December 14th, 2005
A15.1: Final Learning Reflection/Record
-Preparing for Information Literacy:
Boy was I nervous when I fully realized the scope of the project i was about to make an attempt at creating. It was made clear to me early on that there would be great responsibility to find as many credible sources of material relating to my topic as possible. However, I found out very soon that my comprehenshion in utilizing all sources of information retrieval was lax at best. Also, I didn't feel very confident that I would be able to pull whatever materail I did happen to find together as to form one cohesive unit of informative and insightful work.
In order to overcome these personal barrier of self doubt, I would have to break down the foundation of what I was so worried about in order to realize that I was capable to accomplish my goals in this class. A prompt provided to the class by our instructor to be posted on www.nicenet.org,our online journal page, concerned focussing on some of these doubts and fears that we might have as learners and what types of things impede our progress as such.
http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?topic_id=293552
I did have hopes that I would eventually pull myself together and assert myself in establishing this Multi-genre Research Project (MRP). I didn't really know what I was working toward until around the third week in CD 315 (URL-http://www.muwp.org/cd315/ ). I had completed research projects many times before, but never one that relied on relaying information through several different mediums of writing or presenting (genres). I was a little concerned, after receiving an in class tutorial which provided our class with the base knowledge of what an MRP was, that I might be too unfamiliar with the concept and not be able to complete it. Adding to my woes was my utter lack of computer "Know-how". I had never taken a computer networking course and never really showed much interest in exploring the different aspects and utilities of my own computer. In the past I had simply accessed the internet for basic "factoid" type research to fulfill class requirements. This left me somewhat doubting my own capabilities to successfully complete each of these genres while providing pertinent information concerning the speech language disorder (Aspergers) I had chosen to research.
There was a writing assignment that I did in the first few weeks in the class that was a response to a prompt that I believed was focused on building our self esteem and confidence back up so that we could remember that we were capable students and we have done quality work like this before. The prompt asked us to talk about what the attitude toward learning and education was in our families and if those attitudes and values transferred over to us. Reflecting on this topic helped me overcome that slight fear I had they maybe I couldn't accomplish my goals in the class. Maybe not for everybody, but for me, rememboring the ways in which members of my family tackled academic hardships helped to "fire"me up and motivate me to take this project head on. We posted our responses on nicenet at:
http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?topic_id=294245
The doubts and hesitations I had when I first began researching Aspergers syndrome and establishing the format and content of my genres soon began to fade as the weeks progressed. I couldn't stand the idea that I might fail at this, so I really put a lot of work and attention into studying all the informative links sent to our class from our instructor, Mrs. McCommas, posted on the class weblog, and really taking my time in the completion of the weekly assignments given to us in efforts to inadvertently hone the skills we would need to create a really good MRP.
The main goals I held during the course of this class included creating an MRP that would not only adequately inform others interested in Aspergers about the disorder, but help them as well, complete all the assignments posted on our class weblog on time, and learn how to utilize the internet and apply it in a more constructive way concerning the findings of useful online resources related to Aspergers.
-Information Discovery, Retrieval, and Management:Among some of the more initial and broad types of information concerning our project was learning what a MRP and its associated constituents were and what it meant to be "Information literate". Every week, the discoveries I would make in the areas that would aid in the creation of a successful MRP would be posted in my online journal located at nicenet.
http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?topic_id=291567
Discovery of what an MRP is was accomplished through intensive "in-class" discussion as well as exposure to links (URL-http://www.muwp.org/cd315/stories/storyReader$868), provided on our weblog, that would direct the class to pages that withheld similar information concerning our MRP's that was to be used at our disposal.
Aspects of what information literacy(URL-http://www.ericdigests.org/1993/lifelong.htm) was as well as what it meant to be information literate were discussed in class. This involved discussions about not only how to effectively locate pertinent information on the internet concerning your research topics, but how to effectively organize and use it. This concept was reinforced through exposure to an article (URL-http://webpages.marshall.edu/~mccomas/mcinnis.txt), offered as a link on our weblog, that was written by a Raymond G. McInnis, a former History professor at Western Washington University and library researcher. The McInnis article concerned how today's college students had evolved concerning the ways in which they handle the location, organization, and use of information found within different types of medium. McInnis didn't regard this evolution in a very favorably manner, and provided the solution to this downward spiraling of students capacity to develope information literacy through explanation and exploration of what he calls, "The Three R's of Inquiry". These three components of inquiry that McInnis is referring to are reading, researching, and writing.
Concepts that I learned about that concerned more specific areas of my MRP included, learning about professional mailing lists(URL-http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/24mlists.htm ) and how they would be useful to me, learning what an essential question(URL-http://www.biopoint.com/ibr/askquestion.html ) is and how it could be answered through the creation of foundation questions(URL-http://www.biopoint.com/ibr/askfg.html). This was done through online review of webpages devoted to each of these topics. Once we had created our essential question, and supplemented them with foundation questions, we were introduced to the concepts of proper citation of resources found through use of the APA IV maunual. By reviewing this manual I learned what proper citation of resources (text, online periodicals, online documents) were supposed to look like.
I think I did some good relaying of the skills I learned concerning essesntial questions and foundation questions in responseto a prompt from our instructor requesting that we send several essential questions we had created to the class. A prompt was given to the class that asked us about what areas of proffesional practice concerned us the most regarding the disorder we had chosen to do our MRP on. We were asked to be introspective in considering what interested us the most concerning these areas. Our reflections on this were meant to help us provide structure to our essential questions. We posted our response to this prompt at nicenet under the Vark inventory (I kinda posted in the wrong place, but hey, it's there).
http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?topic_id=293555
After we had createed these essential questions, we were to pick which one we believed would be the best topic to develope our MRP around. After picking our essential question, we were to create five foundation questions and post them to nicenet. I'm fairly proud of mine, and they are posted at:
http://www.nicenet.org/ICA/class/conf_topic_show.cfm?topic_id=295545
Information regarding what the even more specified areas of our MRPs (genres, preface, acknowledgements, about the author pages) were was to be found on our class weblog, in the form of links, for our constant referral. The option of reviewing student's webpages who had previously completed the class was also made available to us in hopes that reviewing how they crafted their genres, and other areas of note, would provide us with a little more feedback on how we might want to establish the different aspects of our webpage.
-Processing Information:
Among the most useful skills I've learned in the past fifteen weeks would include learning how to find the information needed to acclimate myself with the disorder I was to build my MRP around, providing credibility to my work, creating a piece of informative material that was both organized and aesthetically pleasing, and learning how to look at others work in a more critical way as to provide them with useful feedback in the revision of it.
Skills learned that aided me in finding the types of information about Aspergers that I required included learning how to join a professional mailing list, use online databases to search for valuable information, use meta-search engines (URL-http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/MetaSearch.html ) to locate pertinent data, develop a search strategy, and learning how to form essential and foundation questions.
The meta-search engine I used most frequently was dogpile.com:
We, as a class, had received instruction on how to use Marshall Universities library computing services in an effort to locate valuable resource information concerning our research topic. We were instructed on how to navigate and use the libraries homepage to access different databases used by the Marshall Library in hopes of finding different forms of data that would prove useful to us during the course of creating our MRP.
The mailing list that I joined (AS-and-Proud-of-it [URL-http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AS-and-Proud-of-it/]) helped to provide me with feedback of those who were either living with Aspergers or closely involved with someone who was. I had learned to join this mailing list after we had been prompted on our class weblog to pick one of the provided links associated with that assignment which took use to pages that made many mailing lists related to various speech/language disorders available to us. Once the desired mailing list that we wanted to join had been accessed, step-by-step instructions, offered by that web-site, walked us through the process of joining.
Links were offered on our class weblog that directed us to webpages that were developed to teach others how to create essential questions, the answers of which would serve as the main focus point of our MRP (focused on a specific area of the disorder we were to investigate). The link that took us to the page which dealt in the creation of foundation questions was devoted to teaching the pages visitor how to formulate several companion questions that might aid in answering the one larger essential question that our MRP was to be based around.
Other links were imbedded within the structure of our weekly assignments that concerned how to use a meta-search engine. I had never recalled using a meta-search engine before this semester. After clicking the link associate with "meta-search engines" I learned that would take a persons search requests and send that request out to several different search engines to reference in their databases all at one time. One of the meta-search engines functions is to take all the results, compile them, and narrow them down to a smaller list of selections that seem to adhere better to what the search was expected to establish. Results, and associated links to these results, would be compiled on the meta-search engines homepage for the visitors personal reference.
In regards to adding credibility to my work, I developed skills such as learning how to efficiently evaluate web-resources (after review of the Purdue web evaluation format offered as a link on our class weblog), how to use copyright(URL-http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/index.html ), fair use, and public domain(URL-http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter8/index.html ) policies to keep myself out of trouble (also accessed through a link provided on the class weblog) and how to use the SCAR method in the revision of previously peer reviewed work.
Overview of the copyright and public domain laws really did come in handy when I was doing some fnal revision of my powerpoint presentaion for my webpage. My powerpoint had a theme of icebergs as it related to Aspergers syndrome sufferer's observable behavour representing the "tip of the iceberg" when it came to the whole of their cognitive processing. I had copied and pasted images retreived from google.com images that dealt with icebergs and pasted them to the slides of my presetation as background. It wasn't until I read the provided materail regarding copyright laws that i thought to look and see if these images werer copyrighted by different web-sites, individuals, or organizations and they all were. So, I erased all the backgrounds I had been using and sample a picture of an iceberg found in the clip-art file of my microsoft word program to use. This image was within the realm of public domain and safe to use. I'm very pleased with the way my powerpoint turned our overall. It can be observed at:
http://mupfc.marshall.edu/~miller216/Table%20of%20Contents.htm
Review of the SCAR method link was done in an effort to add elements to my MRP that my peers thought might be missing and were needed to establish the best version of my work.The SCAR method was introduced to the class, through a description found tagged onto an assignment during the thirteenth week of our semester in the class, as a method we should use in revising (changing the message) of our genres. This method relied on remembering the four ways in which we should consider making changes within our genres after taking into account what suggestions we received through peer review. The name of the method (SCAR) is an acronym who's letters represent the changes to be considered. These types of changes include substitution, cut, add, and rearrange.
Lending assistance to my efforts of making my webpage organized, interesting, and easy to use, I gained aptitude in learning how to publish a home-page(URL-http://www.marshall.edu/ucs/cs/helpdesk/helpdesk-webpages.asp ), create and effectively use a powerpoint(URL- http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/CH790018081033.aspx), create a project prospectus, establish "links" on my website to other web-pages, how to site resources found on the internet or otherwise in APA style, how to format my webliography(URL- http://www.muwp.org/cd315/stories/storyReader$890) and component pages of my preface, about the author, acknowledgements and genres(URL- http://www.muwp.org/cd315/stories/storyReader$868), establishing a weblog account, and organize my MRP (table of contents). I accomplished these goals through reflection on instruction provided in class, associated links found on the class weblog providing instruction on how to create these components of my MRP and also what would be expected of their content (webliographic rubric[URL- http://muwp.org/cd315/stories/storyReader$890]powerpoint rubric[URL-http://muwp.org/cd315/stories/storyReader$889] and expectations on the multi-genre research project[URL-http://muwp.org/cd315/stories/storyReader$868]). Lots of personal time just goofing around on microsoft front page and enlisting the aid of one or two of my friends in class, who were a little more computer savvy than me, went a long way in helping me create components of my home-page that looked really nice and seemed to navigate well.
All the areas of comprehnsion that have just been said to have been learned by me this semester are exemplified in the associated areas of my web-page:
http://mupfc.marshall.edu/~miller216/Table%20of%20Contents.htm
One component of my MRP that might have taken longer than any other was probably my power-point presentation. During the course f the semester, the class had received a link to a website containing an article that concerned how to make our power-points more interesting (Beyond Bullet Points[URL-http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000993.php]). We followed up on this topic during with an in- class discussion on the matter a short time after. All this emphasis concerning our power-point being inventive and stimulating made me want to create a power-point that would relate what kind of imaginative person I could be. Therefore, I spent lots of time in review of how to present the information that would later be seen in my presentation.
Learning how to properly peer review was something I learned that hopefully served those who's work I used to hone these skills upon. After receiving a format for how this type of critique should be written and what types of information should be conveyed to the author of the work that we were reviewing, we as a class went on, through practice and personal reflection of our own reviewing skills, to learn how to provide good feedback concerning the message that we believed were being expressed by another's work and how they might improve upon it.
-Transferring Information:I believe the information I have attained during the past few week in creation of this MRP will transfer well into both my future professional background as well as certain areas of my personal life.
What I have learned about, and learned to do, during the course f this semester in CD 315 that will help me in later professional regard may seem obvious to those who have read the previous statements made in this reflection. All this skills that I have developed and competence I have gained concerning how to find and properly manage information for the purposes of generating my own opinions and generalizations on the subject matter, organizing it in ways that will hold another's focus, and publishing these thoughts and reflections as to make them accessible to the public will make me that much more competent and reliable as a professional researcher and publisher of informative materials that may relate to my future field of practice.
Also, the research I have done concerning Aspergers syndrome will make me that much more ready to distinguish and treat a client who I might encounter later on, within professional circumstances, that may present with this disorder.
Regarding the personal changes that completion of this project have created within me, I have developed a great deal of sympathy for this type of condition (Aspergers) that may help me in treating others, who might present with symptoms similar to those of Aspergers, with a little more esteem and understanding. Also, after persevering through long weeks of trying to complete the assignments needed for credit in this computer networking class while I myself didn't have the resource of a home computer at my disposal (the computer was damaged due to a virus) until two weeks before the class was to end, I think that I have built upon what I think was an already sturdy foundation of personal determination.