Driving Question

Why do we need to learn music and how it works?

WebQuest Group Questions

1. Which two of example WebQuests listed below are the best ones? Why?
2. Which two are the worst? Why?
3. What do best and worst mean to you?

1. .One of the examples we paicularly liked was the Unraveling the Underground Railroad & We all Scream for Ice Cream. These examples stood out to me because of the detail the WebQuest had. I liked the fact that these two examples showed photos, and wentin depth for detail. They also are very well put together.
2. The Ancient Egypt WebQuest and "Where is My Hero?" are in my opinion the worst WebQuests. I feel that they are not well put together and lack a great deal of information. The Ancient Egypt wasn't very appealing in color, while "Where is My Hero?" is more of a personal WebQuest rather than a group effort, because not everyone likes superheros.
3. The best means that they both were appealing to me by the form of the WebQuest and the details and pictures. The worst meant to me that the page lacked information and wasn't appealing to its audiences. When something is the best it must have all the characteristics the audience wants and needs like clear directions and visuals, while the worst means its lacking information for the audience like visuals and instructions.

Friday Webquest

I was the effieceny expert, I had to deal with the length and time of the WedQuests. Th best WebQuest for our group, Nathan and Derick was the Anti-Earthquake Designer.

The Top Ten Video

• Does this activity differ from much of the activities you engaged during your K-12 education? How? or How not? Give examples.
• Is your learning style addressed in this activity? How? Give me an example.
• This project was implemented without the use of textbooks. Are you surprised? Are you interested in teaching in a similar way when you become a teacher?
•  What are your concerns and what do you anticipate as being barriers? 

1. Yes, because technology played a huge role in this activity. When you do an assignment without technology it doesn't allow you to view other peoples views and opinions in a unique way. With technology it allows you to view your peers assignment in a unique way they would enjoy and actually get excited about working on it.

2. Yes, its very handson and I like learning by visuals. I like how their assignments are through technology rather than doing it with pencil and paper. Example: Others can learn from each Wiki, its different from just learning with a textbook.

3. Yes, it's very suprising which questions a lot about the activity, and the creditability. But, it seems to be designed well. I would be interested in doing these kinds of activities at certain times when apporpiate, I like how it gets the students so involoved in technology.

4. The protection and privacy of their pages (Wikis), and the fact that they can see their peers work, they may copy their work of other Wikis. Some students may struggle with the technology, and may not be skillled enough to do these kinds of things yet. They may not go to creditable sources and would get their information on the Wiki all wrong for their peers and themselves to see.

Blogging questions

1. What do you like or dislike about keeping a blog for this course?

2. How can keeping a blog make you a more effective teacher?

3. Will you consider continuing to post to your blog after this course is over? Why?

4. Keeping a blog helps you develop four new media literacies:

• Appropriation - The ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
• Collective Intelligence - The ability to share and pool knowledge and compare notes with each other toward a common goal.
• Transmedia Navigation.- The ability to follow the flow of information and stories across multiple modalities.
• Networking - The ability to search for synthesizes and disseminate information.

1. I think it's a great tool because it keeps us well organzied with our assignments, we are free to comment on our peers blogs and views as well.

2. It would keep you organzied and if the students in your class have one..it'd make them more organzied too. It would allow other teachers to see your blog as well, and you could share ideas with other teachers.

3. No, because I wouldn't have anything interesting to dicuss on my blog, I have enough social networking sites as it is, this is more of a professional one that my friends don't have. Maybe when I become a teacher I will use one, I feel it's very effective.

Concrete example: Collective Intelligence - The ability to share and pool knowledge and compare notes with each other toward a common goal. This is my peers commented on my blog posts, this shows them comparing and discussing my blog post together.

Wikipedia worksheet

16 and Pregnant Wikipedia article  

This article or section has multiple issues.	Yes
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.	Yes
The neutrality of this article is disputed.	No
The factual accuracy of this article is disputed.	No
This needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.	No
This may contain material not appropriate for an encyclopedia.	No
This article only describes one highly specialized aspect of its associated subject.	No
This article requires authentication or verification by an expert.	Somewhat useful information
This article or section needs to be updated.	No
This article may not provide balanced geographical coverage on a region.	No
This is missing citations or needs footnotes.	No
This article does not cite any references or sources.	No, it does

2.        Read through the article and see if it meets the following requirements:

Is it written in a clear and organized way?	Yes
Is the tone neutral (not taking sides)?	Yes
Are all important facts referenced (you're told where they come from)?	Yes, very
Does the information provided seem complete or does it look like there are gaps (or just one side of the story)?	Complete

1.    Scroll down to the article's References and open them in new windows or tabs. Do they seem like reliable sources? (For help in determining the general reliability of a source, check out the Knowing What's What and What's Note: The 5 Ws (and 1 "H") of Cyberspace handout.)

Reliable references:

^ Real Life Is Like Juno, Except Maybe the Dialogue, a 11 June 2009 article from The New York Times

^ Nielsens: Baseball very very good to Fox, a 21 July 2009 article from USA Today

                  ^ 'No Easy Decision' Special - Extended Interview at mtv.co



Possibly unreliable references:
^ "Maci" and "Bentley" soar in baby name game Reuters, May 16, 2011


Definitely unreliable references:

^ http://thestir.cafemom.com/toddler/126351/16_and_pregnant_stars_arrested



 

4.        Click on the Discussion tab. How is the article rated on the Rating Scale(Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, FA)? What issues around the article are being discussed? Do any of them make you doubt the article's reliability?

Start class on quality scale

Low importance on projects importance scale

5.        Based on the above questions, give the article an overall ranking ofReliable, Partially Reliable or Unreliable.

• You may use a Reliable article as a source (but remember that even if a Wikipedia article is reliable, it should never be your only source on a topic!)
• You may use a Partially Reliable article as a starting point for your research, and may use some
  of its references as sources, but do not us it as a source.
• You should not use an Unreliable article as a source or a starting point. Research the same topic in a different encyclopedia.

How did you rank this article (Reliable, Partially Reliable or Unreliable)? Give at least three reasons to support
your answer.

I rank this article very reliable, because it’s something I know very much about, so, it’s very reliable and helpful in my eyes. 

Wikipedia questions and answers

a. What is Wikipedia? 

•  Its a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?”? 

•  The site is monitored by people all the time, so if there is unreliable information, it will soon be taken off. So, most of the time it can be fairly reliable but you should be prepared if it isn't. 

         c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation?  

•  Wikiscanner

 d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia? 

•  He believed that it should give more authority to experts; he has since created another site.

e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page? 

•  Embarrassing headlines or titles, irrelevant information on the page of the topic.

f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal? 

•  That its a well known site in many different languages and a total of 8 million articles. It shows that people do use it and that its successful and useful.

g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful? 

•  You can get information quick on Wikipedia, its straight to the point and almost effortless. I wouldn't use it for a paper, but if I want to look up something I will use it. 

f. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising? 

•  It takes away from the information and doesn't make it look reliable and trustworthy. 

i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries?

•  It quickly exposes examples of self-interested editing by prominent businesses and governments around the world. Wikipedia's leaders hailed the device as another check on abuse at the site, even if it produced some embarrassing headlines for a time.           

Video Discussions Part 2

I asked everyone how they felt about same sex marriages, I got very contestant responses.

Video Discussions Part 1

This particular discussion was on how are country is today, and why it is the way it is.