NOTES ON VLOGGING, BLOGGING AND INTRA-PERSONAL SKILLS

What a blog is?

In 1994, when blogs began, a blog was more of a personal diary that people shared online. In
this online journal, you could talk about your daily life or share about things that you were doing.
Then, people saw an opportunity to communicate information in a new way online. Thus began the
beautiful world of blogging.

What is a vlog?
Vlog stands for a video blog or video log, and refers to a type of blog where most or all of the
content is in a video format. Vlog posts consist of creating a video of yourself where you talk on a
particular subject such as reporting or reviewing a product or an event.

Intrapersonal Skills
Intra-personal Skills are internal skills, perceptions and attitudes that occur within a person’s
own mind. Skills that individuals use to work through real world situations. Skills that allow
individuals to respond using awareness, thought, and intentional strategy in order to gain positive
outcomes.
Examples of intra-personal skills include such things as self-esteem, open mindedness, being aware
of your own thinking, the ability to learn, being able to understand and manage your own emotions,
self-confidence, self-discipline, self-motivation, being able to overcome boredom, being patient,
being a self-starter, being able to take initiative, working independently, being persistent, having a
positive attitude, and being a good manager of time, to name but a few.
Intra-personal Skills can be learned in the same way that we learn math and language skills. And
they are the absolute foundation of everyday life.

The students have now inspired other people because of the meaningful and substantial contents they
have shared to their vlog/blog.

NOTES ON EISENHOWER MATRIX

What is the ‘Eisenhower Matrix’?

“Eisenhower matrix” or the “Eisenhower box”, a tool for decision making based on task
separation. It is about establishing four possibilities:
• The urgent and important: tasks to be done immediately.
• The important but not urgent: tasks for which time needs to be found and which need be done.
• The urgent but not important: tasks to delegate.
• Neither urgent nor important: tasks to eliminate

URGENT NOT URGENT

IMPORTANT Do It Now Schedule
NOT IMPORTANT Delegate Eliminate

What is the difference between Urgent and Important?

Don’t be fooled. Replying to an email may seem urgent, but it is not. A phone call can wait.
As Eisenhower himself said, “the important is seldom urgent and the urgent is seldom important”.
 Important tasks are those that contribute to achieving our long-term goals. They are those that we
should not lose sight of if we are to achieve success in our project.
If we have tasks that do not contribute to achieving our goals, then they are often neither important
nor urgent. The quickest way to handle these tasks is deciding to eliminate them. In fact, the
Eisenhower method is useful because it pushes us to question whether a task is really necessary, and
sometimes it is necessary to eliminate from our planning that which takes us away from what’s
important.

NOTES ON THE ART OF CRITICAL THINKING

Critical Thinking refers to the ability to analyze information objectively and make a reasoned
judgment. Critical thinking involves the evaluation of sources such as data, facts, observable
phenomenon, and research findings. Good critical thinkers can draw reasonable conclusions from a
set of information and discriminate between useful and less useful details.

Top Five Critical Thinking Skills

1. Analytical. Part of critical thinking is the ability to carefully examine something, whether it
is a problem, a set of data, or a text. People with analytical skills can examine information,
and then understand what it means, and what it represents. It involves: Asking thoughtful
questions, Interpretation and Recognizing differences and similarities.
2. Communication. You need to be able to communicate with others to share your ideas
effectively. Involves: Asking important questions, Expressing opinions and ideas, Verbal
communication, Written communication and Presentation
3. Creativity. You might need to spot patterns in the information you are looking at or come up with
a solution that no one else has thought of before. Involves: Conceptualization, Curiosity, and
Imagination.
4. Open-Minded. To think critically, You need to be objective, evaluating ideas without bias.
Involves: Embracing different cultural perspectives, Fair and Humble.
5. Problem Solving. Involves analyzing a problem, generating and implementing a solution, and
assessing the success of the plan. They need to be able to come up with practical solutions. Involves:
Attention to detail, Clarification, Collaboration and Decision making

8 Tricks for Remembering Everything You Read

Practical Techniques:
1. Take notes on the page. "Underline sentences you find confusing, interesting, or important. Draw
lines along the side of important paragraphs. Draw diagrams to see the structure of key ideas."
2. Ask yourself questions about the material. If you're reading a textbook, the question can be as simple
as, "What is the main idea of this section?“
3. Skim the text first. Skimming as a key strategy for retaining information. The idea here isn't to skip
the whole reading process. Instead, you'll want to skim the text for important topics and keywords
beforehand so you know what to expect when you actually dig into the material. Being familiar with the
general themes, will help you remember the particulars.
4. Impress, associate, repeat.
 The first part is impression. You can increase the strength of the impression the text makes on
you by picturing the situation in your mind or envisioning yourself participating in the events
described.
 The second part is association, or linking the material to something you already know. For
example, maybe one of the character's qualities is the same with someone you know.
  The third part is repetition. The more you read the material, the stronger your memory will be.
If you don't want to reread a whole book, try highlighting some parts of the text that you can go
back to.
1. Introduce the information to others. Experts say that, if you want to remember what you experience,
it's
important to do something with that information. Talking about what you read as a useful means of
processing new material such as by trying to explain to others what you think you've learned.
2. Read out loud. Writing in Psychology Today, psychologist Art Markman, Ph.D., says this strategy
might work best when there are a few key items you need to remember. That's because the sentences
you speak (oreven whisper) out loud take on a distinctiveness. You remember producing and hearing
the items and so your memory for them is different from the memory of the words you read silently.
3. Read on paper. Lead study author Anne Mangen, Ph.D., saysthat high-school students performed
better on a test of reading comprehension when they read a text in print instead of on a computer
screen.
8. Become familiar with the topic first. Blogger Ryan Battles recommends gaining some background
knowledge before you dive into a particular text, that's because you're able to make more associations
between the new information and what you already know.

What to do when you don’t understand what you’re reading?

1. Do not stop immediately but keep reading a bit. It is normal to find words and passages that seem
unclear. When you read along and find a place that puzzles you, first read ahead a few sentences and
then go back a few sentences. Often you will find that the material before and after a passage will
help explain it.
2. Think whether it's important to understand the puzzling passage before you stop and figure it out.
When it is important, work on it. When it's not important, skip it and read on. It is NOT important to
fully understand a passage when you are scanning rapidly to get a general idea. But IS important
when it contains a general principle or basic information that you need to understand later material.
3. When a writer gives examples of concepts and ideas, study them carefully because they relate ideas
to
concrete things you can relate to. Do not skip over examples. When you understand examples, you
will
understand big ideas.
4. Go slowly! Make mental images of the meanings. Think of visual images of what the passage means.
Fantasize how it would feel to be the thing that is talked about.
5. Talk to yourself! This is important. Most people who are highly intelligent do it. As you move
through a
puzzling passage, translate it into your own words. Do not just stare at the words and sentences
without
thinking. Do not let your mind be wordless. Think the passage through. Relate it to things
meaningful to
you. If you are alone, talk out loud.
6. Look up important words. If you find important words that you do not know and cannot figure out
from
the context, then stop reading and look them up in the dictionary.
7. Look at beginnings of sections. You can also use the trick of going back to the beginning of the
relevant
section. Why? Because authors use the beginning of passages to define basic terms and to explain
basic
information. They build up their explanations step by step. If you can understand the beginning, it is
easier
to understand the middle.
 8. Focus on the parts that you do understand. Then try to see how the part you don't understand can fit
in.
9. If You Cannot Figure It Out. Ask someone who might know. Ask teachers, fellow students, friends.