This class overall was a great learning experience. From day one I was put outside of my comfort zone helping me learn new skills in technical communication. This was the first english class I have taken since the first year of my previous degree. That was over 5 years ago so coming back and revisiting the way english is marked and how assignments are graded was definitely a learning experience.

This was also the first online class I have ever taken so that also added to the learning process. Overall I found the course to be laid out in a way that helped me improve my skills. The peer evaluation aspect was greatly beneficial as it gave a second perspective on all of my assignments from another set of eyes.

I believe my greatest weakness was in proofreading my assignments enough before submitting. Through the peer reviews conducted one of the major complaints was always grammar. This slowly improved as I continued through the course. I am aware of it now and will continue to focus on this aspect and hopefully continue to improve as I get through this degree.

The skills I learned through this course will benefit me greatly as I finish up my degree and continue into the professional world. Learning to write a proper memo was greatly appreciated as it is one of the main ways to communicate throughout an office. Learning the intricacies of social networking, I hope, will allow me to broaden my horizons with the people I need to meet in the technical world and make the connections I need to make in order to progress my career after school.

Unit four has come to an end concluding the assignments for this class. This included a final copy of both the formal report and the application package. The peer reviews of both these assignments helped greatly in polishing them up and creating a great final piece of work.

The last big assignment to conclude this class was the WebFolio. This was a culmination of all the work done in this class. The planning of the WebFolio was done according to the technical communications book which was using a storyboard. Planning it out using a storyboard helped greatly in collecting and organizing my thoughts and being able to figure out the order and layout of what was going into the Folio.

Keeping a similar layout and theme throughout the WebFolio was critical as it helped create an illusion of one big package and not separate assignments and documents. I decided to add my gut hub page into this WebFolio as it is a critical piece of information for viewing my code that potential employers will look at.

Having all the pieces put together definitely gave a lasting satisfaction when I got to look at the big picture and see everything that I worked on in this class.

We’ve just finished up unit 3 for the class and have started to kick off many of the main parts of the big assignments in the class. This unit was mainly about finishing off the rough draft for the formal report. I feel that communication within the team during this unit was a bit shaky at first but later on progressed and improved greatly. I look forward to further correspondence with the team.

I feel that I could have improved on the process of my rough draft. The organization and research that went into writing it was fairly straight forward. I received all the responses for the survey in time and knew exactly what i wanted to explain in my report. Thanks to the previous work such as the proposal and outline the organizational aspect was very straight forward. This was the first time i have actually written a rough draft specifically. Usually i have a working copy that I edit over time so this whole procedure seemed out of place compared to my normal work flow but was definitely a good learning experience that I’ll add to my knowledge base.

The process of peer review was exactly the same as all of the peer review assignments that have been completed before in this class. Peer reviewing gave me a second look at the requirements and let me assess my own work. I realized that my report was too short and i need to restructure it to be more clear. Overall from the peer review by editha it looks like there are many things i need to change and revise and will be doing so in my final copy of the report.

I look forward to the next unit and the rest of the class that will allow me to fine tune this report and have a polished report ready to go.

This unit was a bit more intense than the last. Unfortunately due to my grandfather passing away and exams coming up right after some of the deadlines for the assignments were not met. Overall I did complete each assignment and now I am back on track.

Creating the LinkedIn profile was an intricate process where I had to pull in information from a variety of sources but now I have created a spot for potential employers to look at and evaluate my skills. Overall, creating a social media presence for your professional profile is essential in this day and age. Networking has always been a key factor in an individual’s career success and available job opportunities. This networking has now extended to social media as the internet is becoming more predominant in individuals lives.

My progress on the formal report has been minimal due to the reasons stated above but I do not feel as if I am behind any more. I have a clear idea of what I want to research. Feedback from the professor has allowed me to modify my methods to be more appropriate for the class setting and the time allotted. By peer reviewing someone else’s report proposal i was able to view the piece of writing from an outside perspective. Reading it and giving suggestions for improvement also provided me with ideas and things i had missed in my own proposal. Being able to go back and change those things myself allowed me to have a better understanding of the viewpoint of my target audience.

My peer review was supposed to be done by Amy Young but she has not been active on the team forum. I have no peer review to base any changes on so I do not have a revised Report proposal. Please advise on any steps I should take to account for the missing of my peer review.

This unit was very interesting because, along with completing the assignments we had to get comfortable with the classroom structure and the different tools and sites we will be using for the rest of the class. This was a nice primer for getting back into the right mode for writing since I haven’t had a formal english class since my previous degree. I’ll be slowly oiling the rusty joints as we go through the first bit of this course in order to get back on track and get my writing back in order.

Writing the application letter was a great way to understand what the strengths and weaknesses I had and how I’m going to try and work on them throughout the class. Reading the other application letters allowed me to better understand what stood out and what caught my eye. Being the person that was reading the letters as potential candidates for my group gave me a new perspective on what to write in my future cover letters.

The definition portion of the unit was very interesting. I have always heard that someone who truly understands a topic should be able to properly explain it to a complete novice. In this assignment, this theory was put to the test. Taking a complex topic and being able to explain it to a novice was harder to do than I originally expected. Once I had completed my definitions, the process of peer reviewing as well as being peer reviewed both played a big role in how I edited my assignment afterwards.

At first while peer reviewing Daniel’s work I came across a few things he did in his writing that I noticed I had not been doing myself such as multiple headings in my expanded definition, or labeling of my figure. As I was peer reviewing his definitions I also came across certain aspects such as the works cited not being in alphabetical order but the realized I hadn’t done that in my own writing.

Daniels peer review of my work was very helpful, he pointed out how my expanded definition should have headings as suggested by the textbook and also a few tips on the organization of my expanded definition. I took those into consideration and restructured how my expanded definition was laid out. I took into account the errors he found in my writing and used them to polish up the final product to be handed in.

All in all I found this unit to be a great introduction to how this class will be laid out and look forward to the next unit and working with my fellow group mates and classmates.