Flight Path
Current Coordinate
I am currently a fifth-year undergraduate psychology student, and I transferred from college to university during my degree. Throughout my studies, I have realized that learning does not always happen effectively for me through in-class lectures alone. For example, when I took computer science courses, I sometimes found it difficult to fully understand a concept from the lecture at first. YouTube videos and other online resources became very helpful because I could search for the specific question I had, find different explanations, and learn at my own pace. Looking back, I think this is one way I have already experienced personalized learning, even though I did not previously think of it using that term. As a psychology student, I also bring experience with research and thinking about individual differences, which makes me interested in why certain ways of learning may work for one person but not another. Social media and the Internet have therefore become important supplements to my formal education, but I have mostly used them intuitively rather than thinking critically about how they shape my learning.
Mapping the Route
One of my main goals in this course is to better understand how social media, online learning, and generative AI have evolved and influenced the way people learn. I am particularly interested in GenAI because my own attitude toward it has changed significantly. When generative AI first became popular, I was somewhat resistant to using it because I associated it with cheating and worried that AI could change my words or interpret my ideas differently from what I intended. Over time, however, I began to see that it could also support rather than replace my own work. Since English is my second language, I have found GenAI particularly useful for checking grammar, identifying structural problems, and helping me see how my ideas could be better organized. Through this course, I want to develop a clearer understanding of where the boundary lies between using AI to support my learning and allowing it to replace my own thinking. I also want to connect my psychology background with the course objectives by exploring how people interact with social media as learning environments, how online networks influence what and how we learn, and how these environments can affect people’s behaviour and well-being. Rather than simply using online tools because they are available, I hope to become more intentional and critical about how I use them for my academic and future professional development.
Anticipating Turbulence
One challenge I anticipate is participating in a course that takes place fully online. In an in-person classroom, I can see my classmates and naturally become familiar with them, while online I sometimes feel intimidated about reaching out to someone individually. Because developing a personal learning network is part of this course, I want to challenge myself to participate more actively in discussions and respond to classmates instead of only reading their posts. I am also concerned about technical difficulties. Last semester, my computer stopped working for about a week, which significantly affected my ability to complete my work. I sometimes also worry about clicking the wrong link, uploading an assignment to the wrong place, or missing instructions across different online platforms. To manage this, I plan to become familiar with the course platforms early, double-check my submissions after uploading them, and keep my important coursework backed up online so that a problem with one device does not prevent me from continuing my work. These challenges are part of why I hope this course will make me not only more comfortable with digital tools, but also a more confident and intentional participant in online learning.