A10.5: Week 10 Reflection

October 31, 2006

Aims and Objectives:

My goals for this week were:

  • To continue my research on Broca’s aphasia with apraxia.  Due to some other assignments I have not been able to do anymore research and I want to continue to look for new information, so my project is up to date.
  • To learn more about Podcasting.  I have never podcasted but after learning how to I find it very interesting.
  • Completing all of my assignments for this class and making sure that they are accurate.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week I learned about podcasting.  I learned that podcasting is making an audio file available to other people.  We learned how to do this by phone which was really cool.  I learned more about apraxia and how it affects speech production.  I learned more about digital literacies, in particular reproduction literacy which I think is the most important literacy to know about, because it can help you determine if a source needs to be cited or not.

Procedural Knowledge:

This week I began my assignments by going to the class website.  I then responded to my groupmates fourth genre by going to their websites and reading their project.  I analyzed the project and determined how I thought the project could be improved.  I posted this by using the comment feature.  I then researched reproduction literacy by going to yahoo and typing in the words reproduction literacy.  I read some articles and gathered my thoughts on this literacy.  I then went to wordpress and posted this assignment.  Throughout the semester I have been lurking onto an online community and this week I had to post my observations of that community.  I thought about what I had read and answered the questions that were posed, I also made some additional comments.  I then did my Podcast.  To do this I created a script of what would be said.  I also provided the scenerio and gave background information.  I then called in my Podcast to gcast.com and it was posted.  To post the podcast to my website I had to go to gcast and link the page that the podcast was available on, because the site is not compatible with the player needed to hear the Podcast.  This is how I completed my assignments this week.

Conditional Knowledge:

Learning about digital literacy has helped me realize the skills that I possess and the one’s that I need to improve upon in order to be successful.  Learning more about online communities has helped me realize that they can be a valuable resource to a person researching or learning about things.  This has encouraged me to join other online communities to find things out about different populations.  This is a very valuable tool.  Learning to Podcast was really cool and could essentially be used as a student or a professional.  Everything that I have learned this week is very valuable.

Question:

What other Podcasting sites have you used, if any?

A10.4: Online Communities

October 31, 2006

  I have never joined an online community before this class.  For the past two months I have been lurking on to a augmentative device mailing list.  Everyday I receive messages from the list and I read them.  The emails vary from questions, responses to questions, and general information about individuals using a device or needing one.  I think that this community is very supportive.

     The group members of the community are generally professionals or people who have a child or spouse with a device.  The members share some of their concerns, ask questions about devices, and give updates on what is happening.  About a week ago I received a message from a speech-language pathologist asking the community their thoughts on two different devices because she was going to fit an individual with one.    One of the reasons that she asked this question is because the client had a job and she wanted to know which one would be better for him to use.  She also wanted to know if anyone had encountered a problem with employers because of their disability.  I thought that this was very interesting.  She did get some responses from the members.  Another recent topic raised was about the different augmentative devices and how well they withstand abuses of daily living.  A mother wrote in about her daughters device.  Her daughter had already gone through two devices because they tore up due to things that happen.  She wanted to know more about developing technology that was available to individuals who use augmentative devices.  This was a really neat email.

    I think that the purpose of this community is to provide support and answer questions and concerns.  I think a lot of the members are prompt in their answers.  I also think that the answers have been thought out.  I really like that the members are concerned with what is happening and try to support each other.  I really think that this community does what it has set out to do.  You can tell that people like to get updates on individuals and even sometimes send out an email if they haven’t heard from someone in a while.  I think that this is a good list to join because it shares ample information about augmentative devices and you get to know some amazing people along the way.

     What is reproduction literacy?  Reproduction literacy is a type of digital literacy in which a person uses existing texts, images, or audio and creates a new interpretation.    This literacy is relevant in writing and art.  It enables individuals to put a new spin on an old work.  This type of literacy is important because it allows a person’s creativity and ideas to develop.  I think one thing that may come into question is when is this considered reproduction and when is it considered copyright infringement.  The skills that an individual must have to be reproduction literate are being able to think in a multidimensional ways and think outside of the box in order to create a new take on an old piece of work.  I think that the skills required are significant because a lot of individuals do not know how to do this.  I think that this is an important skill to learn because it will help in many ways.

     Out of all of the digital literacies that I have read about I think that this one is the most important and the most useful.  It will help students determine when they should cite a source in a paper and when to give credit.  This is extremely important in the academic world because it will help cut down on unknown plagiarism.  I think a lot of students who are accused of plagiarism do not realize that they have plagiarized because they lack this skill.  I also think that this is the least taught digital literacy out there.  I cannot remember ever being told for sure how to know if you should cite a source in a paper and I think that this is when learning to cite properly comes into play.  I know a lot of high school English teachers only require MLA format but I think for a full advantage students should learn MLA and APA format.  Since I have been in college every paper that I have written was required to be in APA format.  I think learning this in secondary schools would really help the students of tomorrow.  I also think that this is so important that there should be an elective course available to secondary students whose focus is citation and knowing when to cite.  I hope that the importance of this literacy helps change the school systems of today and require some type of citation class.  These are my thoughts and opinions on the importance of reproduction literacy.