I will start my last blog off with a quote that one of my professors used at the end of our lecture today. It is a saying by Marie Curie, a famous physicist and chemist, that said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less” (Marie Curie Quotes, n.d.). I think this quote not only relates to the world that we are living now, but also the unforgettable, crazy semester that we have had so far.

It is a bittersweet semester for me because I am graduating this semester. Right now, the graduation and nursing annual pinning ceremony is pushed until August. I am hopeful they will still happen but know not to get my hopes up too much. I was upset upon first hearing the news, but took some time to reflect and develop a better outlook on the situation. I feel I am validated to be upset about my graduation and ceremony, but I should be ten times more grateful to be healthy at this time. I am fortunate to have parents that enjoy my siblings and I being home, and make dinners for us every night. I know this is not the case in many of my friends’ houses. Many of them still live at their school apartments because they do not want to go home. That is what also leads me to be grateful for the recipe project because I was able to not only research recipes that fit the criteria for the project, but also other healthy options. I became more invested into looking through recipes and finding cost effective options especially at this time. I think this is an applicable and important project that has more relevance now more than ever. 

I think this class has been really helpful and I wish I had taken it sooner in my college career to help me with additional papers. I realized that I can be afraid to start big, daunting papers. It is hard to begin the work on a paper that is a decent amount of my grade and has a lot of limiters on it to meet requirements. Once I start working on the paper though, and understand more of the standards, I fear completing the paper a little less and have an easier time coming to terms with the idea of writing. This has also been something that I kept in mind during this technical writing class. I had never taken a class like this before and having no set in person meeting time for classes worried me some. I am used to learning through lecture and in person assignments. This was a change for me but something I am glad I was able to complete. 

Having a strictly online class, all the assignments and not knowing anyone in the class personally can seem intimidating. I was having a hard time adjusting to the online style and trying to remember deadlines because it was always on my own time. The beginning of the semester was a difficult time for me because I was struggling personally and have been in the midst of my hardest academic semester. I would say around midterm, before spring break, I was finally finding a rhythm to help me complete all my assignments with less anxiety and more precision. It became clear that once I understood my objectives, planning, roles of each class, and strategies for organizing myself, I was able to better accommodate this semester. 

Although this semester did not turn out how I thought it was going to be, I am grateful for my time at Bloomsburg University and am grateful for the friends and experiences I was able to make. I am grateful that the nursing department found a way to enable us to graduate on time so we can become graduate nurses and help fight this pandemic by increasing staffing at hospitals. Some reports say that healthcare professionals did not sign up to put their lives on the line for their job, and I think that’s true. But I also know that the main reason I wanted to be a nurse was to help people, and that’s what I can be doing when I graduate. It is scary to think I will also be on the front line in a couple of months. I feel once I get into my role as the graduate nurse and begin helping as many people as possible, I will feel less stress and anxiety about the state we are in as long as I stay focused on my main reason for joining the nursing force. 

To sum up this final blog post, I will reiterate the quote from Marie Curie that I stated from the beginning. My main theme behind this post was that although some things at first may be scary, once one starts to understand and fulfill their role better, there is less to fear in terms of expectations. I think this is something important to remember in life and when starting anything new. I know I will always try to remember this myself. 

Marie Curie Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/marie_curie_389010

I have appreciated writing these blogs for class because it allows freedom of expression and the ability to speak my mind. During regular classes and clinicals during the semester, it just felt as though it was an assignment that I had to do. I didn’t mind writing them, but I did it for school and allocated time because it was an assignment. Now, it seems as though this has become a nice source of relief during this isolating time. I used to journal and have a diary when I was younger, but as school became more intense and time consuming, I lost touch of that hobby. Now, having only left my house to take my dog for walks, I have found a new sense of relief by being able to speak my mind about this situation. 

My whole family has to be home during this time; an occurrence that doesn’t normally happen unless it’s the holidays. My dad works a full time job, year round. My mom works in a school district, so for as long as I can remember she has only had summers off. I am the middle child and both my brothers are two years apart from me, younger and older. We have always all been in school at the same time and only see each other during school breaks, holidays, and summers. So this is an anomaly for my family as I’m sure it is for many other families. We have been around each other for three weeks now and my parents have only left the house twice to load up on food at the grocery store. And when they do go out, they use sanitizer, they don’t touch their face, and they meticulously clean the car and every door handle they may have touched coming into the house. 

This is such a strange world to be living in right now, academics wise and socially. One of the main reasons I chose a college away from my hometown was because I know that I have a hard time effectively getting work done at home. My whole family is home, the news is constantly on the TV, my dog is cute and distracting, and everyone is busy doing things around the house they normally wouldn’t have time for otherwise. In review, there is a whole lot of noise all day long. I am someone that would be at the library every day, on the fourth floor, studying for hours. I would bring food with me or get some on campus to eat while I studied through meal times. I get easily distracted so I would always sit in a cubby in the corner so I could solely focus on my work and get the most effective studying done. 

On top of the noise challenge that is a daily struggle, all academics and clinicals have moved to online. I have taken online classes before, so I mostly know how to work them. This is not the case for many nursing instructors because nursing is a discipline that is usually not taught online. So, it has been a lot for my instructors because they are figuring out how to make voiceover powerpoints and hold Zoom conferences. In addition, our clinical paperwork now has to be submitted online so my instructor has to learn how to grade, evaluate, and leave comments to us online. We also have started virtual simulations for clinicals so that has been a struggle to learn how to adapt to the new software. 

Overall, this change in scenery, noise level, and online learning has been both a struggle and a blessing. I am thankful I am able to complete my senior year on time with the academics I need to prepare me for my boards. Is being in clinical assuming full care of four patients more experience? Most definitely, but I am staying positive and grateful that my instructors have pushed for a way that we can learn and graduate on time. It is also a struggle seeing my parents worry about how we are going to finance our living situation potentially without an income for the month of April. It is hard to stay focused on academics with so much going on in the world around us right now. It has been a struggle adapting to going to my computer everyday for classes or clinical but it is something I am adapting to. This is a time of adaptation and everyone has to accommodate to this, one way or another. I believe that if everyone does their part to slow the spread of this virus and flatten the curve, we as a country can come out of this stronger and with a renewed sense of life.

With many food stores closing and jobs shutting down, the recipe project has become more important than ever. This is around the time it is coming to fruition more than before because our usability tests are being made and our recipes have already been decided, along with our proposal. This project is important for college students living on a strict budget and also for families that are struggling. Making recipes that are cheap and have few ingredients is of utmost importance in our world recently. This is prevalent now more than ever because of the economical and worldly changes that are taking place in our environment.

An interesting topic I found on our academic site was how all of our documents and classes can relate to each other. Thinking about this broadly, it is interesting to see how making cheap recipes could relate to the state that the world is in today. By having quick, easy recipes to make with inexpensive foods that are still filling, myself and other citizens can have fast meals in this trying time. It is also relevant to me as a future healthcare provider and a student that has worked many hours of clinical experience. I would get to the hospital an hour or two before clinical started, stayed for my eight hour shift, and then had a post conference afterwards, without eating all day. These recipes are actually something I am really interested in because I am always looking for quick, cheap recipes to make before clinical that keep me full.

This is also just my personal class load, but other majors have classes and labs that keep them away from their apartments for extended periods of time. So having many different audiences that this project identifies with extends its credibility and usability for many different purposes.

It is important to portray to the audience the purpose of what is being done, the audience’s “concerns and characteristics, education and experience in the subject, location and workplace situation, and attitudes towards the purpose” (Pearsall, 2010). This is why the persona for the usability testing must identify all these attributes so they can be managed accordingly when creating the instructions for the recipes. This relates to what I identify with the best, healthcare, when dealing with various patients. Each patient will have a different knowledge base, so explaining their care to them will take differing amounts of time and effort. Each patient also has diverse levels of concern over their health. Some care and want to learn everything they can to prevent relapse back into the hospital, while others do not show the same involvement. The purpose for patients depends on what level of care they are being treated at. At the top of every patient’s goal and purpose for care is to restore them to their previous level of health or get them the care they need to enhance their lives as much as possible. Some patients are compliant in restoring this goal and others are less obedient. 

The usability testing lets us decide whether recipe instructions are easily manipulated in experiential form. It allows the user to develop the best way, or most heuristic way, to understand recipes and create them individually. This also relates to my healthcare background because things like pamphlets regarding patients’ diagnosis’ or medications need to be easy to understand and comprehend. The Joint Commission recommends reading materials at, “sixth and seventh-grade levels” (2007). Health literacy is something that I think about when creating instructions for recipes that any person can follow. 

On a separate note to show its diversity in other disciplines, the recipe project can be related to other classes as well. I am a psychology minor and took a theories class last semester on how, why, and by who, many psychological tests and measurements had been created. This relates to our recipe project in the fact that important instructions had to be crafted to make the psychological tests. There are many instructions and testing requirements that need to be carefully considered with those measurements. As recipes need to go through usability testing to make sure that average people can follow the directions made, psychological tests need to undergo the same testing. In addition, this also relates to a personal financial class that I have taken previously. That class related to bills, bankruptcy, finances, and important documents such as tax forms. All of these financial documents need important and very clear instruction on them to ensure proper documentation. This is relevant to these documents as well as to health literacy in the fact that they should be in readable terms to the average citizen. All classes, general education or required of majors, can be interrelated to show importance in things we do. 

The recipe project can be used for any population base and should be designed for many audiences. It can be interrelated and similar to many basic elements that are required of other classes and assignments. The purpose of someone’s document or project should be carefully designed to include many of the elements that relate to the audience such as their education, attitudes, or concerns. 

Pearsall, T. E., & Cook, K. C. (2010). The elements of technical writing. New York, NY: Longman.

Joint Commission. (2007). “What did the doctor say?” Improving Health Literacy to Protect Patient Safety. Retrieved from https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/tjc/idev-imports/topics-assets/what-did-the-doctor-say-improving-health-literacy-to-protect-patient-safety/improving_health_literacypdf.pdf?db=web&hash=0FC8437817D493B2C0223D100557889E

A lot of the readings for the past week have been about rhetoric and how it plays a big role in our society today. This form of writing influences many things that we do, learn, and see in our world today. Rhetoric can be written, spoken or visual language that can “organize and maintain social groups, construct meanings and identities, coordinate behavior, mediate power, produce change, and create knowledge” (San Diego State University, 2019). So not only can this take on a form of writing it can also be experienced socially, conversationally, and visually.

One common theme in the articles, videos, and readings this week was how technology has been changing and how rhetoric relates to this. Technology is rhetorical in itself because it is a medium that can persuade knowledge and change behavior. This has become increasingly more popular in recent years because of all the social media platforms that are available to be rhetorical. Although technology is inanimate figuratively speaking, the rhetorical results it produces are not. Some people are so attached to their phone and social media they cannot go more than a couple minutes without at least glancing at it. It causes people to be uninvolved in their real daily lives and miss out on moments they can’t get back.

Technology rhetorically influences almost everything that we do and can be done in today’s world. In school settings there has been more cyber bullying that comes from texted written language that can change other people’s perspectives, actions, and viewpoints on someone. There can be spoken rhetoric that changes behavior and viewpoint such as TED talks and podcasts that can create knowledge and mediate change. There is also visual rhetoric on social media as referenced by different media platforms used for different reactions. A lot of persuasion and rhetoric that comes from social media is about how someone is supposed to look and the definition of beauty. This is visual rhetoric in the fact that some easily influenced people may want to change themselves or create an idea of beauty that should not be standard for everyone.

In the article, “Rhetoric, Multimedia Technology and the Service Learning Classroom” (2011) it is discussed how rhetoric can be any form of communication. Not only can it be technology related as stated above but it relates to how different forms of media have different affects on learning. Hidalgo and Leon’s (2011) study related to memory making. It emphasized how memories are affected by the communities which people are in. Their study was in a retirement community so the students in the study had to create relationships with the elderly and use different technologies for their projects. So the students had to think rhetorically and manage what media would be best for these residents. When doing the projects it also urged students to think rhetorically because they needed to find the best place for the interviews they were doing for their projects to enhance learning. Taking all these different things into mind all relates back to the central theme of rhetoric. It encompassed written rhetoric when making projects that would influence the elderly population, spoken rhetoric when presenting to different groups, and visual by making media that would conform to the correct group they were presenting to. This helped create knowledge about the relationship between memories and communities. This article, “Rhetoric, Multimedia Technology and the Service Learning Classroom” (2011) does a good job at highlighting the many different forms rhetoric can take on and the different populations it can apply to.

In conclusion, I think technology and rhetoric will continue to be an ongoing discussion in years to come. Technology has influenced and changed the way many of us live. The purpose for the written, spoken, or visual language in rhetoric can be to change what people believe, inform them on topics, or to convince them of something. This purpose in rhetoric acts to do the above actions to the audience, or the people using the technology or medium of persuasion. By communicating and working to change someone’s mindset it is rhetoric that is easily transferred to many things like social media platforms and media in general. Rhetoric has influence over people, just like technology does and the different forms of media as referenced in the article above. It has such influence that this is why some people are so attached to their phones and social media. Technology is only increasing in depth and extensiveness so it is reasonable to assume rhetoric in technology and different social medias will always be present.

Hidalgo, A., & Leon, K. (2011). Rhetoric, Multimedia Technology and the Service Learning Classroom. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/amber/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/Rhetoric%20Multimedia%20Technology%20and%20the%20SLC%20fall%202016%20(3).pdf

San Diego State University. (2019). What is Rhetoric? Retrieved from Rhetoric & Writing Studies website: https://rhetoric.sdsu.edu/resources/what_is_rhetoric.htm

At the very beginning of the article it states how interacting in an environment or conversation helps in your understanding of the topic being conversed. I believe this is especially true because if you are just arbitrarily listening, you may miss focal points of the conversation because you are not involved and therefore don’t need to participate or learn. This also rings true for the syllabus that is somewhat of a written contract between professors and students. If students don’t participate fully in the work that is assigned or read through it thoroughly, they are not going to get everything they could out of that assignment in terms of learning. This will lead to more challenges along the way because of the decreased participation over time.

I thought it was interesting how these two topics seemed relevant to each other even though one is more of a conversation piece and the other a learning aspect. I have found both of these important in my life as learning objectives but never noticed the two could be linked together. I think it is also very important in this particular class because it is online. Since there is not the ability to be in person engaging, it is especially pertinent to interact in the online discussion posts and blogs that we have.

In growing with this skill of becoming more involved, I believe my intellectual curiosity has grown. It deals with looking at issues from multiple perspectives and seeking out more information before ending at someone’s own rationalization. This may involve being more of an active learner, which strengthens understanding of possible conversational topics and readings. This is important to me because I will work with a team of nurses and other disciplines. By looking at things from other perspectives I will grow as a healthcare worker.

Another point made about active learners that I thought was interesting was the fact that it involves using multiple different strategies of learning to determine which produces superior results. This is especially important in college because there are so many courses that are required for a degree along with some required by the university. There is so much to learn in the four months of each semester with differing teaching styles from every professor that being an active learner is almost imperative throughout one’s college years. I know this is something I especially had to grow into during my beginning years at college and even more so because I am a nursing major with a heavy course load. But, the good thing about college in general, and in my case my major, is that I am never alone in my struggles class wise. There is a lot of collaboration that happens in my major as I am sure are just as important in other majors. So by having many students with mostly active learning styles I think that could create the richest environment for groups and other activities involving other people.

In another sense, this is also true in learning because being in a new environment there most likely is a change of learning from a previous study habit had before. For most, college contains more lectures, handouts, and information than what was previously had. For me, I have never taken an online class at this college so I need to be active in my learning to make the most of the experience and receive decent grades. College is a special place because there are so many people from different backgrounds and ways of doing things that were relevant where they originated from that it makes the campus almost an instant learning experience. By combining this along with the new conversations and information to learn, most students adapt to be more involved in their learning because this is where a lot of independence grows.

This also rings true in my major because medicine is not always cause and effect. Every patient presents with their own unique symptoms and may not be as black and white as the next. This is also important in this class because writing involves so much technique and can be applied to practically every discipline. By having immense knowledge and different strategies one could produce a technically correct paper.

This idea of multiple ideas involved to see what produces the best results may also help with independent work as well because if one person doesn’t know something there is a good chance someone else has a similar question and will seek out collaboration as well to solve it. This is relevant to our class because we have a discussion forum for this.

As previously discussed, in this new environment of college that one has to adapt to that I have mentioned also ties into the topic of reciprocal determinism. This identifies the fact that there is a relationship between a person and their environment. This bodes well in the college aspect because most students are on their own and have to work with what they have and interact with a new environment to make the most of their situation, both socially and educationally. This ties back into the topic of being more active in learning and in situations that require more than just a passive glance. By interacting with the environment it enhances learning for not only oneself, but also for others. By participating in conversations like on other people’s posts and being active in listening it can produce more impactful conversations.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

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• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
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