Once again, I am back to school for the Fall semester of 2020, except all my classes are online! I have never thought of ever taking online classes in my life. The main reason is because I feel like I would struggle learning in a more online environment. However, Corona and the practice of social distancing changes all of that. As someone who wants to finish school, I took a step forward and decided to take the classes I planned to take this semester anyway, even if they were in an online format.
The change overall feels very weird to me. I am used to learning by myself, and we had the last half of Spring semester that switched to online. However, it is still weird not being in a classroom for lectures. Instead we have videos, lecture notes, and occasional zoom meetings as the fill for our classroom time. I still wonder how others are adapting to the changes to this pandemic. Catching up with other people outside of just my friends has had lower probabilities because we are caught up with trying to be more safe from COVID. This whole pandemic has been a new experience for the whole world.
There is a lot more to the Spring semester than adjusting to online classes only. That does not mean I have not learned anything. Having to take four different classes I am definitely will be gaining lots of knowledge throughout this whole semester. Just these past 2 weeks I have not only learned new information about the class subjects, but how classes are adapting to these online changes. One of the changes that stands out to me is the use of VoiceThreads. It is a site where different people can post pictures and slides alongside a commented post that can be varied from audio, video, text, etc.. For the first time using it for my Graphic Design class as an introduction post, I had way too much fun using it. I am the type of person who likes doing speeches and audio skits. My audio comments were definitely quirky, but it showed my fun experience using it. I wish I could have left the bad takes and bloopers because I thought they were hilarious. Overall, it has been an interesting experience going through the pandemic and taking online classes. Only time will tell on how well I will be able to handle this new challenge.