Final Week of 520

Wrapping up this final week of class let us learn about copyright law and Internet privacy.  The copyright law research allowed us to figure out that a majority of educational practice takes place under the concept of "Fair Use."  In terms of researching the safety of putting valuable information on the Internet, I decided that I need to be much more careful.  As easy as it is to gain valuable information and resources from the Internet, it can be equally as easy to lose information that could alter one's life drastically.  Overall, this was a very informative class that has furthered my knowledge of Internet resources.

Annotated Bibliography and Group Work

This week was a good mixture of working together and individually.  The annotated bibliography, though scary at first glance, wasn't too bad once I got my hands into the work.  It was beneficial to be able to sift through many resources, finding the valuable ones, and stating their significance/importance.  The group work was quite the adventure also.  As I fell ill, I had to complete my portion seperately.  Everything worked out just fine, but it certainly helps to have a group that is understanding and flexible.  The work itself was pretty interesting, being able to look at the features of many different helpful resources.  The one thing I will certainly remember from this week's assignments will be how some resources may be intriguing, but make sure they're school appropriate.

Another Week's Work

This week's workload was quite reasonable, yet mentally stimulating.  I thought the Google Alerts, search engine rubric, and the reading regarding Wikipedia were especially interesting.  I think the Google Alerts will be a great way to keep myself updated on personal and professional information alike.  I also found a lot of interesting aspects involved in differentiating between search engines.  As far as Wikipedia is concerned, I'll always be a fan, but the article certainly did make me think about it's appropriate uses.  I learned quite a bit this week from a very reasonable amount of work.  I'm really enjoying this class, it's hard to believe that there's only one week left!

What's the Alternative?

To be completely honest with everyone, I don't believe there's a much better alternative to doing the blog.  I'll be the first to admit that I don't always like blogging after a week's worth of intensive homework assignments, but what else could we do?  I understand that the university wants to make sure that we are keeping track of our journey using a reflective, encompassing tool.  I feel that this is important, and certainly support the premise.  The one suggestion that I have is to make sure that there are no "double up" questions.  In other words, as long as I'm reflecting on something different every week, my attention will be kept.  I start to feel as if the assignments are a little redundant when the prompt is constantly, "What did you learn this week, and how can it be used in your class?"  I believe it would be more beneficial to all if we focused on one particular aspect from the week's assignments.  Having said as much, I feel like the cohort has been set up very well, and hope that my comments are taken as a suggestion as opposed to criticism.