Choosing your tool                                                                                           (right click on pictures then click view image to see the original size)

I think I'd prefer my ePortfolio to be private. Before I make it public I want to finish it and add all the fine details to make it look presentable, so having it private would be a start. I looked at the Canvas ePortfolio's, they look plain, but organized and straight to the point without a lot of pictures to clutter up the page. On the other hand, Weebly looks like a web design page that can be used by professionals depending on how well you made your ePortfolio. Based on the options, I think I'll choose Weebly over the others simply because I've used it before, so I'm kind of familiar with it. - November 2

Reflecting on your learning

The 168 hour assignment helped me a lot. Before this semester I would waste so much time, mostly because I thought I would be able to finish the work before it was due. I was so wrong. I ended up stressing myself out just trying to finish work a couple days before it was due and overall half-assing the assignment. The 168 hour assignment more or less helped me with managing my time. This assignment may have not improved my academic abilities but it definitely improved my work ethics. Also, I don't think I would change anything about the assignment, as it was the starting point for me to being better at managing my time.  Most importantly this assignment helped me schedule "productive hours" for my classes, so I'll have time the next day for the other classes. In another eportfolio assignment I introduced one of my flaws which was being too careless with my work. This is something I need to work on, because I used to rush my assignments they would come out with poor quality and this affected my grade, so taking my time on assignments would be something to improve in the future. Something that I'll be able to do outside of this class is to focus on my other classes which will in turn help me focus on this one. - November 23

Share your progress

I'd like to reflect on the mapping project. It's a difficult project considering you have to depend on your teammates to actually do their share of the work. What this project has helped me with is communication, and that is an essential skill that everyone must be able to utilize in their life. I think working in a team shows your strong and weak points, because you can look at your other teammates and compare yourself to them. When you work in a teammate you can offer your strength to your other members, and they can help you with your weak points. In this case, my strong point would be creating the maps whereas my teammate would be the one doing the screen casts, and with that I can learn from him by analyzing his work or asking him for help and vice versa. Something that I can take away from this project is the team element. In the future I'll be working with other people, and those will be my coworkers, and it's a team effort depending on my job. So to me, and it should be, very important to develop communication skills because in the long run you will always run into obstacles that may require someone to help you, or you might be able to help them, and communicating with that other person(s) is key to success. - December 7

Final Check-in

For my final reflection I'd like to reflect on the exams that I have taken over the course of this semester from this class. I studied just enough to pass some of these exams  and even then I still took hours just trying to find the answers to some of the questions when I could have read the material and found the answer much sooner. This flaw in my academic skill really shows what kind of worker I am. I noticed this way before I ever hit college, and sadly it stuck with me to this day. It's hard to develop skills on how to study when you barely did it in the first place. Thus I learned it the hard way by screwing up a lot of exams, ultimately leading to lower scores, and a lower grade for the semester. And this flaw bleeds into my other work, such as projects or just homework in general, and mainly my work ethic is poor because of this. I realized that because of this single but huge flaw, everything else about my academic skills are affected negatively. Instead of reading the material where I would better my understanding of the concept and eventually find the answer, I decided to take the long way and just search for the answer by itself, this made me take even longer on the exams, and that was my laziness taking over my focus. Hopefully in the future, I won't be such a slouch and actually take the time to go over course material instead of shortcutting everything, which in my opinion may save some time, but overall isn't effective in academics.

  Semester Reflection

From the beginning, all I wanted to do was get this class over with, since it counts as transfer credits. I worried that I wasn't going to do all that well in the course because of the short time frame the course took place in, but here I am on finals week typing this reflection, preparing for the finals and ultimately finishing off satisfied with the results to show. I definitely accomplished my goals for this class, aside from passing, I improved my academic skills in research and I can say that confidently, along with expanding my knowledge on geography. The projects from this class such as the 168hour assignment, the first aid earthquake kit project, and the other two projects that required group work really helped my skills in communication and improved my ability to manage my time more efficiently.  Other things that I've learned from this class is being able to read and make maps, making the maps was a pretty difficult assignment. I also learned about the weather and el Nino, which is my favorite weather phenomenon  since it rains in California for days. I'm also capable of explaining geography to people who have questions about the basics such as the weather, rocks, the type of rocks, the earth's layers, etc.  Some day there will be an earthquake and I'll be prepared because of this class. I like to think my skills in research have improved because of this course. We had to do a lot of reading and we had to understand the concepts of geography such as geographical features and processes which required research on the feature and process, which to me was also a difficult part of the fieldtrip project.  In the future I would like to work on my analytical skills, they're not that bad right now but they can be improved by a lot. If I could go back in time to stop myself from taking this compacted course, I don't think I would've changed it. With this course being the way it was, it was sort of like a check to keep me busy and aware of my responsibility, and I really I'm thankful for that because I like to think I put in more effort this way.