Happy Friday – heading into the weekend tips for writing and a look at the week ahead

Hi Everyone,

Happy Friday! I hope this note finds you having had a great week and looking forward to a weekend ahead that will be full of a mix of fall fun and LRNT 523 paper idea generation, pondering and maybe even sketching out of a detailed outline or rough draft ;)

Thanks so much for your well researched and presented Assignment 2 debates. I have posted my feedback in Moodle and attached my detailed feedback to your submissions for both the debate and the peer assessment.

As we look forward to the last few weeks of LRNT 523 (can you believe it??!!) I wanted to pass along a few other resources that past students have found useful in their writing.

Detailed outline builder

Assignment time calculator – this one is good for at the front end of the assignment

Creativity in academic writing

In terms of next week (Oct 23 – 29), we have a synchronous session scheduled for Oct 26^th from 4 -5pm pacific time where we will spend time in discussion with Derek Murray about generative AI and the work he has been doing in the college setting and with others. We will also have our LRNT 524 instructors join us later in the session so you can meet them before you start and they can give you a 30,000 ft view of the course, and we can always chat a bit more about our final assignment if that would be helpful. I am so looking forward to it and to seeing all of you.

Now, back to LRNT 523 ;) I know you are working on your blog posts about your A3 ideas and I can’t wait to see how those evolve into your final submissions. I did want  to mention two things:

1. It is okay if there is some overlap in topics. If you see overlaps, use that as an opportunity to deepen your thinking based on what others are writing. Feel free to look up the references others are sharing or reach out to them to discuss.

2. What this assignment does ask is to say something about the future (of course), but equally importantly is to say something about the present. Our thoughts about the future are grounded on our present experiences, anxieties, hopes, and desires. In this way, when you're reading your peers' posts or thinking about the assignment, pause for a moment and think about what the writing says about education at the present time. For instance, there might be concerns of lack of affordability; marginalized spaces/places/people, generative AI, and climate change to name a few.

The blog post activity acts as a formative way to start the final assignment. As such, it offers a scaffold towards the assignment and avoid extraneous work at this stage. This is also the reason why Unit 3 is predominantly structured as a "work" unit, hopefully providing helpful breathing/thinking/writing space for you to devote to Assignment 3 

Happy writing this weekend and thanks again for all of your work and engagement in our course. Have a great week ahead and as always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Ciao,

Elizabeth