This term we are using a brand new method of note taking called Zettlecasten. This is a method of note taking where you take and curate notes to link ideas. You start with fleeting notes which you normally take during lectures, at home, or whenever you have an idea you think is worth noting down. Once you have a bunch if ideas, you then move on to the next step which is literature notes. These are more refined and build off of your fleeting notes with sources and analyzation of those sources. Pretty much, you find an article or video on a topic and write down in your own words everything that there is to know about that topic. Finally, there are permanent notes where you take your literature and fleeting notes and make very simple key points that you can link to your other notes.

This is another key part of the system and linking is half of what makes the system work. The app we are using, Craft is really helpful with the linking and categorization of notes and it makes taking them so much easier. All of my notes have key words and ideas that are physically linked to other notes so its very easy to tie ideas together. This makes finding information for blog posts like this one really easy. 

On the actual subject of our learning, we focused on a few historically significant moments in history this week.

We looked at things that caused big changes in the world; from oral contraceptives and there effect on culture, to the war in Vietnam.

I really focused in on the learning that we did about Vietnam and its cultural effects as a turning point. I went further and watched and made a literature note on Full Metal Jacket, one of the more influential Vietnam war movies of all time. I specifically focused on the same aspects that we talked about in class in regards to how the war affected Americans’ perspective on their presidents. Lyndon B. Johnson did not want to pull out of Vietnam, but there Americans who did not agree with him.

“We do this [escalating U.S. military involvement in Vietnam] in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam—and all who seek to share their conquest—of a simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.”—President Lyndon Johnson, speaking to the nation on April 7, 1965 explaining his decision to send U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.

I do believe that, even although we are only one week in, the more I get used to using the Zettlekasten system, I can see it becoming a tool to support my learning, not just for this term, but for my post secondary education.