A2.4: Week 2 Reflection

Deidra Darst

8/31/07

Aims and Objectives:
My personal goal for this week in regards to CD 315 was to finish all of the assigned work before the weekend.  I set out to do at least one writing each day.  I did this in order to keep my sanity.  I need to take a test for my online medical terminology class, and I can concentrate on that as long as my CD coursework is complete.  I like to use weekends for reviewing and preparation for the coming week, so I have to finish all of my assignments early in order to do so.

Declarative Knowledge:
This week’s readings have contributed to my declarative knowledge based.  The readings taught me about the following:  blogs, the Read/Write Web, email, discussion groups via email and the World Wide Web.  I will briefly discuss each area. 

7 Things You Should Know About Blogs provided a brief overview of the blog.  I learned how blogs work, why they are important and who is using them.  Chapter 1 of Richardson’s text entitled The Read/Write Web explained how the World Wide Web has evolved since its infancy.  I read about the ease with which anyone can contribute to the already vast amounts of knowledge of the Internet.  The Internet has become a place to not only read what others contribute, but to publish your own work and ideas.

The documents on email taught me how to properly send email messages.  I learned that brief, succinct communications are appropriate for email exchanges.  One must consider the recipient of the email when creating it.  A new world was opened up to me upon reading the documents concerning group discussions via email.  I learned that I can subscribed to an email list in order to obtain information that I find interesting and pertinent.  Mailing lists are not just for college classes!  In reading about the World Wide Web, I learned that the Internet began as a small, small-reaching system.  The World Wide Web has seen grown tremedously in the past 15 years; millions of Internet users surf the World Wide Web each day.

Procedural Knowledge:
I learned how to organize my weblog this week.  My instructor provided instructions for creating categories for our blogs.  First, I logged onto www.wordpress.com.  After accessing my dashboard, I clicked on “manage.”  I then clicked on “categories” where I could create new categories.  I added categories for each week as well as a “Memo” category.  I had some time to explore my weblog’s dashboard where I discovered the “widgets” section.  This section allowed me to customize my toolbar.  I had noticed that other weblog presentation styles had different links on their toolbars, and I wanted them!  By using the widgets tool, I added the sub-links that I wanted to display on my weblog’s home page.

Conditional Knowledge:
I can use the information that I learned this week throughout this course and in the future.  As this course is Internet-based, I know that the knowledge and skills gained from these readings will increase my abilities to work online.  I will use this knowledge as I continue to increase my information literacy skills.  The World Wide Web and all of its conveniences will definitely be a part of my life as a student, citizen and future professional.

I can make several connections between this week’s reading material and my life.  As a student I use email (and now weblogs) everyday of my life.  I communicate via email with classmates, professors and administrative personnel at Marshall University.  I am currently maintaining this weblog as a requirement for my CD 315 course.  I consider myself a productive citizen, and I believe that in order to retain this status I must remain digitally literate.  This means that I must understand the World Wide Web, email and online blogging communities.  I must use this information to contribute to my community and society as a whole.  As a pre-professional, I am constantly reminded of the ever-changing technologies of today.  I will be affected by all of these changes, and I must be prepared for them.  As a speech-language pathologist, I will have to be receptive to new ideas and know when and how to incorporate them into my diagnostic and therapeutic techniques.