Brian's Final Blog

Hello everybody its been quite a semester. LIS568 is one of those classes that in 10 years I'll probably still remember. Sometimes its necessary to throw you into new resources to learn how to use them. Nearly all the assignments were appropriate and got me doing things I normally wouldn't do. I'd actually never heard of JING before, nor did I ever have a class that communicated exclusively through wikis and podcasts. To Mrs Allen thank you very much I learned much from your class and your grading was mostly fair. I feel GREAT!!!!

Week 13 blog

This is my week 13 blog for LIS568 There was a lot of reading to do with the three websites assigned. I read through the first one entitled "Getting Started" and it took so long that I kind of got lost in it. It was kind of hard to read all the aps for something you don't have (an ipad) Also because the other two websites were so lengthy instead of reading cover to cover (which would have taken hours given they were each 90 pages long) I scanned through them trying to find the most important points.
The Richardson and Simpson chapters were useful and fitting ends to a semester full of learning.
If this is my last blog I want to say I learned a lot in this class and it was very useful. I have a new appreciation for things like blogs, wikis. diigos, and podcasts which I had only heard about before.

Week 12 blog

Hello everybody this is my week 12 blog for LIS568 This weeks main topic is social networking sites. It is clear that there are many social networking sites out there that may be useful. The biggest and probably the most important is Facebook. I've read that in July 09 Facebook was adding 70,000 accounts per day which is very impressive. As a result more and more kids are subscribing to these sorts of sites. The big question is should networking sites have a place in todays schools. There are pro's and con's either way. Some people think that using Facebook is a great way to get students into and using the library. While others say not all parents will let them join or that it is beyond the purview of schools. Either way Facebook is a real source that continues to grow and will probably be a part of your or your kids lives.

Hello everybody this is my week 11 blog for LIS568. This week is all about Google. I have to say I love using Google for maps, news, images, and videos. For me its an indispensable source for quick searches, that has a surprisingly rich amount of information. It is usually one of the first places I suggest when a client has a simple straight forward question. It is true for some searches you would be better to go to a more concentrated source (for things like medicine, law, government, or census information), but for basic searches it is the Real Mccoy. In many ways search engines like Google have transformed the way we as a culture search.

Hello everybody this is Brian's blog for week 10. This week we talked about professional development and blogs. The parts about blogging were not new to me. I also felt like the website links were useful but kind of short, I would have liked to have known exactly what parts were most important to know.
As always the Richardson and Simpson chapters were interesting. I had actually used flickr before in another class, however I am a little reticent about sending pictures out (because as one of the ISafe modules says) "once you post something on the Internet it is there forever".
I will keep on working on my presentation and I'll see you next week.

Hello everybody this my week 9 blog for LIS 568 This chapter we talk about professional development and wikis. I found most of the readings kind of short I was looking to read a lot more but I found I myself checking out all the other features of them instead.
I liked the wiki matrix website and while I've never actually created a wiki this seemed like an excellent tool for when I do. As always the Simpson chapters were informative. I hadn't realized how complicated something like distance learning could be.
In reading the Richardson chapter I learned what RSS feeds are and how to use them.
Lastly I liked the Marc Isseks presentation. Presentations are never easy but this describes ways to make them better. I made sure to print them out because they seem like simple, straight forward tips that would help not only me but my students as well.

Brians Week 8 blog

Hello everybody this is Brian’s week 8 blog for LIS 568. The main topic for this week is TPACK which stands for the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. Like I said in my post I had never heard of this word so it was kind of new to me. The first reading on the weekly readings list explained TPACK best. I particularly liked the graph showing the interplay of these three forms of knowledge and each of the four overlapping regions.

There were seven Harris and Hofer articles to read but I have to say they were hard to access it took me a while to scroll down the page, get the relevant pages, and enlarge it enough to be able to see them. As a result it made it harder to understand them and I found my concentration drifting because of this.

The Richardson article about wikis was very interesting. I hadn’t realized that Wikipedia is in fact a wiki I ‘ve used it for years not realizing that. .One of the things I liked in this chapter was when Richardson mentioned the University of Buffalo study that tested Wikipedia by sending inaccurate information and finding that within 24 hours all the misinformation was corrected. This emphasized how important Wikipedia is as an online encyclopedia. I cant think of anything else so I’ll see you next week