The goal for this week was to begin focusing our efforts in regards to our MRP. This week we fine tuned our essential and foundation questions to refine our search, developed our search and evaluation strategies to help us in our search, began collaborating to help each other, and developed a prospectus to outline our MRP.

The majority of the content addressed in this week’s assignments has been carried over from previous weeks. We worked more on our foundation questions and reviewed some more searching strategies. We also worked more on our Webliographies and continued to collaborate with our peers. One of the new things we started this week is evaluation of our resources. This week we learned three techniques for evaluating resources on the Internet. The three techniques dealt with such aspects as the author, purpose, publisher, currency, navigation, and content. This week we also created a prospectus for our MRP. A prospectus is basically a summary or review of the project that you are going to do. It’s an outline. It contains your essential and foundation questions, the point you wish to make, genres, discussion of how to integrate your genres, and your sources.

The process of evaluating resources was very new to me. Whenever I would look for information on the Internet, I would usually look for the credentials of the author and whether or not the article was associated with a respected organization or publication. After reading the different ways to review publications, I made a check list for each method and tried to be very objective. First, I read the entire article or page. Then I looked for the details to review, like the author and date. To make things easier on myself when I had to write the review for the class, I took notes while I reviewed. When preparing my prospectus, which is still being worked on, I also made a check list. I’ve been using these a lot lately. I already knew what my foundation and essential questions were. I have been thinking a lot about what voices I want to use. I have been trying to decide who are the people that are the most involved with children with Autism. I definitely think that the parents should be one of the voices. Because I am looking at my topic (types of therapy for children with autism) from the perspective of an SLP, I would that to be one of my voices. The whole reason I picked this topic is because I want to know how we can help these children. I am still deciding on my third voice. I don’t really think the child’s voice would be appropriate since I am talking about children with Autism. Only a small persentage of these children are high-functioning enough to effectively communicate their needs, let alone express their opinions about therapy. I’ve been thinking about Special Education teachers, regular education teachers, siblings, or pediatricians. I have been reading articles on types of therapy, and hopefully my research will help me find my third voice.

Working on the prospectus has really helped me get a better idea of how to develop my project - I guess that was your point. It has really helped me think about how to develop my characters (voices). What we are doing is like writing a story. We are developing a situation that mirrors life within a microcosm of our own design. The research we do will be conveyed through the genres we select. If we want our project to be compelling and accurate, we need to be able to find good sources and evaluate them properly.

Just a side-note on mooing: I know I don’t write much when we are in our big group (I do a lot more in our smaller groups). I find that when we are mooing I’ll start to write something, but before I finish someone else will have already written in with the same thing I was going to write, or someone will have changed the topic. I have trouble keeping up. Also, I don’t want to interrupt when other people are ‘talking.’ I hope that makes sense.

At this point I don’t have any questions, but I’m sure that as I work more on my prospectus I’ll develop some questions.

Our objectives this week included subscribing to a professional mailing list to aid us with our research, performing several Internet searches to get us familiar with search engines, addressing several questions and prompts to help us refine our research question, and starting to build our webliography so people can learn more about us.

This week the content we addressed was designed to prepare us for work on our Multi-Genre Research Project. We learned about the different types of search engines, how they work, and how to search on them. We also found and book marked, a skill we learned last week, several helpful web sites. This week we further examined our process of learning by completing several prompts and taking a learning inventory. The last area of content addressed this week was involved in our webliography. We addressed how to use html code to create links.

Learning about the different types of search engines was very informative. I never realized that there were differences. When I was completing my searches, I tried to keep these differences in mind. I also tried using different types of searches to get wider results. I also tried the suggested variations, like capitalization and different spellings. These were two things that I never thought about before when I did Internet searches. I never realized that they could make a difference.

When I was trying to complete the prompts and writing assignments for this week, I discovered that I have an easier time writing them if I write in sessions. First, I read the article or question and think about it. Then I sit down and write whatever thoughts or ideas I have after reading it. After this, I may come back to the writing a day or so later and add any new thoughts or organize the earlier thoughts. Instead of sitting down and trying to write the prompt all at once, I find it much easier if I write a little bit at a time.

This week we also began to work on our webliography. Learning the html code to add links to
the page was really neat. I found that it was easier to add the links if I just copy and pasted the web addresses. I also got some ideas for format from visiting the samples you provided and visiting my classmate’s webliographies. Mine is still very rough, but I really enjoy working on it.

I really learned a lot this week. The most interesting thing was learning about the html code. I’ve always wondered how to make links. It is so cool. I’ve spent a lot of time this week just finding cool web sites that I may want to add to my webliography. I’ve also visited a lot of my classmate’s links. It really is a good way to get to know each other. I also enjoyed learning about the different Internet searches. I always thought that they all worked the same way. I learned just by use that some search engines were more helpful than others, but I never knew that difference was based on how they looked for information. Doing the sample searches really helped me realize what type of searches I need to find the information for my research question.

My only question this week is how do we change the colors on our web log. I went to my preferences and there are spots for colors, but there are not actual colors written in the spaces. It looks like a code of some sort. I’m not sure I want to add color. On some pages, the color made it hard to read. But, it would be neat to know how to change the color.

The objectives of this week’s assignments were to educate us further on use of the Internet to facilitate our use of it and to reflect on several prompts to prepare us for our research project.

We addressed a lot of content when we were reading the information on the use of the Internet. Much of the content helped to bring us all up to the same speed on the use of e-mail. It addressed how to make e-mail more meaningful and useful. We also learned a lot about bookmarks. Several of the reading assignments also focused on some misinformation associated with the Internet, such as hoaxes, viruses, and chain mail. The prompts in this week’s assignments encouraged us to reflect on the reasons why we want to be SLP’s, attitudes towards education in our families, our ideas for continuing education, and areas of interest for research.

The process of completing the reading assignments was very interesting and informative. I
really enjoyed reading about the hoaxes. I never realized there were so many. I use Internet Explorer instead of Netscape so I had to make some modifications when I was doing the book mark assignment. I basically read what we needed to accomplish and then tried to figure it out on my system. I was surprisingly easy. I was really able to organize my favorite’s tabs.

Reflecting for the prompts was harder than I thought. I have not completed all the prompts yet. For the ones I have completed, I made notes and tried to have a few points for each question within the prompt. I found it really hard to organize my thoughts about issues that are so personal.

I have always felt rather insecure about using the Internet. My job has helped me overcome this a lot. I have completed over 100 hours of training for my job with Amazon.com. A lot of what I do at work is helping people use the Internet (our site mainly, but you’d be surprised what people call and ask for help with). I also write e-mail responses to customer inquiries. At my job, you have to be very careful with your tone and the words you use. I have been really surprised that so far I am not having trouble with the technical assignments for this class. I am just waiting for that really hard one to show up in a couple of weeks.

I have been having trouble with some of the prompt. Some of the prompts addressed areas that are very personal for me. I admit that I find it really hard to write about these things knowing that they are so accessible to everyone. I really felt myself holding back when I wrote them. I tend to be a really private person. I don’t talk much in class. I tend not to voice opinions. I just get embarrassed sometimes over things that I shouldn’t. I need to be more forthcoming, I realize this.

My question for this week is after we submit our prompts, can we change them? Also, I know on the discussion pages there are places to respond to each other’s answers. Should we be responding? If we do respond, should we go to their blog and post our response there instead?