Communication is Beautiful!

“Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is.” –Publilius Syrus

A9.5: Week 9 Reflection October 23, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized,Week 9 — whitneyh46 @ 5:18 pm

Aims & Objectives: This week, my main goal was to develop another genre for my MPG.  I had to think about what I wanted to do and the goals that I had for this new document.  I also wanted to focus really hard on the revision of my project prospectus after my meeting with Mrs. McComas.  I wanted to work hard to get the most time consuming tasks of the weekly assigments completed before Tuesday so that I could have a night of break from the assignments ;o)

Declarative Knowledge:

This week, I first had to think about what I wanted to do in terms of my fourth genre of my MGP.  I chose to do a simulated journal entry.  I decided that it would be most influential to do it from the perspective of the child’s mother who was also involved in the difficult process of the evaluations and treatment of pediatric dysphagia.  I learned that simulated journal entries are in the style of a letter to a “fake” personal and include the date and details of emotions/feelings of a specific time period, but this is a genre that you can do it the way you want to.  When completing the peer responses, I had to learn who I was supposed to be evaluating and what sorts of genres they did last week.  I learned that “Branching Literacy” is a various amount of skills that you collect without really thinking about it that help to enhance your concepts of how you research and navigate your way around the world wide web and other tecnological sources.

Procedural Knowledge: To complete my fourth genre, a simulated journal entry, I looked back on resources that I have found previously such as symptoms and evaluation procedures to write a fake letter or sort of diary as a mother of a child suffering from pediatric dysphagia.  I thought critically about how it would feel for your child to be experiencing these difficulties and the sort of outcome that she would wish to happen from the problems.  I pieced it together from two different time frames (after the referral letter to a speech language pathologist) and then after a team meeting with the swallowing team.  Additional times may be added at a later date with more information.  To do peer responses to work that my classmates have done last week (Holly & Emma) I first went to their weblogs and looked at their work.  I thought very hard about what I really liked about their work and things that I would like to know more about or wished that they would have written about differently.  I answered the following questions about their work: the voice the document was written in, the audience it was written for, what you thought they were trying to say through the piece, what you bless (really liked about the document) and what I would address (thought they should do differently).  To complete the work on “Branching Literacy” I went to gooogle.com and looked up what it was and thought about it critically so that I was able to undertand it clearly, in my own way.  I then answered the following questions about the readings : What I could find out about the topic, my reactions to it, how I believe it will change education/schooling, and examples of my previous encounters with “branching literacy.”  I then wrote approximately about 400 words on the topic and my feelings about it.  I then revised my project prospectus by looking at my notes from my meeting with Mrs. McComas.  I revised my foundation questions and essential question to narrow down my topic and how it should flow.  I narrowed down the topic to more about evaluation and treatment than diet modification and other subjects.  I then reworked my genres to re-word them if they now didn’t make very much sense and added more resources to my APA listing of sources I may or may not use.

Conditional Knowledge: I hope that myself and others will be able to learn from my fourth genre that was written for others that are extremely close to someone suffering from pediatric dysphagia.  I also “hope” that others that I reviewed their work in the peer response will be able to get some help and comments that I made on their work to help develop their own work.  By using this, I think that it has helped me prepare myself for the times when I start working on these genres myself.  I hope to use the “branching literacy” information that I have heard and learned about to remind myself from time to time of the skills that I have been developing for a long time and not take for granted the ones that I use all the time.  I have learned a lot this week & hope that others learn from my hard work as well.

 

A9.3: Branching Literacy October 23, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized,Week 9 — whitneyh46 @ 4:44 pm

What do you know [can you find out] about Branching Literacy?

Branching literacy is a new concept developed my media developers that entails the use of having many multimedia skills when using to research online, digital technology.  It is called “branching” because you must integrate a large amount of skills, resources, and tecniques to “navigate” your way through the online community to avoid getting lost or sidetracked when looking for specific information.  In the journal article from Eurodl, Aviram refers to Branching Literacy users or scholars to be able to have many multi-dimensional skills and must use the ability to develop concept maps, mental models, and other sources of methodical thinking when researching various environments online. 

What is your reaction to learning that there are various Branching Skills?

I was very surprised to find out that there are “branching skills”.  When researching information online, you never seek to imagine that you are making mental maps about where you have been and where you are going by jumping from website to website or online journal and back.  These are skills that you must develop subconsciously and do not take into consideration that you are making various pathways to you research destination. 

How do you think these new skills will change education/schooling?

I do not believe that this new plethora of skills will change schooling or education skills to a big extent.  This is something that I believe you learn without noting it or memorizing skills or details about it.  When teachers may be able to stress to students the abilities and tools that you are using to create these paths unintentionally, but I do not believe that it is something that you can teach to others – you learn it on your own. 

Examples of my own use of Branching Literacy.

I think that each of us that are online or do research through the digital world have many “branching literacy” skills that we are unaware about.  It is very seldom that we get onlilne and while searching the web only visit one site without it linking us to another.  We never write down where we have been or the concept maps that we are developing in our minds to retrack the steps that we have taken to return to that spot if need would be.  I believe that these “branching skills” are tecniques that are each unique and inate to our own online learning.  Everyday that we are online; researching the web or any other digital form of work – we are “branching our own literacy”.

Aviram, A. (2004). Towards a Theory of Digital Literacy: Three Scenarios for the Next Steps. Eurodl: The European

Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Retrieved October 22, 2006, from

http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2006/Aharon_Aviram.htm

 

Hello world! August 25, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized — whitneyh46 @ 8:19 pm

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

 

 
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