Mid-Semester Self-Evaluation

Before taking this class, I really didn't know much information about what we have been learning. Everything I knew was just general assumptions which can be inferred from everyday life. We have gone into so much detail about social networking sites and the internet that I had no idea there was so much to learn about them. Web 2.0 has been the most confusing topic that we have discussed. I do understand the concept of it now, but it took me so long to understand the general definition of it. I still to this day have not fully understood the entirity of Web 2.0.
During this current semester, I am taking a marketing class which I have surprisingly found to share a lot of the same topics. We have talked about social networking and Web 2.0 in my marketing class as well. In NCLC 249: Internet Listeracy, we have talked about the different effects social networking has had on peoples’s personal habits, personality, actions, and attitudes in general. In my marketing class, we talked mostly about the uses of social networking sites and how it can be very useful for free and cheap ways to advertise. Before this semester, I never expected social networking to be a topic to come up in any of my classes. I am taking a management class as well this semester and I have found that some of the concepts we have learned about in this NCLC 249: Internet Literacy class, I have learned about in that class as well; an example would be social capital.
I feel like I have definitely improved in my information technology competency because before I entered this class, I had neither heard of a lot of the sites that we use, nor had I known how to use them. Now I am familiar with Google Docs, PB Wiki, Blogger and Twitter. I never knew the internet was so useful in these ways. I feel that there has been an imporvement in my citizenship competency as well. Learning about social capital has helped me develop different ways to increase my social capital and use it as “information money.” Also our service learning project has helped me see different ways that I am able to help out as a citizen and contribute to my community. This class overall have helped me to become a better rounded individual.