ETEC 524: Reflection #5

My initial reaction to the MAPping activity is a couple of things... 1) There are not a lot of "experts" in Victorian era robotics and 2) Wouldn't it be cool if Perdue's mascot was a robot named "Boilerplate"? I wouldn't trust the Victorian Robots page as the only source on the subject. The site is the most popular on the subject and uses references in combination with historical photos, however it is a personal page. Additionally, I was unable to find the owner information and when checked using Google there are a lack of sites who reference the site.

I am pretty confident with the information I've used as sources in the past. Most sources have been from peer-reviewed journals, professional publications and textbooks. If a site like Wikipedia has been used then I look for the originating source and trace it back for credibility. As a journalism major, fact checking was always a priority in undergraduate school. What I found out later is it isn't a skill that grows old in four years.

I would be more concerned about the implications for our new teachers if they are not taught these skills in high school and college. What exactly will our students be learning? The results of not learning credibility and validation processes could compromise our knowledge base and the quality of writing content that is available. As self-publishing become more and more prominent this is a legitimate concern whether the content is found online or bound in a book. Censoring information is not the answer! We must equip students and adults which the ability to be resourceful, deduce logic and perform comprehensive logic.

I love online organization sites! I have found that each one has it's own purpose. Delicious definitely appeals more to the nerdy side of me where I keep a lot of bookmarks and stacks on professional topics, design, typography and tutorials. Google Reader is more of a compilation of hobbies. Topics I want to read but don't necessarily need to refer to again. In short a lot of baking and sports happen in Google Reader. Pinterest is my new LOVE. This appeals to the visual side of me where pictures are very important! This particular service is also dominated by women. It consumes the cooking, crafty and girly side of me.

I would not use Google Reader to organize a large amount of articles or webpages due to the difficulty to do so. Reader is more appropriate as a custom news feed or magazine. Delicious is great for being specific with tags, stacks, etc. Imagine cataloging 600 magazines and being able to break it down by who was on the cover, name of the magazine, genre of the magazine, etc. Pinterest is very visual and lets you create custom virtual "boards" so it is up to the user how specific one's board is. Common boards are "things I'd like to eat/cook", quotes, photos, etc. For example, I have a board of movie posters for movies I want to see.

http://delicious.com/meghannmm
http://pinterest.com/meghannmm