Week 7

Week 7 was an informative week. I had never used the many advanced features of Internet search engines and other various methods of searching on the Internet. I use Google frequently, but didn't even know of the advanced options and other search features that Google has.

I feel more confidant writing annotations and evaluating websites as well. I now realize that just because something is on the Internet, that does not always make it accurate and true. It is important to know the source and background information of the website and its author.

I look forward to week 8!

Finally, attached is a picture of recent addition boy number five. Welcome Gabriel!

Week 6

This week's lesson was learning how to use periodical databases and making search plans and strategies. I found the search strategy useful for mapping out which terms could also be used to find the desired results. I feel that it helps organize your thoughts better then randomly trying our various keywords.

Through developing a search strategy, I came up with several new key words to add to my research plan. I found that the search results that I was coming up with were often too general or not in the right direction that related to my topic. Searching more specifically, such as NAFTA and its advantages/disadvantages, helps narrow down the search results and receives more relevant results.

Journal Week 5

Another fun week, this week we learned about MLA citation and annotations. The first assignment was on MLA citations. I found this fairly easy in concept, however making sure I had all of the right information in the right spot was a little trickier then I thought it'd be.
The second assignment was on annotations, which I found pretty straight forward and helpful when doing my third assignment.
The third assignment was citing sources from my topic on free trade and writing annotations for those sources. I found that the first two assignments helped me greatly with this and made it easier to understand.

In closing, I'm very happy to say that I'm all caught up on my assignments. I can't wait until week 6!

Journal Week4

Well this was an interesting week of assignments for me. You can probably tell as this post is a little late. I started out doing my week 3 visit to an academic Library and that went pretty good. I learned a lot and most importantly I became comfortable and familiar with the Library again. I can not believe that I haven't been in a library since 1994.
Starting week 4 assignments went pretty good I was able to do the research on the word Canuck and completed the first part of that assignment on time. I liked that assignment because I grew up on the border and used that word a lot. The second part of that assignment was late because of some reasons I will state at the end of my blog. I like this second part because it reminded me not to take things at face value and to always seek the truth in all things so that I might be better educated.
The assignment in week 4 to develop a research plan was an easy one foe me. When we were first told about our Pathfinders I had written down an outline for the idea that I had. So some of this assignment was already done. It was funny though, I ended up revising most of my originkl outline to better suit my topic as it has changed a little from the beginning.
The next assignment and the last one for week four was on selecting information resources. It had us watch a program on the computer frompenn state that was to teach us about an information cycle. The example that they used for this was Columbine and how the media coverage and articles on it changed over time. I found this example disturbing, but I did learn what was being taught and that was to think about what kind of information you need within the information cycle so that you can know where best to find that information. I appliesd that to my pathfinder topic.
Now the reason that I have disappeared off of the face of the earth for that last four days was that I was out of town unexpectedly until last night. My uncle had overdosed on some diet pills and was in the Hospital here in Wenatchee, and then my employer had to leave all of a sudden to the coast because he has a dear friend that is now in the hospital. For those of you that do not know what I do for a living, I am a personal care giver for an elderly man with MS. All of this going on and two of my kids have come down with strep throat and I have been trying to quarentine them form the new baby. I had to call my mother in law to come and help while I was away on the coast. Well I am back the kids are better, my uncle is going to be better, and my boss's friend is stable. I know that this next week will be better because I don't think anything could have been as badf as this week. Thanks for being patient with me everyone.