Week 5 Reflection

Researching how to Research

After completing the MAPping information activity, what are your reactions to your findings? What will you do differently while searching on the Internet for information now? How confident are you with the information you've used in the past (as part of your college career and/or in your profession)?

• It was very surprising to see how little I know about how to effectively research to determine if the information that I am finding is truly credible. The information literacy quiz informed gave me a great insight on what to look for when I am searching for a credible website. The amount of search engines was unbelievable; the only two that I knew automatically was google and yahoo. However, when I looked at some of the other search engines it appeared that yahoo is behind many of those other sites. Finding the author of a website was interesting because the process allowed me to determine the validity of the information on the site. Figuring out the author can lead to researching the author to determine if the author is a good source for information. I truly did not know that URL was an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. As much as I "thought" I knew about the Internet I found out that I really don't know much.
• The extensions that I was familiar with were org, com, edu, and gov. I never knew the exact meanings but I could relate the validity of information by looking at the extension in a web address. I feel embarrassed to say that I didn't know that it was actually called an extension.
• In the future I will be able to better choose the website that offers the most credible information by following the steps provided in the MaPping. When I read about the MaPping activity I was guilty of being the person that thought the most credible link appeared in google or yahoo when searching a particular topic.
• I am confident that in the past I have done my best to research credible sources because I try to use Google Scholar along with the journals and periodicals in the library database. What I need to accomplish is more of the MapPing process through research for my students and my own work too.
• I found a YouTube video that explains how keywords relate to the Internet market search. The http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LaCuxui5kw&feature=related



What are some implications for the future of our students if we fail to teach them these skills in school? After all, the schools may block access to sites, but students still have access at home.

• Students need to be taught these skills so that they learn early to determine the difference between good research and great research or factual versus opinionated research. One problem that I run into in my class is that students are unable to research and find the information needed to complete a task in a timely manner. Research becomes a tedious task to accomplish and although the steps of MaPping increases the tediousness in the end you will have valid research. Definitely children need to be taught this now because, sad but true; I have never had any training on information literacy of the Internet until now.

Do you see any advantages for organizing your information via Delicious and/or Google Reader? What are some ways you think you could use these tools in the future?

There are many advantages to organizing information via Delicious. I created a Delicious account about a year ago but then there was a transition in their business and I was supposed to accept terms for the new company and I never did; so needless to say my account was closed. I created a new account http://www.delicious.com/tiftaylor and the bookmarks that are presently there were transported from the bookmarks saved on the computer. Before Delicious made a switch in business there was a link that allowed you to share your delicious bookmark account with other people, which allowed everyone to network and share links. With the new setup I don't see that as an option. Overall, I believe the Delicious account is a great place to house bookmarks because I can always access the account regardless if I am on the original computer where I created it.