to, but the parallel works nicely.

Collaborative learning
I felt like this unit, like the print medium itself, was much less interactive than many of the others. We spent time by ourselves in the library rather than with each other planning or practicing for a group project. Even when we were put in groups for the final project, I didn't spend any time out of class with my partner (especially since our topics really had nothing to do with each other...).

Projects / Activities
As much as I hate writing papers, I thought the paper was a satisfying and very fitting end to the unit on print. All of a sudden our project had to be formatted correctly and be uniform and have references, just like what happened when people started having access to print. We had to be persuasive, because when people started being able to read a lot of print stuff, they started being skeptical of some of the things they read.

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