MOOCs – Page 2 – Savannah Schaffer

Frost and Woolf: Tradition and Modernity

January 30, 2014 January 30, 2014Culture, Essays, History, Literature

This is an essay I wrote last semester for my Ideas of the 20th Century course. The assignment was to explore two modern artists who had contrasting views about progress and modernity. Robert Frost, a 20th century American poet, opposed the disintegration of tradition. He called for a return to convention both in the content and structure of his poetry. Some poems directly confront the erosion of civilization; others indirectly support his conservative tendencies in the overall structure. Mending Walls is an early poem by Frost, published in 1914. The poem tells of two rural New England neighbors who meet…

What I Learned

January 27, 2014 January 27, 2014Education, Life, Literature

I won’t guarantee this will happen every week, but on a somewhat regular basis I intend to share some of the things that I’ve recently learned in my studies. I watched the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet and read the original play. It really helped to watch and read concurrently. I’d watch an hour of the play, then read up to that scene in the play, and so forth. David Tennant’s performance as Hamlet really helped me understand his character, I think he did a fantastic job. Some of the mad and just quirky things he does in the…

A Brief Explanation of the Scientific Method

January 24, 2014 January 24, 2014Education

This week my sister and I started taking an Intro to Chemistry MOOC from Duke University. We’re a little daunted by the math requirements, but I’m so far determined to figure it out! In one of the first lectures of the week we reviewed the scientific method. I won’t go through it in detail, but I’ll share what I learned about some of the terms used in science. Most everything in science starts with observations. From here you develop a hypothesis to explain what you’ve seen. At this point the hypothesis is just an educated guess, you still must conduct experiments…

Monday Morning!

January 20, 2014 January 20, 2014Christianity, Education, Life, Video

I took a brief hiatus over the weekend as I was trying to get over a rather nasty cold. I figured that either during or after Lakeshore I was bound to get sick, and sure enough, it happened. But thankfully I got it after Lakeshore, so I just spent the majority of last week catching up on Sherlock and Downton Abbey : ) Don’t worry, there will be posts to come about those. And Doctor Who. Considering I haven’t talked much yet about the Christmas special, it definitely deserves a post of its own! Meanwhile, now that I’m feeling much…

Thoughts on MOOCs, Part 2

January 17, 2014 January 17, 2014Culture, Education

In Part 1 I talked about the actual structure of MOOCs, and this post will be more of my personal opinion about MOOCs. What I really like about MOOCs: They provide a necessary structure for learning. I remember with fondness the days when my life was so slow that I could make my own study schedule and just do it. I’d decide to study ancient Rome and dedicate the required time to it, and then somehow do it, at least most of the time. Now that’s a lot harder. Life seems to get in the way, haha. I don’t have…

Thoughts on MOOCs, Part 1

January 16, 2014 January 16, 2014Culture, Education

Early last year I was searching for online classes and came across a list of “MOOCs.” This was a new term for me, so I did some more research. MOOCs, massive open online courses, are a new movement in online education. While the term MOOC has been around since about 2008, it seems that they’ve gained more popularity in the last couple years. In 2012 and 2013 the major MOOC organizations, Edx, Udacity, and Coursera, were launched. So, what exactly is a MOOC? You can read about them on Wikipedia, or do a google search, but in this post and…

Thoughts on Dracula

January 15, 2014 January 15, 2014Christianity, Essays, Literature

Preface: This is a short essay I wrote for my Science Fiction/Fantasy MOOC class last semester. It was challenging because of the word limit (320 words) and I would have liked to expand on the ideas much more. But at least it gave me practice in trying to condense my thoughts : ) So this essay is on Dracula, by Bram Stoker. The overarching tension of Dracula is the conflict between the traditional Christian worldview and the forces of evil. It is only through recourse to religion that the protagonists are able to overcome Dracula; science and technological advances were…

Tag: MOOCs