Week 4: Not as Bad as I thought

I don’t know but for some reason I was really nervous about this week. I guess it was because we were going to start the research week. It was not bad as I thought. My goal this week was to try and get all the assignments done before Thursday so I could just have the weekend to relax. Well I got my work done before Thursday but I did not get to do the relax part yet. Hopefully I will but I doubt it. I have been re-painting the picnic table and helping my fiancée build my mom a garden, which is extremely time-consuming.

This weeks assignments were to revise our essential and foundation questions in a list of how we would like to answer them. We were then to read the articles about how to develop a search strategy. Then we needed to read several articles about how to evaluate an internet article and then we were to evaluate “Sign Language Communication with Elephants.” Then we were to evaluate an article pertaining to our topic. Then we were to evaluate any article and use an evaluation form to rate that site. We needed to think about everybody’s topic and if we were to come across information to them we should sent that to the list. We needed to continue doing our webliography. We needed to keep reading our mail from our professional mailing list and read the project prospectus.

The first assignment was to develop a search strategy which gave good information on how to search for our topic and find answers to our foundation questions. Then after this I revised my essential and foundation questions and made a list of how I would want to order it. Next we were to read information on how to evaluate articles that we read. The information on how to evaluate internet article was real helpful. I know that we should not believe everything that we read on the internet but often when researching topics I do not question the articles I read. Having read these articles really opened my eyes to have to pay close attention to the articles I read. When I evaluated the “Sign Language Communication with Elephants,” the article was not real reliable information because it had no address, no author, no web page address, or other links and this was a sign that it was not valid information. Having thought about this there are numerous times when I am researching topics that I have not found authors on the page, contact addresses or e-mail addresses, yet I would still use them. If, you can not find an author for a web document then you just use the web site in your reference. However, this does not mean that it is a reliable article. Reading this article lets me no that I have to be careful about the validity of the article. These articles that I read and the evaluation form gives good advice of how to tell if and article is a good source or not. Next I evaluated an article on my topic, “PACT: A broad- based approach to Phonological Therapy.” I evaluated the article based on authorship, publishing body, and currency. It took a while to go through and evaluate the article but after evaluating the article it came out to be a reliable source. I think that it is a good idea to do this for all the articles so I can make sure I am receiving valid information. Learning to evaluate information based on this form will come in handy when I am researching further on my topic. The last evaluation assignment was to evaluate any site and rate the site based on currency, content, authority, navigation, experience, multimedia, treatment, access, and miscellaneous. This was an interesting way to evaluate an article. I chose one of my favorite sites that I go to often which was Dustin’s Days Page. This assignment was fun it was a good stress relief assignment. The whole time I was doing this assignment I kept thinking to myself I can’t believe I am actually evaluating this site. I guess I felt guilty that maybe I should evaluate another research site on my topic but I decided to do evaluate on one of my interest. After evaluating this site my site turned out to be average which still meant that the information was pretty good. I think it is a good idea to use these evaluation forms when evaluating a source. The next thing I did was rearrange by webliography. The first one I did was extremely rough so I went back and changed it a little and now I am working on adding my discipline and research sites and I want to add a couple more things to my fun stuff. As for problems I did not really have any problems with this week’s assignments. The only thing that I experienced this week is when I was doing my webliography I pressed save and it was taking an long time to post my work so I copied it and pasted it to works and printed it out and exited my blog and when I did this I received information that antville had an error and was not working. The next day when I went to my blog everything was working and it saved my work anyways. That was a relief.

I enjoyed moo this week. It really cleared up the directions about the MRP. All the examples that were given of how to approach this project was helpful. I also thought it was interesting to have a guest visit us. I though that was cool. It was too bad that we did not get to talk to him to long. I am looking forward to when we can interact with other people at the moo.

This week was a real interesting week. I have learned a lot of valuable information about the internet. This information will really help me with my research project. Just seems every week I am learning a lot of new and important information that I did not know before. By the time the class ends I think I will accomplish my goal of this class which is to become computer literate.

I have 2 questions. My first question,
I have been reading my mailing list and I have found some e-mails that are pertaining to my subject. However, most of them are just symptoms and asking the mailing list of what can this be. Not all of the lists deal with phonological disorders. I was wondering if I can sign up to another mailing list to see what other information I can get.

The second question is for the MRP we have to have 3 point of views. I was wondering if it was o.k. that 2 of the points of view are addressed in my questions which are parents and SLP’s. Or do I need to change the question to where some of my points of view won’t already be addressed in the question.

AN EXTREMELY BUSY CD WEEK:
Well, week 3 is almost over. This has been a really busy week for me because this week’s assignments took longer for me to do. Usually I like to do 2 a day, but that did not always happen. I had a test on Tuesday that I studied for on Monday and this took time away from this class. So, I did not start the week off the way I wanted to and from there it just seemed to be a real hectic week.

This weeks assignments included subscribing to a Professional mailing list. We had to, research the web on our last name and on the topic we want to research by using various search engines. ALso, we needed to familiarize ourselves with other websites. This included other resources (internet library, Eric Digest). We had to develop a prompt on “Re-conceptualizing Professional Teacher Development." Also, we had to write about our history as a learner. In addition to this take a learning style inventory. We had to begin putting together our Webliography. Also, we needed to begin answering our research question. We also needed to begin reading teh outline for the MRP. Whew!! That was a lot to do this week and I am just glad I finally finished it all.

Signing up to the web was real interesting. There were not too many sites on Phonological disorders; however, I was able to subscribe to a group that had parent’s views of the disorders as well as speech pathologists’ views. This group is called Phon-d, it has 212 members, and I get about 6-9 e-mails a day. I really did not have a problem subscribing to the list. The only problem was that I had to wait for the conformation of the mailing list which took 2 hours to receive. So, in the mean time, I was thinking that I did not sign up to the group correctly, but I really had. Next, I read a lot of information about how to search the web. I never really knew the difference between a meta-search engine and a search engine and I think I like the search engines better. I would rather have articles come up from one site instead of three or four different ones. Searching the web by using different engines was really helpful. Some site found thousands on my topic and last name where others did not. I found it real interesting to do a search on my last name and I was amazed at how many “Puigs” I found on the net. Also, searching the sites on my topic will come in handy when it comes time to researching my topic. Also, I found the other sites useful too. I was able to find many interesting articles on my topic in American Speech Language Hearing Association, but it kept telling me that I needed to be a member in order to get access to these articles. When I went to the Internet Public Library website and typed in my disorder, it kept bringing up diseases and not phonological disorders. As for Eric Digest, I was able to use this site, but I could not find anything pertaining to phonological disorders. However, I would like to find an article on how a person with a phonological disorder interacts at school, so, I will keep looking. The next assignment dealt with how I learn best in this field. I think the best way to develop as a speech pathologist is experience, research, collaboration, and continuing my education. I think if I do this, I will benefit both my clients and myself. Then, the next assignment focused on me writing about my history as a learner, which was very interesting to think about. I think this was harder to write about. Learning is something that constantly changes, so it was really hard to come up with the best way I could write about the history of me being a learner. So, I just gave examples of how I learned, the way I best learn, what makes me nervous and excited, and what causes me tension. Some of these things, like what makes me nervous, were hard to put in to words. I know what I want to say, but it was hard for me to explain what makes me feel nervous. It was just a harder writing assignment for me to do. The next assignment was really fun and I enjoyed taking the inventory of what learning style best fits you. The inventory results expressed that I learn best by reading and writing, with which I agreed. I do learn visually, aurally, and by hands-on experience, but, ultimately, I know I learn best by reading and writing. We also had to begin to make our webliography, which is where I ran into quite a bit of trouble. I just could not get the word I wanted to use (ex. horoscope) to hyperlink. I e-mailed the class and they came up with that maybe it was because I had too many spaces and forgot my quotation mark. Then, I went back and I tried it and it still would not work for me. So, finally, I called Jennifer to help me. She said that she was able to get it to work, so, I tried what she said and I still could not get it work. I thought maybe I was pressing the wrong button and just did not pick up on it. Eventually we figured out the problem, which was that I thought that once you did the html that it would automatically highlight the word that you wanted, in my case horoscope. In order to see if it worked I had to press save. I was not doing that. I was just pressing enter to go the next line and I thought it would cause it to work. However, eventually, I was able to figure it out that, even though it was such a little problem, I thought for sure it was a big problem. Finally, when I got it posted, I was extremely happy. The last assignment for this week was to write questions that I would need to know in order to answer the question. In order to do this assignment, I needed to change my essential question. I had some problems with this because I wanted it to focus on so many things. In order to help me narrow down my question, I just wrote everything I wanted down in a list form and then was able to narrow down my question. Then I was able to do this assignment, in which I was able to still include a lot of the concepts that I wanted to target.

I really enjoyed meeting at the moo this week. I think my grouped worked really well as a group to come up with essentail questions. My group really helped me come up with my essential question.

This was a really busy week. I am a little nervous, o.k., really nervous about next week’s assignments, since they are going to deal with researching our question. I looked at the MRP and I am a bit overwhelmed. I know that it probably won’t be as bad as I think it will be and I just hope that I can find a lot of information on my research topic.

Questions: As of right now, I do not have any questions, but I sure I will have some during the week.

Friday , June 21
Week 2: It has been a fairly busy CD week…………

Well I can’t believe that week 2 is almost over. This week has been a fairly busy CD week. For this week we were assigned a lot of reading and writing projects. My objectives for this week were to try and get all the assignments for Week 2 done before Monday. I like to get as many as I can completed before we get the weekly assignments. I am just afraid as time goes by the assignments will be more in depth and take longer to complete so I do not want to get too far behind. I will admit it is getting a little hard trying to juggle this class and my other class. However, for right now I am just managing my time between this class and my other.

For this week we were assigned to read basic information about using the internet. This included learning about email; how to use it, send it, and properly communicate by e-mails (short paragraphs, using the correct language, gestures, etc.), how to understand e-mail addresses, learning about mailing lists , acronyms that are used in e-mails, and learning about the world wide web. Also, we were to subscribe and unsubscribe to a mailing list. Then with the information that we have learned from the articles that we were assigned we were to use the web to help us locate someone that we know. Then we were assigned several assignments that would eventually help us with our research project. This included to write about why we wanted to become a speech pathologist, the values that were expressed about education, how will continue to use research in our lives, also write about what questions and interests we have in this field/profession.

To do these assignments I usually follow them in order. Although it is very tempting to go and choose the easiest assignments and do them first. If, I did them this way it would be way to confusing for me. Also, what I may think is easy may actually turn out to be one of the hardest things to complete. In order to help me complete these assignments it was easier to print the material off first and then read it that way. It is too hard for me to read articles off the screen. Anyways, I print the material off and since most of the assignments are fairly long I usually highlight and take notes of the key points. This way when it comes to doing the assignment it would be easier for me to do. From reading the assigned articles I was able to learn a lot of interesting information about computers that I did not know before. I also had never been successful at searching for people. I was able to find my brother, my two Aunts, and several teachers from high school. I think already I am beginning to be more skilled at using the computers. However, for the most part I was able to complete these assignments without any trouble. The assignment that gave me the most trouble was subscribing and unsubscribing from the mailing list. When I went to subscribe it came back with a message saying that there was no mailing list for want I had typed in. Well, I yelled at the computer, like that did me any good. I kept yelling at it asking why won’t you do what I asked. I did what the directions said. Then when I looked at what I did, it would help if I could learn how to spell subscribe. I also when I went to unsubscribe I noticed that in order for it too work I had to follow exactly how it was written. For ex. to unsubscribe I had to type Cd 315-test list end, in all capital letters in order to get to unsubscribe from the mailing list. I also had a little trouble posting my Personal History assignment, for some reason I thought the place your response text here was to comment on the one that was posted before. Then I realized that it did not get posted. Then I got help and realized my mistake and fixed it quickly. The other assignments were just reflecting on why I wanted to become a speech pathologist, which I will never for get why I wanted to change my major. I am really glad that I picked this major because after I took the first CD class I was hooked and did not want to change my major. Next I wrote about the education values expressed in my home, which sometimes you forget because it seems that now you are more independent and my mom is just happy that I have made it this far and have done well in school. As for the research assignment it had connected with the previous assignment, Information Literacy, which was just to understand that in order to expand my knowledge I will have to use all the resources available in order to be successful in my profession and outside of my profession. The assignment that I had not completed yet is the essential question assignment.

Also, I have learned a lot from our class meeting at the “moo”. It was very interesting to go in and see how an Internet class works. At first, I did not think that I would be able to learn if I had to do other communications disorders class on the computer, for example, CD 460. It just seems that it would be a little hard to understand and do everything. However, from seeing how you (Mrs. McComas) set the class up was very interesting and I think that I could learn this way. It was neat to see how case histories were developed on the web. It was more interesting to see how you could do hearing screenings on the web. The idea of having an Internet class is really neat. In addition to this, we got in groups and discussed what we think the general population thinks about communication disorders. At first, our group was having trouble coming up with this answer. We just thought that communication disorders were really not discussed a lot in the general public. That was until Mrs. McComas told us to think about movies. Then we were able to come up with how communication disorders were portrayed in movies and commercials. Then from group 1 and 2, I was able to learn a lot of different ideas about what the public thinks about communication disorders.

In general, this class is really opening up my eyes to why it is so important to be able to use the computer and what valuable information one can gain by using the computer. Last week I was really nervous about this class because I am not very good with computers. This week I am a little bit more relaxed and beginning to be a little confident in my computer skills.

Questions: As of right now I do not have any questions.