Reflection 2

After completing the MAPping information activity, what are your reactions to your findings? What will you do differently while searching on the Internet for information now? How confident are you with the information you've used in the past (as part of your college career and/or in your profession)?

            Even though it doesn’t sound very professional, I would like to start this answer with a simple, WOW! That is what I kept saying to myself as I worked through this exercise. I would have told you that I was “tech savvy”, but the quiz certainly humbled me and showed me that when it comes to the web, I am anything but! I was completely floored by the example that was given regarding the Martin Luther King Jr. website that was posted by a white supremacist group. I was reminded how “easy” it is to find information using the web, but finding the “correct” information takes a little more work. I was not aware until this assignment how search engines work and return answers to your questions. I almost feel guilty about the number of times I myself just searched and accepted answers because “Google said so,” much less how I let my students do the same. One thing I will do differently in my own research is utilizing www.easywhois.com website to gather more information about who is behind the sites I am looking at. I will also continue to rely on databases such as EBSCO in teaching my students how to find reliable sources when researching. Thankfully, many of my professors at Texas A&M Commerce, have required scholarly sources through databases that I feel fairly confident in much of my past research work. I know have a better understanding as to why this is required.

What are some implications for the future of our students if we fail to teach them these skills in school? After all, the schools may block access to sites, but students still have access at home.

     This exercise showed me the importance of teaching our students not only how to find information in our very technological society, but more importantly teaching them how to process the information found. Asking questions, thinking critically and not just taking something at face value are lifelong skills necessary for our students’ success. If we fail to teach skills such as MAPping to our students we run the risk of creating a society that is unable to think for themselves, or unable to process the large amount of information available to them. This would be detrimental to society and would start a terrible cycle of students that simply want to be told what the answer is to their problem and the first answer will suffice.

Do you see any advantages for organizing your information via Delicious and/or Google Reader? What are some ways you think you could use these tools in the future?

       Time is hot commodity in our fast paced society. I feel that organizing information using Google Reader and Delicious are both ways that people can save time. Google Reader allows for quick one click access to the sites we deem important, this helps a person gather information quickly and from sources they feel are quality and worthy of their time. It also helps a person from being distracted by the many ads that often send us on mindless chases when we browse the web. I think that Delicious’ ability to be accessed from any computer is helpful for professionals that need timely access to sites and it protects important sites from computer crashes as well.  The networking feature of Delicious is extremely beneficial and helps professionals collaborate in their work.  I think both of these tools could be used in the classroom as well. Teachers could set up Google readers for their students with sites they have checked and feel are appropriate to the classrooms’ studies. Many students waste a lot of time once they log in to a computer and this would help guide and direct students. Delicious accounts would be wonderful way for a school to collaborate on different subject matters and topics by networking and sharing the information found on the web.

This week, you also explored the concept of wikis and created a wiki for a specific purpose. What purpose did you have in mind when developing your wiki and have you started to implement your ideas yet?

     
I created the wiki to potentially use as an avenue for increasing parental involvement for my 4^th grade students. I believe this wiki could be used as a place of communication between parents and teachers. I set up a core set of pages with information that will remain the same over the year, but also set up teacher pages where parents could communicate with their child’s teacher. I think this Wiki has the potential for future collaboration between teachers and parents with everyone contributing ideas and resources to help our children be successful.

What advantages do you see in utilizing wikis? What disadvantages do you see? Think back to the digital natives reading. How do wikis have the potential for engaging them?

I see several advantages in utilizing wikis, first I believe it has the potential to be a powerful tool for assisting with collaboration between educators, the ability to share new knowledge is priceless. Another advantage to the use of wikis would also be to provide a safe monitored place for students to share their work with each other as set up by a teacher. I specifically thought that a wiki would be a great place for students to share their writing with the teacher, other students and even parents. It would allow for ongoing dialogue and feedback to encourage students. Assignments become more engaging when the student knows they have an audience for their work and a wiki would be beneficial in engaging students in this. I know that as a student I benefit when I can see what others are doing with their assignments, it helps me to be more creative, I believe that my own students would as well and a wiki would be a wonderful avenue for this.

       The main disadvantage I could see from the use of wikis in the classroom would be that on my campus technology falls at two extremes, it can be bliss or the biggest headache. Technology issues abound from access issues, to having enough computers available for students as well as the varying degrees of technology literacy in my students. We move at such a fast paced that the time to teach “how” to use a wiki may not be there without us falling behind in the core curriculum. I believe it would be worth the time though in the end because I do feel that it would be engaging to the students.

In exploring the eLearning Tools Wiki, what other web 2.0 technologies did you uncover that you want to explore further?

       The eLearning Tools Wiki was very beneficial in defining several different web 2.0 technologies. The technology that I would like to explore further for my classroom is blogging. I believe that this is a wonderful place to begin with my elementary students. I see many different avenues that blogging could be utilized including sharing and commenting on students narrative writings, a teacher blog with embedded video reviews of different math concepts and procedures that a student (or parent) could refer to at home, and also an excellent place for students to share about books they have read and recommend to other students. This class will help me to be more comfortable working with blogs and ready to go for the school year.