IEOR 190G is the first class I've taken that uses social media to a large extent. I agree with Professor Lavian that online discussions open up whole new dimensions of learning that didn't exist before. Ordinarily, assignments are a one-on-one relationship with the instructor; your essay is read and graded by the instructor and given back to you. However, with a social media environment, feedback is democratized and peer-reviewed.
The most interesting aspect of this democratized education is that peers can reflect not only on each other's work, but also on the comments. More often than not, I ended up responding to comments of videos rather than the videos themselves. This kind of feedback is a great way for students to support each other and foster community learning. Further, publishing posts online made the assignments mean more because they would be seen by other students.
Especially in the beginning of the semester, I had trouble finding interesting material and writing blogs. My writing was often shorter than others' because I never had the experience of sharing my thoughts on social media. Sometimes, I refrained from writing all of my opinions because I didn't feel comfortable opening myself up to community review. However, as I posted more blogs and got used to the class format, I started to enjoy learning through social media.
I wouldn't recommend changing anything in the future. Although many students have trouble with blogging and vlogging, they're both skills that are very helpful in the professional world. When I look at company websites, especially for startups, I see lots of branding through blogging. As for vlogging, I think it's good practice for interviews; if I can't articulate my thoughts in front of a computer screen, how would I speak in professional settings?
On the whole, I felt like IEOR 190G was taught in an innovative and adaptable way. I appreciated Professor Lavian's willingness to improve upon the assignments and take student feedback into account. Social media education is something unique to our generation, and I see lots of potential for that to become the norm in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHxWhsmWpG8
The peer feedback format is certainly interesting. We get to see everyone's progress, and learn from everyone and further improve ourselves the following week. For example, I changed my style a few times after seeing other people's posts.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that companies are starting to create a lot of personal blogs to promote themselves. It humanises the company, and shows they understand what their customers. As we learn to articulate ourselves better through writing, maybe we'll be assigned to write for our companies in future too!
Yes, learning from other students and sharing everyone's opinion on a single topic has expanding the learning potential compared to the traditional assignment format. I also found the discovery of new topics challenging, as majority of the students ended up writing about the same current event. However, this format of learning has definitely made learning about patents easier than reading a textbook.
ReplyDeleteFor me, IEOR190G was the second class in Berkeley that I had to use social media. I took a class on procrastination in writing my sophomore year, and we also used a blog, but we did not have the video component, as we do in this class. I really like the video component, because I think it adds something interesting. I do agree that unlike the ordinary assignments, which are a one-on-one relationship with the professor, this social media environment allowed us to get more democratized feedback on our work. If somebody didn’t agree with us, they could comment below and share it with everyone else who also read the blog.
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