I really enjoyed the course as well as blogging that was organized as a part of this course. It was an interesting and challenging experience for me. To begin with, the first problem that I faced was the lack of time to write assignments because of full time job. Secondly, my mini thesis and full thesis topics were about totally different themes. Writing mini thesis project impedes full thesis writing, because you need to read and analyze many articles on several areas.
However, with the help of this course I practiced APA citation style a lot. I believe that this experience will help me with my full thesis. Besides, blogging served as a tool for reflection. Posting blogs about the process of writing small scale study and reading other students’ comments really helped me to think over my learning. Somehow, this led me to draw my own learning trajectory or learning strategy.
My major advice to online learners who work would be thorough planning of your time devoted to writing assignments. It is really difficult to find enough time for reading articles, analyzing various sources of information and writing assignments when you have full time job. Usually, when you get urgent tasks from your workplace and you haven’t submitted your assignment or assignments yet, the mind starts to blow up. This may reduce the quality of writings. Therefore, it is better to make a plan where you divide your assignment or assignments into several sections. Then start writing as soon as possible by completing your assignments step by step.
After taking part in weekly blogging as a part of this course, I came to conclusion that blog writing process lacked some interactivity. There were not so many comments on students’ posts that could generate discussion while some posts had no comments at all. Usually blog participants read and leave comments long after the post was published. If I were the instructor of this course, I would try to use one of the social networks that are popular among all students. I believe that the frequent and everyday use of social networks by participants will lead to instant comments and replies.
I would also like to try to make assignment deadlines flexible, so that it will correspond to individual student’s learning pace and needs. Because, some students may have different learning styles, bareers and different life circumstances as well. Thus, I think that some flexibility or inclusiveness in terms of deadlines will help students to perform better.
NUWG 
Great suggestions.
I also felt that the proportion of comments is uneven. Also, most of the time comments are given just for the sake of giving comments. Sometimes, it happens that we read several posts and comment on them , and don’t even bother to read and discuss other interesting posts.
As for the flexibility of deadlines. I have some concerns here. I mean can this lead to indiscipline and procrastination? Because the students always have not time and will always ask for personal extensions.
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I thought about some possible causes of extensions and could’t find one perfect solution. What if the marks will be reduced with arithmetic progression for each day of extension?
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Dear Yeraly,
I agree that it is difficult to balance your time between work and study.
I guess that idea of using social network will not work, because some student do not use them (like me:)).
I think that interactivity can increase if all students receive notifications on comments switched on. In my case, for example, I don’t receive notifications unless I enter the blog directly.
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I think that social networks are more popular than blog platforms. And the majority of students use them everyday. So, this may lead to active participation. As for the minority who don’t have social network accounts, I guess there is no difference for them to whether to enter a blog or a social networking website. What do you think?
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I think that the question is related mostly to usability. I agree that social networks are adapted to all operational systems, computers, smartphones.
When you posed the question second time, now I think that it would work, if we were obliged to create an account. In that case, I would have created an account just for the period of the course.
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Dear Yeraly,
Thank you for your blog post. I also agree with your point that interactivity is still a room for improvement in this course. However, in comparison with other courses it has done some steps towards it. Other part of its improvement is dependent on students’ active participation and devoting time to academic endeavors of their peers to read and and give meaningful comment on their writing.
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Dear Yeraly,
Yes, I agree that blogging serves as a good tool for reflection, and I saw a lot of reflection in all of the ideas I read online. I can see how you think that the mini-thesis impeded your main thesis work, but I am glad to hear that you improved your APA citation as a result. That’s pretty important, as you know. Frankly, I don’t know how you all can find time to do all the reading and analyzing you need to do for a thesis while you are working full-time. That’s good advice to start your writing assignment as soon as you possibly can. Don’t want your mind to “blow up”!
All the best,
Ann in Astana
5/5
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Thank you very much! We are trying to survive these days(
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Yereke,
I also agree that this platform lacks interaction, but I think the problem is not in the platform. I think the problem is our schedule these days. I notice that my usage of social networks also decreased. I suppose if we had more time we could have interacted more frequently. Sometimes, the blogs are full of bright ideas, but you lack the time to read them all.
Ruslanbek
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thanks for sharing your opinion. lack of time could be one of the reasons
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