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Week 5 Reflection

The past two weeks have been mentally draining in reality and in graduate school but it seems like we are all trudging through the best we can. I forced myself to be more involved this week but also more kind to myself with breaks when I felt overwhelmed, anxious, or just plain tired. 

I continued to participate on Reddit and lurk on Facebook for my community norms project, which has been interesting to say the very least, however, I am now dreading writing the paper because I have so many thoughts swirling through my head. 

I thoroughly enjoyed checking out the Week 5 tools and fell in love with Refind. I now have something fun to start my mornings! Instead of having my coffee and watching the news and checking my emails, social media, Canvas notifications, etc. I have my first cup of coffee with my 15 Refind articles that are all picked for me and my interests, and when I set up my account I made sure I picked FUN interests- food, travel, entertainment. I stayed away from all things serious, career-related, political, and with any potential to start my day on a stressful or depressing note. 

I also enjoyed researching open-source learning and all of the potentials and possibilities with open-source resources and entire courses that are free, check out my previous blog entries for more information if you missed it. 

Overall, this course has continued to push me to engage in ways that have expanded my comfort zone, and to push the boundary on ways of incorporating social media in education, but also in benefitting society as a whole. I am looking forward to continuing this exploration but first- I have to write my community norms paper. 

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