The niche that I have decided to focus on is the importance of health and fitness and how it can help people around the world with things like self discipline respect and overall mental health and well being. Even though many people don’t think of themselves as fitness freaks, if we get people involved through a number of different measures I believe we can really make a difference in peoples lives and help them make serious changes for the future.

The past 6 weeks have been a whirlwind of new ideas, thought processes and discovery. From learning words I had never learned before, to talking to people I had never talked to before, the past month and a half has given me a totally different perspective and respect to people who speak two different languages. When I first started I was struggling to keep myself motivated due to the boring and mundane ways I was trying to train my brain. I just couldn’t keep up watching boring online training videos. To begin with the online videos failed to spark my interest, and they also lacked real clarity and practical application. This caused me to lack a sense of motivation in what I was trying to learn. Over the course of the first two weeks I barely learned a thing in Portuguese other than hello and how are you. That it is when I did the readings about switching methods from online, to more one on one in person interactions and how those are better. I began talking to my Brazilian friends and found that my vocabulary improved dramatically in just one week. Then it improved even more when I went out of my comfort zone to speak Portuguese with people I had never talked to before. Over the last 3 weeks I have improved drastically and realistically feel much more confident in my ability to travel in a foreign country. When I am travelling I hope to become completely fluent and make friends for the rest of my life. All thanks to this class for motivating me to actual start before it was to late.

Group 9: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mjBHFou9fmJABR95VZvDWVaFQKcOxwCUew-RpXhUqm4/edit

This learning resource that you guys have presented is very thorough and does a great job of explaining a very complex topic basic java programming. As someone who has never taken any sort of computer programming course it was fascinating to learn about all the different things that go into making and setting up java and how to properly identify syntax. The learning resource is very interactive throughout the entire paper and does a good job of explaining these technologies to someone who has very little to no understanding. If I where to make one suggestion it would be that for myself and many other people the topic is a little dry so possibly adding more colourful pictures or videos could help to spice it up a bit. Even though you did a great job of having different coloured text which was an excellent way to make me understand the different topics and ideas without my brain losing interest. Overall it was a great job and with a couple more videos it is on course to help many other students get a much better understanding of java programming.

The unit this week on learning technology has been the most relatable in my quest to learn and improve my skills and development of Brazilian Portuguese. When I first tried to learn Portuguese at the beginning of this class in the middle of May I thought the best option I had was to watch videos online and try to develop a high level of vocabulary so I would be able to speak to people without issue. After the first week however, I realized that these online videos where not working and failed to really engage me. That is when I got Rosetta stone. I felt that getting Rosetta stone would enable me to be more engaged and help me improve my skills while being rewarded at the same time. Instead, what happened was a lot of frustration and general unease with how slowly I was learning and the lack of actual real guidance that was taking place. In order to make changes to my progress I decided to stop using the online world to help me learn a new language and instead concentrate on the real world and real people who I felt can actually help me make changes and improve my conversation skills. As I discussed last week, conversating with my friends from Brazil improved my Portuguese substantially but I felt that it was not just enough to talk to people I was comfortable with. Even though talking with my Brazilian friends was helpful for improving my skills it still really failed to take me out of my comfort zone. When one of them suggested that, I talk to their friends and people I have never met before I realized I had to jump at the opportunity. I met up with a couple of their friends at the house, and I began to speak almost instantly. At first got a couple of laughs, but pretty quickly I began to say more and more, and they spoke back to me, catching me off guard. After a few basic phrases, I felt in my element and was able to actually engage more in conversation. Whenever they said something, I didn’t understand I was quick to ask for confirmation, to make sure I was always adapting to what they were saying. Altogether, this week matched perfectly with the Unit. Showing me the importance of actual dialogue and conversation. Instead of using the internet as the main source of education, using it rather as a supplementary form of education. I have chosen to concentrate more on in person and real life education, and will continue to use it for the rest of my learning and blogs.

This week allowed me to take my knowledge and comprehension of Portuguese to the next level. As I mentioned in week 2 my focus was on switching from dull youtube learning classes to a far more integrated approach by using Rosetta Stone. This allowed me to make changes to the ways I was trying to learn in the past and take my learning from a so called reactive style of learning to a much more proactive style.

Now While these changes in learning style helped me make advances it wasn’t until I really tried to practice them out with a friend that I began to see improvements. After a couple of practice sessions with my friends from Brazil I realized that this was the best way and chance I had to really make changes and see progress in my levels of comprehension. It was also the quickest way I was going to get ahead considering I am planning to move in less than 4 months. I realize I have got to learn as quickly as possible and with cram as much information in. As the readings this week discussed even if I follow along with all the online lessons from Rosetta Stone I the learner still need to engage with the learning myself and practice in real life or else I will not reap any of the benefits. This is why in my third week I practiced multiple sessions of dialouge with my Brazillian friends, really allowing me to engage and go outside my comfort zone. For next week I am hoping to talk to their friends and people I dont know to really push my limits and go even further outside my comfort zone.

Hello everyone,

My name is Andrew Muirhead I am currently in my fourth and hopefully final year at UVIC. I was born and raised in Victoria and just like I am sure the rest of you will agree, being able to call this city home is an amazing feeling. I am currently working full time at the ogden point cruise ship terminal and hope to finish my degree with this course, in the summer. Even though I love Victoria I hope to move to a different city when I have graduated. 

By taking this course, I hope to gain a better understanding of how to design and make improvements especially with the rise of technological innovations of the 21st century.

One Memorable Learning Experience.

In my last semester at UVIC I took a course to teach english as a second language. It gave me a profound respect and gratitude for the english language and how in demand and important it is for the world today. It also made me incredibly grateful to be born into a country where english is the first language. The course gave me more insight into how important it is to practice patterns of speech and proper sentence structure. 

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton