Learning activities
You get to choose what you learn.
Each week, you should be engaging with the common readings listed in the course calendar.
You'll then choose learning activities that match your curiosities.
After completing each learning activity, you'll share a reflection -- written or in a video. These should focus on what you found most interesting, surprising, important, unbelievable, etc., about what you learned. They should NOT be summaries.
Over the years, I have collected a large library of podcasts, videos, and readings that have contributed to my understanding of how our government works ... and why we should care. Those are available in our Content Library, grouped by topic and indicating whether you're reading, researching, listening, or watching the item. Choosing to participate in the weekly discussion in eLearn counts as a learning activity.
You are also welcome to explore resources not included in this library, but I hope you'll clear them with me first. These resources should be as nonpartisan or bipartisan as possible, from trustworthy sources. If you're not sure what those are, stick to sources that are in the green box on the MediaBiasChart.com, version 7.0.
How many learning activity reflections should you submit? Check the grades page to determine what you should do weekly to earn your desired grade.
Examples
Here are two actual (unedited) student reflection paragraph from a past semester. These were strong reflections because they:
Started by identifying which learning activity was completed.
Shares key insights from the activity and reflects on their importance to the author.
Gives a sense of whether the author would recommend others explore this resource.
Your reflections will be strongest if you try to do these three things. You can write as much as you want, but no matter how long your reflection is, take the opportunity to really reflect on your own thinking and emotions in response to whatever you chose.
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I chose to do my next learning assignment on an article by Vanity Fair called “The Hostage”. The article gave me both second hand anxiety and excitement at the same time, I found it really interesting delving into the experience of a captured journalist. I don’t think the dangers of journalism are really made that well known, and in the days where everyone is screaming “fake news” and “down with media” it really brings a different light, one of more respect, to my eyes. “The Hostage” covers about five days of a journalist experience with the rebels and the syrian army. First off it’s amazing to see how quick minded someone can be and how they can devise little plans such as not speaking or responding to a certain language because they know it will get them killed. It’s also amazing to me that they were being watched so closely back at home and how the stations would do “media blackouts” to try and protect the hostages by not releasing any more information. For me, this assignment was more to gain trust back for certain medias through respect, its amazing the lengths they travel to get information for the public, and yes some may be misleading, but that’s where research on the listeners part comes in.
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For one of my learning activities this week I completed another lesson on Checkology. The exercise was about finding the key message from content you are consuming and what the primary objective of the item is. Asking yourself what a piece of media is trying to accomplish is a very smart practice. Is this meant to entertain me? Then it may not be a reliable source of news and could be sensationalized for more entertainment value. Is something being promoted? Then this is an advertisement and not a source of unbiased news. Is this just raw footage documenting an event or is this a more polished news story from a reputable source. In days past professionals were in charge of sharing the news with us and the facts would have to be verified. Now anyone can share “news” and stories can make the rounds that have not been verified or fact checked. Some of those “news” items are specifically designed to provoke a strong reaction of anger, rage, or disgust out of people. And that rage furthers that media’s reach because it get shared around more and more.
The day after I did this exercise I had a good conversation with my 11 year old son who possibly watches too much Youtube. We talked about questioning what the primary objective of a video is. Is this to entertain me, to inform me? Is this video trying to sell me something? He seemed to have a good understanding of why it is important to keep the goal of a video in mind so that we can manage our own responses.