eval

Overall, I have confusing feeling about this course. It's been helpful in a lot of ways, but I guess it's also been very strange for me to do things online, without any face-to-face interactions. I mean, I don't even know what Steve Hutkins looks like. (I'm sure I will meet him/you soon:).My first feeling is disappointed in ME, for having turned all of my blogs in so late. This is especially frustrating, since procrastination is a big problem of mine, and a course like this makes it very easy to procrastinate, because deadlines in virtual reality just don't mean the same thing.In terms of what was helpful, I am really glad I have this bunch of writings to remember certain aspects of my time here by. I think it will be nice and sort of funny to look back on in the future, like any diary-type writing. I also have really enjoyed reading other peoples blogs, because I sort of feel like I know these people, but again, have never seen them before (save 3). Regardless of this, it has been refreshing and, I guess I want to say, "mind-opening" or something, to read about people's experiences in all the various different study abroad locations. In terms of what I found less helpful, or had trouble with, as mentioned, deadlines on the internet are hard to follow. Although I'm still a bit of a skeptic regarding blogs, I think as an idea, this course is really great, but that there are many ways to make it work better (at least for someone like me). The first thing I would change is to have some sort of clear syllabus, and really any kind of introduction before going head on into the course. I don't mean necessarily a fixed syllabus of due date, but more a general idea of what the course will be, and a general timeline of how much, how often, and what we should be reading. Even though I've been enrolled all along, I still feel like I added this course after it had already been going on for a few weeks, like I'd missed the intro. Even a longer email outlining what the course would look like would have helped me. I know this might sound silly, because what else would I expect from a blog course than to have to write blogs? Still, I guess I have a funny thing with beginnings. On another aspect...ideeeaaally, everyone in the course would meet once before and once after the semester(which I understand we tried at unsuccessfully this time around). Of course, this will never be very easy to organize, but at least one meeting after the semester would bring things together a lot, and also be very exciting (after reading each others' blogs for a semester). I hope we can do this this time...are people interested?Also, in terms of interacting more, every now and then it could be a fun part of our assignments to engage in a blog discussion--for example respond to someone's comment on our own piece, etc. or maybe even have a blog debate! (I'm not sure how that would work, but it sounds good).If I could take the course again, I definitely would, but I would try to do things a little differently. Still, no regrets at all, because it's been interesting either way. Thanks!