ETEC 424: MAPping Assignment-Information Literacy

     I really enjoyed the assignment for this week which has been about search engines, researching websites, and information literacy. My literacy before this week has been good in my mind but I found out there is so much more to learn, apply and teach. I have been using Google, Dogpile, Yahoo, Ask, Answers, and Bing mostly for my questions about sites or classwork. The search engines and search techniques we learned this week has helped me immensely and I look forward to passing on my new found knowledge to anyone willing to lend an ear.  It has been so easy to assume that everything you are doing for class that requires internet usage is trustworthy, but user beware, there is a lot of spam, fakes, viruses, and plagiarism out there amidst the World Wide Web. So learn from my experience and never assume that the internet is above reproach. Do your homework and research the sites you use for their validity and reliability.

     When I finished my work for week 4 and finding out how important it was to acquire information on web sites and their validity in the areas of their author(s), bibliographies, and accuracy of its content, I had a whole new appreciation for my teacher Dr. Elaine. I look forward to making every aspect of my new knowledge transferable in my life as an Administrator. I did research on “Feline Reactions to Bearded Men” and to my surprise the accuracy of the article was right on target. I was cynical at first but through my research I became a believer in proving what you read. My habits from this point on will be changed and I will make it common practice anytime I do work on the internet whether it’s for class, research, or leisure.

     And finally, this week’s activity has opened my eyes to new information that I want to retain for a lifetime and share with any students that I teach. Knowledge is power and keeping it quiet loses its dynamic. Having different techniques about search engines, directories, blogs, URL’s (Uniform Resource Locator), finding the owner or publisher of a site, what extensions on a url means, whether a website is personal or educational or commercial and how each search engine categorizes its web sites will help anyone to be a much savvier internet user. Just knowing these techniques gives us the advantage over less knowledgeable, and makes us a valuable commodity in today’s job market. Let’s go show others how they can cash in!