Critical Friend WebQuest

My Impressions as the Efficiency Expert

The Top Ten Video Project

The activity does differ from the activities that I engaged in during my education. The teachers based most of my work off of the book, the use of technology wasn't as widely used then as it is now, and the teachers didn't ask me, "How can we fix this?". My learning style, kinesthetic, is addressed in this activity by using a foldable to put the notes on. The teacher also had the students make a painting of an ocean biome, information cards, and an art project that focused on the concept of camouflage. All of these activities are kinesthetically based. I am surprised that this project was done without the use of textbooks. I think that this is a very fun way to give the students a break from the everyday textbook work. I would like to teach in a similar way, because I think it would be very beneficial to the students. Most kids learn better if they have fun while learning. They will remember the activity, concept, and more facts than just lecturing about the topic. One concern I have is that I won't be allowed to do activities like this, because I would not be teaching for the West test. A lot of the curriculum these days are test based and the teachers are having to teach for the test instead of teaching to learn. 4th grade is especially set up this way. I am in 4th grade clinicals now, and they don't have time to do extra fun things in class. They are required to teach information that will be on the West test. I think one barrier for this activity would be more work for me. There are so many aspects to this activity that it would be very time consuming. I hope that I will be able to do fun things, such as this activity, with my students when I become a teacher.

Sharing: The Moral Imperative

I like being able to write short, to the point statements about different topics. I don't like the fact that anyone and everyone can see what I am writing or comment on my postings. Keeping a blog can make me a more effective teacher because I can have my students make a blog and post answers to questions on it. I think kids would like being able to contact me, as a teacher, outside of class if they need to. Students seem to like the blogging idea and letting their voices be heard. I probably won't continue to post to my blog after this course is over just for the simple fact that I don't really have the time to keep up with it. I do, however, think that blogs are a good way for people to tell the world what they think. Keeping a blog has helped me to develop a new media literacy: collective intelligence. This was demonstrated when we had to do the media literacy presentation. Erin and I created "Our Trip to the Zoo" presentation. We collaboratively pooled our knowledge and compared our responses to come up with a powerpoint presentation, which I later posted to my blog. I think this is a perfect example of collective intelligence.

Wikipedia: Friend Not Foe

The class activity about Wikipedia and this article didn't really change my opinion, just let me see it in a different light. I have always liked Wikipedia and found it very valuable, but have never really been able to use it in papers. This article helps me to see that I can use Wikipedia as a jumping off tool for research. By trying to find holes in the articles and using that as a guide line for focusing my research on is such a good idea. It would definitely make for a more interesting research paper than just a redundant factual paper. I think that educators, especially, need to read this article to hopefully change their opinion on Wikipedia. I think that as a future teacher, instructing the students on how to be internet smart is important. They need to know how to research information to figure out if it's fact or fiction. Even though you can't cite Wikipedia, you should still be able to use it. In my classroom, I might have the students be Wikipedia detectives and try to find something that is not the complete truth, research that, then have them edit it on the Wikipedia site. This would be a fun and educational way for students to learn the information!

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization. A source that anyone can edit can be reliable if the people editing it are experts on that specific topic. If just a random person that didn't know anything about that topic edited the information, then it would not be reliable. One of Wikipedia's defenders answered this question with,"The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work." The creators of Wikipedia place their trust in "wisdom of crowds," believing that by having many people watching what appears there, errors and vandalism will be weeded out, sooner rather than later. Larry Sanger left Wikipedia because he believed that he should give more authority to experts. Abuse and vandalism on a Wikipedia page would be in the form of misinformation and bias on a topic. The statistics reveal that Wikipedia is a major website and people all across the world get information from it. I think Wikipedia is so successful because it can be created or edited by anyone, therefore people feel more connected to it. Since it can be created by anyone, people can add what they think other people will need, or what other websites don't include. Wikipedia can be a one stop shop for information, you can get information and get references all in one place. Wikipedia's creators don't accept advertising because they rely on donations from visitors and other, indirect commerical efforts. They might not want to accept advertising because they are trying to inform people, not trying to sell products. Wikiscanner helps to increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries by allowing the IP address of anonymous editors of the site to be easily checked. This can quickly expose examples of self-interested editing by prominent businesses and governments around the world. Wikipedia is a wonderful starting place for research!

Dihydrogen Monoxide ThinkAloud

Dihydrogen monoxide ThinkAloud

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Dihydrogen Monoxide Website Evaluation

I decided to do Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division. The address to this website is http://www.dhmo.org/. I accessed this page on 4/1/11, because I was linked from another website. The domain of DHMO is .org, which tells me that anyone could have made up this website. In this case, I feel that the domain lessens the credibility, because anyone can make up a .org website. This could mean it's not a reliable source. To even find the author or anything about the website, you have to look in the "Press Kit", this tells me that he is possibly trying to hide something. The author is Tom Way, who is a software consultant, writer, MAGICIAN, marathon runner, public speaker and computer science professor at Villanova University. He doesn't even have a background in science, which definitely lessens the website's reliability. He does have his contact information: director@dhmo.org, http://www.dhmo.org/, http://www.csc.villanova.edu/~tway. He also states in his contact information that he lives in Newark, Delaware. "I am findable if you look." If I was creating a hoax website, I would not tell people where I live. As stated on the website,"The original purpose of the site was as a sort of writer's therapy to blow off steam about all the devious (and sometimes just ignorant) ways the truth is bent to prove a point by some in the media, politics, sales, environmental activism, organized religion, web site authoring, etc." It says that this is not a hoax or a prank, but an educational tool. I think that if you are creating a website, it should educate people with the truth, not to make up a fake chemical and try to scare people. Some people will believe anything that they read online, therefore I think this website simply shouldn't exist because it's fake. Their target audience is a person with some academic maturity and some understanding of chemistry. If you're trying to inform someone, it should not be based off of assumed prior knowledge. I think this website is not reliable and is trying to deceive people with less knowledge. This is, however, a good website for students to evaluate for credibility.