Semester Reflection
Being in Global Ed this year has allowed me to learn many things. One of the things that I learned is that it is sometimes better to listen to a story read aloud than to read it by yourself.

Of the stories that we listened to, I personally thought that “The Man in the Well” was the more interesting of the two. If you had to read this story in a text it may have seemed like just another one of those stories your teacher makes you read so you can get some lesson out of it you will never use again. Listening to it allowed me to almost feel as if I was in the story. The voice of the storyteller and the odd, somewhat tribal music which played in the background added an almost spiritual and calming effect to the story which not only allowed me to understand it better. It also made me enjoy the story better because having something read to you in my mind has an odd calming effect.

Another thing that I learned this semester was that there was genocide in Rwanda. Before this year all that I would have thought of if you said the word Rwanda would probably have been “Some poor country in Africa on the brink of starvation witan outbreak of malaria” or something along those lines. Now I know otherwise. It was interesting (for me at least) to learn about something that I had absolutely no background knowledge on whatsoever and to take the place of a group of people in the problem and to view it from their perspective. It really opened my eyes once more and more of the details started to come out. I have learned from this that just because a country is in Africa doesn’t mean it is poor and disease ridden. It could have problems similar to the Europeans (Holocaust: genocide of the Jews) or could still just be that small poor country.

Learning how to find a credible source this year is another thing that I have learned. Last year I was what you may call a Wikiaholic. I went to Wikipedia to try to get information on everything, whether I was doing research in the computer lad at school or for a project on my own at home. I have realized that since anyone can change the information given on Wikipedia, it is not a fit site go to for a source as some of the information could be edited by people who don’t have know any information on the topic. Sites like BBC.com or UN.com are more reliable as they are government run sites and give the best information because the government doesn’t not want the wrong information pushed on us (unless you’re talking about something like a Jason Bourne). For our Rwandan research project I think I used one article from the BBC and another one from TIME.com. There are many better sites than Wikipedia to go to find information for the topics I am given and I will use them more in the years to come.

For the next thing that I have learned and taken a liking to this year, I’m going to jump on the topic of blogging. I had heard about blogging but never actually tried it for myself. I now know that it is an effective and interesting way to learn, communicate with your classmates and to do assignments on. My mom had helped me a bit with my first couple blogs as she has been doing this kind of stuff for a while, then she taught me a variety of other tricks such as phlogging. Phlogging is this way for you to call a special account you set up, say what you want to be on your blog, and then if you go to your account you can imbed the call into your blog and with the audio with come a transcript of the words you say. How cool!

While we were learning about Australia we watched a movie, Rabbit Proof Fence. Before this year I knew nothing of the Aboriginal people’s situation over in Australia and how they were treated amongst the rest of the population. This movie showed the tale of three Aboriginal girls who were taken from their village by Australian officials. The girls were brought to a camp run by nuns, and they were taught the ways of the English who were on Australia against their will. Having watch a movie on this rather than have read a book on it gave me a better understanding of the topic because it allowed me to get a real visual of real events that were happening to these people rather than me try to picture their situation and put in the details as I think the story conveys them, not as they truly could have been. I think that is better for me as I am the type of person who does not like to have facts jumbled around and not straight. I like to have everything set up straight forward and with right information.