The Beginning

Initially when I signed up for this course I thought it was going to be like the numerous other online courses I have taken and I soon found out that I was wrong. At first I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of assignments that we had and I even thought for a brief moment about withdrawing. After I calmed down I realized that the class itself was not going to be hard in my opinion but it just required a lot of hard work, time, and dedication. I knew that by the end of this semester I would most likely have learned a lot and be grateful that I stuck it out and did not try to take the easy way out.

Reading the discussion topics for the past two weeks actually made me angry. I felt that there was a lot of negativity being given off and that was something that I had never experienced before in a class. It was a little upsetting and it actually made me not want to continue reading the discussion posts. I felt that some students were being disrespectful and I also felt that both Teach and Linda were not that kind in some of their responses back to the students. I get that everyone is stressed and everyone has a lot to do but I felt like everyone was taking out their own personal stresses on each other and that is completely unnecessary. On the 24th I read the discussion “Observations from the Old Guy” from Jim Vokoun and I felt so much better about everything. I could not agree more with everything he said. I also was glad that I was not the only one who noticed all the negativity. If any of you have not read his message I highly suggest you do it will make you smile (it is under the main discussion tab).

Now that it is week three I feel more confident in this class. I’ve made myself a schedule so I can make sure I get everything done in time. I now also know what is expected of me in regards to assignments. I turned in assignment one and felt confident but my feedback was not that great. I did receive and A on it and to most people that would be enough but not for me. I’m the type of person that gets mad if I do something wrong and get bad feedback on assignment even if I did get an A. I guess you can say I am a bit of a perfectionist, which like we all know is not always a good thing.


Did You Know: Children with HIV

There is currently more then 2.1 million children worldwide living with HIV (Berry, 2009). The majority of children with this virus live in countries that have been plagued by HIV for many years. For example 9 out of 10 children who live in Sub-Saharan Africa are infected with AIDS (Berry, 2009).

I found the video below on YouTube and I thought it was both interesting and sad. It gives you a look into the children’s lives who have HIV and who have lost their parents to it. It also discusses an organization called PLAN which is helping these children (PLAN, 2007).

Video: Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children in Uganda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWzHwlFP8Z4



References:

Web: Berry, S. (2009, November 30). Children, HIV, and AIDS. Retreieved January 26, 2010, from Avert: http://www.avert.org/children.htm

Web: PLAN. (2007, March 5). Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children in Uganda [Video file]. Video posted to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWzHwlFP8z4