It is hard to pinpoint specific details on how digital tools and approaches have effected my studies at Guelph. Obviously, there are the mentioned examples of things like JSTOR to find articles during essay research, and CourseLink as something that kept myself, and other students connected to our classes. But, there are more profound ways in which the digital world has effected the way we complete required assignments in university courses. It is hard to imagine what it would be like to use absolutely no digital resources whatsoever for any class I have been in in university. The idea of gathering essay information using only books seems next to impossible. The amount of time that would go into simply being able to back up an argument with academic proof would take an eternity, but now with academic search engines, it can take 5 seconds to find a variety of relevant sources when doing research. Even having to have every assignment typed, and in some cases electronically submitted, shows how ingrained the use of computers and digital resources has become. There is no way to make a quantitative summary of how digital resources have affected my studies in university, because the reality of the situation is that the digital world has in fact defined almost every step of university, from the stages of applying to university, up until right now in writing a blog for this class.
The future I see with digital resources is a reassessment in the presentation of ideas and opinions. Every semester for each class I probably write at least one essay, in some classes I have written as many as 4 in one semester. Last semester I took a class where the final assignment was the choice between writing a traditional 15 page essay OR creating a web page that incorporated different types of media that would display your central thesis. This seemed like a great opportunity to branch out from the typical assignments in the past, and if I had taken this class last year I may have chosen to created a web page, but I could not trust myself enough to try something different. I look at digital tools as a way for students to re imagine the way they present their ideas. It seems like with the proper instruction, and some creative thinking, we will be able to explain the same opinions we would in an essay, in a completely new format. The idea of a weekly blog entry seems like a step in the right direction, and I look forward to exploring different means for communicating my ideas with the rest of my peers.
aroibas 