Alina Ramirez

Dr. Preston

Expository Composition

2 June 2014


         When you say Open Source Learning lots of different things come to mind. At the beginning I had no idea what to expect. It seemed just like any old high school project that was being forced upon. But boy was I wrong. At the beginning I did have a bit of trouble getting used to the whole idea that we actually have the freedom to do exactly what we want and how we want it. Collaborating with other students was one of my favorite things about this course. A students perspective on a topic is always as helpful as a teachers.  I believe that I have improved my reading and writing skills. The vocab was strongly enforced over the first semester and it did help for the most part. This course has taught me to think in different ways. That there isn't just one correct way to approach a topic, you can address it in many ways and still be right. I can see why some teachers are against the whole idea but I think it's great. Dr. Preston has given us a taste of what the real world taste like.

From the whole experience with the masterpiece I truly found what my passion is. My journey to find it was pretty weird. I thought I wanted to do one thing but what I was really passionate for was right under my nose. At first I started off wanting to do fashion and I mean I like it and I think it's really interesting, but when I would get bored with it I would then just go on YouTube and search up allstar cheerleading. Then that was when I realized that I wanted to do this. Since I have been in cheer since I was 7 years old I know a thing or two about cheer. But since I wasn't in cheer this year it has been one of my main things to keep up with it and be up to date with all of the really competitive teams and know how they rank. Cheer is a sport that is constantly changing, stunts are getting harder, tumbling is getting crazier and overall the level of completion is getting fiercer. That is why I would like to help out a local competitive cheer team and contribute some of the ideas that I have.

Something about this course that made me laugh is the fact that we didn't even use the text book for this course. It's funny how when we checked it out at the library at the beginning of the year we all thought we were going to use it. But it's been in my locker since.

One presentation that stood out to me the most was Shane's, when he talked about the flow theory and what it is I thought it was really cool. Passion is a common theme throughout every presentation. Daniel has been doing what he likes for quite a long time now. It's nice to know that he has worked hard to get to where he is now. Jorge's masterpiece reminds me of my masterpiece. He has been breakdancing for a long time and he is really passionate about what he does that he ended up,starting the Righetti dance crew.

I believe that I did complete a heroes journey. A hero at first starts off unsure of what there task is. Then once they find what it is they do there very best to accomplish it.  Sure there were some hardships but every hero gets through it.