The articles presented this week discussed a topic that is very prominent in this day and age- how the internet is impacting learning and how we obtain knowledge. In addition, the articles talked about how the internet is affecting students, and how it can be both a blessing and a curse for their futures. I definitely agree that it is important for students to see that their work means something and is important to something greater than just a grade. As Matthew Cheney said in his article “How Public? Why Public?”, “Progressive wisdom now seems to converge around the idea that students sharing their work beyond the classroom provides them with meaningful motivation to do that work and a greater sense of purpose than is available within the classroom alone”. This extrinsic motivation is really important, because the repercussions of grades and grade point averages can be very abstract or unimportant to many. I think this is especially important for high school students, as it seems that they are the age group that has a hard time seeing any point to their work and can get unmotivated because of that. On the contrary, many high strung students who care deeply about their grades and would do anything to do well need to understand why grades are not the end-all be-all and that their hardwork and dedication goes farther than just a letter. Even learning first hand about how debilitating the punishments for things such as plagiarism or saying something offensive are important so that students truly understand real world consequences outside of school. I think that the ePort is going to be really helpful for me to see a visual accumulation of the work that I have done and to be able to see real world implications of what I have been doing the past three years. I plan on going to graduate school and later pursuing a PhD, so sometimes I feel as though my undergrad work is not that significant, in a similar way to how I felt in high school. I’m excited to be able to share my website with others (especially to family who is confused as to what an IDS degree is) and hopefully connect with others in the fields that I hope to go into.
After working on my ePort for an entire semester, I have a better perspective on how being public has affected me and the work that I do. I have found that being public makes me feel more responsible for my work and more apt to put only my best work on my website. At the end of the semester it can be really easy to lose steam, but I found that having to put my work on a public website holds me responsible and keeps me from “half-assing” my work. I think that more classes should adopt the idea of ePorts because I think it will push students to do better work and also do work that they feel proud of, as this class has done for me.
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