Spoilers Ahead...

I absolutely loathe public speaking and I never would have taken this class had it not been required for Family Science majors. Looking back at how the class went... this is still true. I know, I know - everything requires speaking and communicating and blah blah blah, it's important, I get it. I still prefer writing as my main form of communication and would have happily written papers in lieu of any of the presentations I had to do. Like the sentiments I had about the group project, it wasn't necessarily something I enjoyed or didn't enjoy, it was something I had to do to get to whatever was next.

Honestly, I think the way the class is set up right now, I could have shown up about seven times total - the first day, to present my informative brief, to get the group assignment, to give the group presentation, to listen to whatever speaker I had to write a blog post on, and to present my persuasive speech. And even then, I could have just relied on my group to get in contact with me and only showed up six times. Looking at the grades right now, there's nothing there to reflect that I only missed class two or three times this semester. However, I do see that I lost twenty points for not posting on the blog - something I dislike immensely and found it hard to keep track of. I'm not even really sure how I managed to do that because there's no break down of that grade. I commented when I felt like I actually had something to add to the conversation. In hindsight, I should have just posted the obligatory 'Oh, good for you! You're so right! This is so insightful!' on a bunch of posts and I probably would have been fine. There's no real reflection of the things I posted (often with outside links even in the comments) versus a post that's just 'Yay! Golf claps all around!' - which is, to say the least, frustrating.

Technology has been... mostly a hinderance in my opinion. I like the blog. I think it's great and very convenient that we turn in our assignments on the blog. It's easy enough to get the hang of most of the aspects fairly quickly. However, when it's expanded to Facebook and Twitter, I think that's just getting excessive. I don't have an active Twitter account and, despite the good battle jousted all semester, I still have no plans of using it. It's not my thing. I also did not join the Facebook group and that proved to be even more inconvenient because most of the class cancellations were announced over Facebook. I showed up to class at least twice only to find it cancelled in that manner. In the future, if ELMS is used for nothing else, I really think that important announcements like class cancellations should really be sent to everyone that way - at least to ensure everyone got it at the same time.

Like I said, I'm bitter about my 'Participation Blog Comments' grade because it was hard to keep track of and more often than not there was just nothing to comment on in a given week. If that's going to stay the requirement, I would suggest making sure there were more things to comment on in the future - or even just making students do posts instead of comments would help. I thought my comments were thoughtful when I offered them up and I didn't want to just throw anything out there for the sake of putting it out there. Which brings me to my next complaint - the blog post requirements. I understand why they're there and I understand we need some kind of requirements, but there's... no quality control on them. I know I got full credit for two of my posts where one link was literally to a Youtube video of 'Never Gonna Give You Up' and in another post, I linked out to the Inception Button. I've used an Arrested Development gif, an Anchorman gif and a Fight Club gif now. If you scroll back up, ELMS links to the Grape Lady Falls. I just don't understand what they're for if they're not regulated in any way... You know? That could just be my personal pet peeve (and let's not lie, stickin' it to the man! always). When I click on a link I think I might be genuinely interested in and it's obviously the first link that popped up when someone googled it and not really about the topic, it just... annoying.

There was pretty much zero need for the textbook - the powerpoints set up online were enough. And another small pet peeve, if grades are supposed to be posted by a certain announced date... it would be nice if they were up. I also, personally, didn't think it was necessary to dress up for the presentations. I understand the logic behind it and see how it relates to being taken more seriously and all, but when I have a class directly before and directly after, it's just annoying to stay in my business casual clothes all day. I would also venture to say that perhaps smaller groups for group projects next time around would be more beneficial? In the same amount of time that we did four presentations, we probably could have squeezed in six and maybe had groups with more similar majors and interests than what we had to work with. I should... probably talk about the good things now, shouldn't I? I swear, I have good things to say too!

I liked the structure of the class, informative briefs before group projects. I have friends in other COMM107 classes that did it the other way around and it just sounded painfully awkward. Likewise, I do like the idea behind the blog (even though I strongly feel like some things about it need to be changed) because those same friends were writing papers and turning in assignments that I could comfortably do from home. I also liked that the blog was a nod towards a more modern approach to teaching and is definitely something other teachers should look into for the future. I really liked the public speakers as well. They gave interesting advice and were a nice shake-up to normal classes. As a junior taking 300-level classes (and ECON200, but I have nothing nice to say about that class...), this was a nice easy class for me to break up my day a bit. I know it seems like I don't have a lot of nice things to say, but this class was relatively painless and better than I expected it to be is probably the best compliment COMM107 will ever get from me. Almost like how ECON200 will remain one of those never-to-be-spoken-about-again words.

I think it is appropriate to leave you with my favorite TED talk, considering we watched a few in class. This is JJ Abrams talking about his mystery box. Don't worry, it's not dirty - it's fascinating and full of pop culture goodness. Thanks for the semester, but seriously... I will be so bitter if those stupid blog comments rob me of an A.