Blog Reflection 5

I chose to analyze the "Victorian Robots" website, and based upon an initial glance of the URL's structure, I would conjecture that the website represents an amateur source with good intentions. I really know nothing about Victorian robots, and I assume that the entire subject is a little far-fetched. However, the intermittent grammar mistakes and poor formatting within the website lead me to make the initial assumption that I should take all the information on the site with a grain of salt.

As for embedded and external links attached to this website, all of them seem to be funneling to a comic book company source website. All of the attached links' formats and designs appear the same as the "Victorian Robots" URL, so I am assuming all of this information was composed and posted by the same entity. For me, this lowers the degree of credibility for the website. While all of the information seems to be based on comic books and science-fiction/fantasy, I usually do not trust unfamiliar websites that only provide links within their own database or infrastructure. I want to see where all of the information is coming from outside of the source.

After performing a search on "Victorian Robots" in Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, I found that all three of the search engines produce my chosen URL as the top source for the topic. The list of links and information then goes on to provide images relating to the search (some located on the original URL) and additional websites focusing on Victorian robots in descending relevance. Among the three search engines, the results were basically formatted and presented the same; however, both Bing and Yahoo! produced millions of more URLs than Google. I am not sure, but I would venture to say that this disparity in amount of sources has to do with Google's increased screening and filtering of websites. Basically, I would guess that Google has the least amount of hits because it refines the search the most thoroughly. Bing was the only search engine that produced any advertisements stemming from the topic. On the side of the search panel were two insignificant links to "Victorian Boot" sales from shoe venders. I would imagine the shortage of the usual advertisements can be explained by the oddity that is my search topic. Advertisements from search engines feed off of relevant hits from your topic, so not many contemporary advertisement hits will show up for 19th century robots.

I attempted to identify the publisher, which I am pretty sure is bigredhair.com, but the domain of the URL was not yet registered with easywhois.com. In order for me to register the domain and receive any information on the URL's publisher, I had to pay a fee of $15. However, the simple fact that the domain is not registered and doesn't bring up any information lets me know that the website probably isn't credible enough for academic purposes.

From what I can gather, the purpose of this particular URL is to essentially inform viewers about the mythical/historical data behind robots during the Victorian period of history. The URL seems to be a spinoff or small portion of the much larger parent site of bigredhair comics. I am still unsure whether the true purpose of the site is to promote the parent website's comic sales or simply to inform viewers about this particular topic. The entire website and all of its links were created by one woman, so I must take every piece of information presented for granted. Ultimate, I believe the "Victorian Robot" website was created simply to function as a fun link from the parent site. The parent site, bigredhair.com, is set up like a carnival where every link is a new ride or adventure in a sense. So, the Victorian robots URL seems to simply be a side-show. Since the purpose of this URL is essentially to present information, I cannot necessarily label the site as credible or trustworthy because it has one author whom I am not familiar with. There are no links of justification or research backing the information presented. The website seems to combine entertainment with information, and, while I feel like this site is harmless and fun, it probably isn't the best source for legitimate information regarding 19th-century electronics.

Blog Reflection #4

First of all, I completely agree with the manner in which the text describes the Next Generation of technological learners. Even though the blog reflection outlines talks about this phenomenon not necessarily consisting of an age-related issue, I do consider myself part of this new class of learners simply because these students are my generation. I am only 21, so even though I separate myself from my students professionally, I consider myself one of them as far as learning habits and preferences go.

As for the questions posed by the text, I found most of them to be situational regarding my preferences. Even though I enjoy interacting with many different types of technology, I do also prefer the old-school approach to learning in various situations. There are times when I would much rather open up a book with yellowed pages and small print than stare at a computer screen or video. Other times, I strive to look for new avenues of learning and communication, such as blogging, video chat, online courses with new portals, and video-streamed discussion, that I can utilize to interact with other learners in new ways. For ease of use, I am just going to list my answers to each question so that I can more easily refer back to each one.

1. Are you more comfortable composing documents online than longhand? Yes, I am, but this has not always been the case. When I was 18, I competed in U.I.L. Ready Writing at the state level, which is an academic competition in which contestants have an allotted amount of time to compose a scholarly essay. Almost every student used a laptop computer to compose their essay so that they could type faster, edit easier, and organize their thoughts more efficiently. I, on the other hand, found that handwriting my essays was more pleasing to my nerves. It was not until college that I began to regularly rely on word processing software. Personally, I do not utilize or enjoy a certain technology until I have made it my own by mastering it... much like new vocabulary.
2. Have you turned your "remembering" over to an electronic device? I have not fully subscribed to this idea or practice yet, but I am certainly headed in that direction. I own an ipad, so I use the calendar and reminder functions for some of my planning. However, I do not own a smartphone, so I don't have an electronic device with "remembering" capabilities constantly on my person. I still rely on sticky notes and plain, old memorization for the time being. Although, I feel this will all change once I purchase the Iphone 5 in the coming months.
3. Do you go to meetings with your laptop, tablet, or Ipad? Occasionally, I do bring my Ipad to meetings for note-taking purposes, but I still find comfort in using pen and paper mostly. A legal pad will never crash on you or make embarrassing noises. The more I utilize my Ipad, the more comfortable I become with it in new avenues of learning.
4. Are you constantly connected? Is the internet always on at home or work? Is your cell phone always with you? I would say that I'm not always connected, but my cell phone is always with me. I don't own a smartphone, so that is much of the reason why I am not fully connected most of the time. I come from the texting generation, however, so my cell phone is constantly buzzing throughout the day. At home, my laptop does stay open and online but mostly for ease of access.
5. How many different activities can you effectively engage in at one time? The answer to this question truthfully depends on the type of activities I am trying to juggle. If we are speaking about activities associated with technology, then I feel fairly confident in my multi-tasking abilities. I am able to work on a powerpoint or paper in Microsoft Office while surfing the internet with several different tabs- all while listening to music on Spotify, checking Facebook, and paying my bills online. When it comes to more hands-on tasks, however, I have to maintain sole focus on the task at hand in order to be effective. It seems that technology changes this for me as it makes organization and access much simpler.
6. Do you play video or computer games? Since I am from the younger generation, I do own a Playstation 3, and I often play video games to relax and unwind. While I have never really been too enthralled with video gaming, I do find it enjoyable, and I consider myself knowledgable with all types of gaming systems and their technologic capabilities. I can stream my Netflix account, Facebook account and every one of my email accounts through my Playstation's wifi capabilities directly to my TV.

Week 3 Reflection

After reading Dr. Barrett's article and analyzing her ten research-based principles of Assessment for Learning, I decided that the sixth principle, "AFL should take account of the importance of (and foster) learner motivation," represented the tenet that most closely correlated with my personal philosophy. I am currently reading a novel for educators by William Glasser entitled, Control Theory in the Classroom, and one of the initial ideas that Glasser writes about is the necessity of student motivation for active learning. By definition, Assessment for Learning is a "process of seeking and interpreting;" thus, the entire foundation of understanding this principle is based off of educators realizing the process is both active and reflective. However, all the effort in the world on behalf of the educator will not amount to much unless the educator can find a way to successfully motivate and foster self-motivation within the learner. I have found in my first few weeks of teaching that the toughest battle in the classroom is not teaching the content or disciplining my students... it is simply inspiring them enough to be self-motivated to complete the task at hand. Essentially, in order for educators to guage student learning, knowledge, and success by way of AFL, they must equally understand the impact of their teaching methods on the motivation levels of their students.
First of all, and Dr. Barrett highlights this point in her article, in order for any significant amount of potential for electronic portfolios as tools for AFL to be recognized, educators and learners must understand the electronic portfolio has to represent an on-going process. Electronic portfolios will be of little to no value to an active learning process if they are simply constructed for the sake of construction. Rather than completing an electron portfolio for the purpose of a collection of work and data, these portfolios should represent ever-changing reflections of the student's process of learning. Dr. Barrett points out that the first characteristic an effective AFL electronic portfolio is that the learner and educator agree upon the purpose of the portfolio. I find this tenet to be clearly indicative of any type of potential for electronic portfolios as learners are given the freedom, and conversely- the accountability, to dictate what the portfolio will mean to their learning career. Personally, I would love to see some type of online database that houses an expansive and detailed electronic portfolio for every student in the district. Not only do I teach English I, but I am also the campus 504 coordinator for Winnsboro High School, so an electronic portfolio database that houses both information from educators and students that details how each learns would make my job much more meaningful. Ultimately, the potential that I see for electronic portfolios is accomplishing what educators have desired for so very long... a concrete, yet tranforming, roadmap of each student's academic and personal progression that replaces impersonal data, test scores, and charts.
In the past, I have not practiced efficient portfolio habits as Dr. Barrett would probably suggest. I have not taken an active and on-going approach to documenting and analyzing my own learning. However, by formulating an AFL portfolio for my own learning process, I believe I will retain much more of the skills that I practice.

Week 2 Reflection

The information, research, and opinions that I came across while completing this assignment gave me some significant insight into how the educator's view of technology and learning personality combine with the learner's view of technology and learning personality to create either a cohesive or detrimental learning community. Perhaps the most profound idea that I have come up with through this exercise is that all of these factors surrounding education technology are interwoven with the priority and effort each party utilizing the resources designates for them. Without significant effort and communication on behalf of the educators, educational technology cannot reach the learners. Without significant effort and interaction on behalf of the learners, educational technology cannot be utilized to its full potential and both the educator and learner experience a disconnect in learning through that particular lesson.

As for searching for information on the internet, I have always been very skeptical of any information that I find, and it has been my default practice in electronic research to rely solely on scholarly articles found in periodicals. However, it is undoubtedly apparent that our first inclination as scholars is to turn to the internet... primarily Google... for answers and research. The research that I use from the internet will always be well-documented, peer-reviewed, and legitimate published work because every piece of scholarship that I turn has my academic reputation attached to it. Therefore, I will be very judicious in screening and selecting the information that I search for and implement on the internet. Because of the intensive research background that my undergraduate background provided for me, I feel very confident in both my research habits and the information I have used. As I stated previously, I have always relied on peer-reviewed, published scholarly articles for research materials, and I feel that these are the most legitimate forms of electronic data.

First and foremost, if we fail to teach students how to properly conduct research online and utilize educational technology to its full extent, then we are certainly setting them up for disappointing failure in post-secondary school and the workplace. Research skills and technology mastery are above and beyond the most essential skills for students to have in today's world outside of secondary school. Even if a student never has to conduct research for an assignment, they still need to grasp the concept that, in order to solve the problem in front of them, they must locate, analyze, and implement the proper technique or procedure for solving their problem. Also, if we do not teach students how to discern what is credible or moral or legitimate content on the internet now, they will fall into a pattern of trusting every bit of information that they find online. This can lead to financial debt, moral bankruptcy, identity theft, plagerism, and misguidance among other things.

I do see several advantages to organizing information on social bookmarking tools. I chose to use the first website, www.bubbl.us, simply because I wanted to try a new site that I had never used before. The most significant advantage that I see to these sites are the user-friendly interfaces that make sharing ideas and information associated with our profession so easy and quick. Within minutes, I can share a concept map with a learning community that spans the entire nation or world, so, in the realm of communication, I see vast and numerous advantages to social bookmarking sites. I believe I will use this site within the coming weeks in my English I classes to give my students an interactive method of mapping plot diagrams for narrative essays. I encourage my students to map out all of their ideas before they begin any essay, and sites such as bubbl.us provide a stimulating alternative to writing on paper that students can play around with, upload to social media, and share with other students.