Final Blog: Transformative Learning

This course's topic is all about animal rights. Before I took this course, I used to think that human is the only superior species that we deserve to rule over all other species on this planet. I believed that sacrifice animals to benefit humans is undoubtfully the right thing to do. I really thought so. After doing so much research about crows, which is the species I chose for my topic, I changed my mind. We are not special. Animals also can have similar emotions with us, and they are also intelligent and conscious, and they feel pain the same way we do. However, crows are still slaughtered in countless number each year, not because of they did something bad, but just because they are affecting our agriculture in a bad way and are seen as pests. After I took this course, I also understand now how to be a better user of digital technologies to help expressing myself. I have never used Twitter before. This course made me realize that social media can be a very useful tool to help me find basic information about my researching topic. By following accounts that care about my topic issues, I can be linked to other official organizations, websites, and individuals who can provide credible knowledge. I also learned how to create a website. Although I'm still not entirely sure how to make a website look pretty, I still improved a lot on making one. I understand now that multi-media can be attractive for my audiences and keep them engaged on the topic I'm discussing on.

During the course, one issue I encountered was writing issues. I was good at writing without support of evidence, which I use reasoning to let others believe in what I want to convince them. However, when I'm writing essays that are entirely literature review based, I often make the mistake that I use emotional appeal and more fake evidences and extreme words. These elements make my essay less credible and trustworthy. In the future, I can improve this by reading more of others' essays, and perhaps include more quotes and paraphrasing for my support of evidence than using just "common knowledge". Another issue was using technology. This is my first time using Twitter and creating a website. I had to explore myself how to create a proper website and find functions I want to add. Besides, I had problems using Twitter to find useful information in the first few weeks. I was following too little accounts, which I couldn't get enough information by their tweets. I had a hard time trying to find keywords I search on Twitter. To solve this in the future, the best way is to practice more. I should create more websites for casual reasons and get ready for another major task I need to do relying on that skill. For Twitter, the best way for me to do is to just follow more researchers and organizations of every field. More following accounts means there's going to be more useful information provided for me.