I wanted to applaud all your efforts in creating blogs. It did require some perseverance dealing with the technical glitches but hopefully it was worth it.
This is one of the great features of Web 2.0, you can reflect your personality and some of your fellow students posted pictures, selected different templates, chose pseudonyms and raved about their favorite shows. Does blogging feel a bit like a paper journal complete with doodles, pictures and inside jokes?
I hope that some of you find you like the means of expression and continue using it beyond the scope of this class.
It is an informal medium of communication and that is fine for this class. I would ask that you use the spell check and remember that I am reading your blogs, so anything too personal should wait until class is over.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wikipedia vs. GVRL
Is this a fair fight?
Everyone who completed the readings and assignments for Unit 2 learned the value of deep web resources, such as GVRL. I would imagine everyone had used Wikipedia before but there were many converts to the depth and reliability of information offered by GVRL, plus I imagine your professors would appreciate and respect GVRL citations over Wikipedia.
So, enough Wikipedia bashing; is there ever a time when Wikipedia is a good idea? I would say, yes. Wikipedia is not a one-stop shop for research but a good place to start out, find out a little more about your topic, discover key terms and phrases and then perhaps look for more depth in GVRL and carry on to the article databases for research. And I fully admit to using Wikipedia constantly to learn about things I know nothing about or way more then any one person needs to know about the show Bones.
I think everyone picked up on this but to reiterate, Wikipedia is not the place for scholarly research. It is fluid and constantly changing, anyone who saw the history of updates page knows this. And it is a good place to find out basic information on many topics.
As you are becoming more aware of the credibility and authority of sources, do you think that perhaps Wikipedia and GVRL are intended for a different audience? Students and practitioners need academic research but many other people just need information. The information cycle video talks about these differences as well.
Everyone who completed the readings and assignments for Unit 2 learned the value of deep web resources, such as GVRL. I would imagine everyone had used Wikipedia before but there were many converts to the depth and reliability of information offered by GVRL, plus I imagine your professors would appreciate and respect GVRL citations over Wikipedia.
So, enough Wikipedia bashing; is there ever a time when Wikipedia is a good idea? I would say, yes. Wikipedia is not a one-stop shop for research but a good place to start out, find out a little more about your topic, discover key terms and phrases and then perhaps look for more depth in GVRL and carry on to the article databases for research. And I fully admit to using Wikipedia constantly to learn about things I know nothing about or way more then any one person needs to know about the show Bones.
I think everyone picked up on this but to reiterate, Wikipedia is not the place for scholarly research. It is fluid and constantly changing, anyone who saw the history of updates page knows this. And it is a good place to find out basic information on many topics.
As you are becoming more aware of the credibility and authority of sources, do you think that perhaps Wikipedia and GVRL are intended for a different audience? Students and practitioners need academic research but many other people just need information. The information cycle video talks about these differences as well.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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