December 11th, 2005
Final Learning Reflection
Preparing for Information Literacy
During the “Preparing for Information Literacy” strand, I learned a lot about the internet and how it works. I learned about the different types of search engines and when to use each of them. The piece of information that was most valuable in teaching me this is located here. I also read about searching techniques that are useful and those that are not useful. This information helped me to develop my skills and plan a search strategy. Here you can see the strategy that I planned. You can see in my plan that I first refer to knowledge that had previously been learned. This allowed me to build off of the knowledge that I already had. All of this knowledge and understanding also gave me confidence to begin my search. I was confident because I knew how to find the most valuable information, which is one of the most important steps in completing the assignments. Looking back I think this section was very important because as the title says it prepares you for information literacy. It gave me direction and pointed me down the right path, which made the project much easier.
Information Discovery, Retrieval, and Management
During this strand I learned how to judge the reliability of a site. By reading “Evaluating Internet Sources & Sites: A Tutorial” I learned how to judge accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. This developed my skills in finding information that is from a trustworthy source. It also helped me to understand what I needed to put on my website so that people would feel they could trust the information that I provided. Reading this article gave me confidence in my ability to find reliable resources. I believe this was very important for me to learn so that I would not trust everything I found online.
During this stage I also learned how to use databases from the library’s homepage to search for information. I learned how to modify my search so that I found exactly what I was looking for and how to locate articles that were not available online. To improve my confidence and independence, I began doing some “practice” searching. I found articles that I thought may be useful. To see my results you can read my email.
The last thing that I will discuss that I learned in this section is I learned how to publish web pages online. I was clueless about how to do this, so I read this information provided by Marshall Computing Services. At first I was not confident in publishing web pages because it was something that I had never done. But, the more I worked with it, the more confident I became. I became independent on working on my site, but I also helped my classmates when they had problems. Without the knowledge and skill that was developed during this section, there is no way that I could have completed my MRP.
Processing Information
During this strand of work I began taking the information I had learned and using it to create different genres. I took the information and applied it to a real life scenario. This allowed me to provide the information in ways that incorporated emotions and allowed for readers to feel connected with the information. I hope that this strategy allows readers insight into the feelings that come along with aphasia. While working on these genres I was constantly thinking back to things I had seen in patients with Broca’s aphasia. I had watched an evaluation of someone who had aphasia and I had also watched an episode on ER that involved a CVA patient with Broca’s aphasia.
During this section I also created my table of contents. While creating this I learned that I should provide readers a way to view my project linearly and non-linearly. I thought this was a good idea because I have visited web sites that have did this and it makes it easier to find what you are looking for.
In this section, I not only processed the information from my site, but also the information of two of my group members. You can read the comments I wrote by visiting Will’s and Jill’s weblog and clicking on comments. I also had group members reviewing my work. You can see their suggestions by going here and clicking on comments. I used their comments to improve my skills and my projects. It was very helpful to see how other’s view you work. Sometimes they think of things that you should include that you never thought of. By getting these suggestions, I became more confident in my work because I feel that they helped me improve what I had done.
This section is where I really felt my work was coming together. I was literally processing the information that I had found and incorporating it into different projects.
Transferring Information
During the “Transferring Information” strand I began taking my projects from my weblog and publishing them online. As I did this, I was revising my work. I used the SCAR method, which includes substituting, cutting, adding, and rearranging. I used the comments that my peer reviewers had given me, but I also illustrated independence by choosing which suggestions I felt would help improve my project. I also made some of my own changes. While I was transferring my information, I made sure all of the information that I used from other sources was cited correctly. I used skills that I had previously developed to do this. I also used knowledge from the experience in Mrs. Dixon’s class. J Looking back this is where I put the finishing touches on my work. I made sure all the pages had the same background, font, page transition, and identifying information on the bottom of the page. To see my final MRP click here.