Honestly, at the beginning of the course, I didn’t really know that we would be learning various tools as I thought the course would be more of a theoretical course about the digital world like similar core courses I have took before. However, I really appreciate the hands-on experiences that we got from the different tools as the range of the tools’ uses was very wide.
One of the tools that I have never actually dealt with before the course is the Annotation tool offered by Hypothesis. I don’t regularly deal with literature tool in my architecture major so it was definitely something new. The stages of creating it was confusing at first but then everything was so easy especially because the platforms has a chrome extension. Normally when we read articles we are required to reflect on them or use them for research which is very beneficial but sometimes it requires a lot of time and it can seem distanced from the article itself. Therefore, I find the annotation tool very useful as it allows you to select the specific phrases that you want to highlight and comment on them. I find this really useful in terms of connecting your thoughts directly to the article which makes me more appreciative of the article itself rather than being focused on my own opinion. Another way that we integrated the annotation tool was by commenting on our colleges comments and because every comment was linked to a phrase, it was really easy to understand the context behind each opinion and have a better understanding of what the other person think. In comparison with other tools of reflection on articles like word Press, I find this tool really useful because it allows you to see the different opinions which helps in inspiration and triggering different thoughts related to the article.
The second tool that I was able to enhance my skills in was Google Slides because I only use it for group presentations. When I first saw the video tutorial on how to create a game using on google slides, I was amazed by the possibility of linking different slides to each other.I usually prefer the regular power point presentation because it has a lot more tools and different function to create a graphically good presentation But something that I have learned is that the online google slides have these extra function that aides the concept of it being an online platform. However, Linking the slides was a little bit confusing when I increased the scenario of my game, So I would love if they added like a table or a spreadsheet that allows you to easily link slides. Another thing that attracted my attention to this tool was when the slides explaining the pathways assignment was done by it. This opened my eyes into using the google slides to make my presentation more interactive, As I have this architecture course that deals with theoretical aspects and we create presentation every week but the issue is that most of the time they aren’t interactive or engaging enough so I think I can use such tool and techniques to add engagement to the presentation.
The third tool that was so fun to deal with the Assignment bank platform, as I found the idea really interesting. The website itself was a bit confusing and their were a lot of issues because when I wanted a random assignment it gives my the same assignment which was a bit disappointment. Another issue was that there were a lot of assignment that didn’t really make sense and the explanation of them was very unclear. I think issues like that can be solved using monitors but the idea itself was very nice. It mainly allowed me to learn simple skills but it is those simple skills that can allow creativity to take place. I also learned that you can create assignments which is really nice to use if I want to do a any social experiment to test people capability regarding an task or a skill which will be very useful in other core course as it is different than doing regular surveys.
Word press was a tool that we dealt with for the beginning of the semester and I didn’t know what it would offer more than just submitting the assignment on blackboard. However, through the semester I learned different elements that was useful especially because the course talk about the digital world. For starter, I learned that it is really helpful in terms of communication between the student and the instructor; for example, in the digital game it was really good in the interaction and feedback I had with my Dr.. Also the platform itself is really well designed as there were a lot of really good features such as the saving draft of the blogs.
Finally the Slack tool, I used the tool before in one of my course but we use it differently as it was mainly a place where we would submit our assignments in. In this class, it was really fun to use it in an more informal way and I was happy to learn the idea of channels. However, sometimes that channels would be confusing because it can be distracting, so I still don’t know if it is a good tool for organizing different parts of the course or just an unneeded feature. Usually in my other course, we would create a whatsapp group with our instructors and teaching assistants which do the same thing as slack. However, I think what makes slack different is that combine the whole class in one workspace which makes it easier and faster to connect with anyone in the class but a drawback that I felt was that it isn’t in my second nature to check it regularly like gmail or whatsapp. I think if google added a feature like this it would be very good as it is always a good idea to connect all your communication tools in one app or one platform.
As an overall reflection on the tools, I think someone of them were really useful as this is the first time that I used them like word press and the annotation tool. I had the realization that something that I lack is the combination with literature and the digital world as I often use the graphical aspect of the digital world only. Another thing is I realized is my enjoyment of the idea of community in the digital world and interaction that can happen as a result of well designed tools. For example; the idea of comments in the Hypothesis platform or Word press in General. I also developed different set of skills in the digital world context as I mentioned earlier; However, the attitude that I generally took away from the experience is the idea of sharing. A lot of these platforms are based on sharing your thoughts and I find this is something that I should always but in mind when dealing with these tools. As a result, I got to learn how to balance between sharing my opinion and be more aware that this opinion can be viewed by anyone.
