My Internet studies course NET11 at Curtin has now ended, so this is my last post. I have so enjoying being able to record my journey through NET11. It has really been an adventure for me and I leave it feeling much more confident about the internet and my ability to learn new skills. All the people I got to 'meet' through the course have been so helpful and shared their knowledge. Our tutor Cynth deserves all the praise and warmth we have heaped upon her. She has been encouraging and helpful every step of the way.
It is now past the time I should have submitted this learning log blog, but I will actually miss having it to step into. Who knows, I may even start another one some time just for myself. It's a whole new world out there!
Cheers,
Penny.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Module 4 - Organising search info.
Well, the first thing I have had to do for this task was some basic file management as my NET11 area had got huge and unwieldy - I've been caught like this before and should do it at the start of something I know is going to be huge, not half way through. Still, it's looking better now.
Saving
I have saved each webpage in a multi-tiered folder under:
BTeach - Net11 - Module 4 - Mod. 4 tasks Organising search info
and named it specifically e.g. Resource 1 is 'sydney uni library internet tutes'. I saved these pages as a hyperlinks on this blog post, and on my computer as outlined above, using 'save as' a whole web page.
The plan is to record here the information from three sources from previous search task.
Resource 1
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/skills/isearch.html
University of Sydney Library - Searching the Internet. This page contains a brief summary of, and a hyperlinked heading to more information on, the following subjects: Search Engines, Subject Directories, Library Subject Guides, Meta Search Engines, Email Discussion and Newsgroups, Finding People. No individual author name is given.
Resource 2
http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/instruct/sengines.htm
University of Auckland Library - Information Skills, Searching the Internet. This page contains hyperlinks to topics including Search engines, Meta search engines, Subject directories, Search tips and techniques, Narrowing your search and Specific search engines.
Resource 3
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/library/services/ilu/advanced.html
University of Toronto Libraries - Library and Internet Skills. The page contains hyperlinks to topics such as Advanced search strategies, Searching by author, Choosing keywords, Boolean searching, Truncation, Fields and many others.
Saving
I have saved each webpage in a multi-tiered folder under:
BTeach - Net11 - Module 4 - Mod. 4 tasks Organising search info
and named it specifically e.g. Resource 1 is 'sydney uni library internet tutes'. I saved these pages as a hyperlinks on this blog post, and on my computer as outlined above, using 'save as' a whole web page.
The plan is to record here the information from three sources from previous search task.
Resource 1
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/skills/isearch.html
University of Sydney Library - Searching the Internet. This page contains a brief summary of, and a hyperlinked heading to more information on, the following subjects: Search Engines, Subject Directories, Library Subject Guides, Meta Search Engines, Email Discussion and Newsgroups, Finding People. No individual author name is given.
Resource 2
http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/instruct/sengines.htm
University of Auckland Library - Information Skills, Searching the Internet. This page contains hyperlinks to topics including Search engines, Meta search engines, Subject directories, Search tips and techniques, Narrowing your search and Specific search engines.
Resource 3
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/library/services/ilu/advanced.html
University of Toronto Libraries - Library and Internet Skills. The page contains hyperlinks to topics such as Advanced search strategies, Searching by author, Choosing keywords, Boolean searching, Truncation, Fields and many others.
Module 4 - Boolean Search Task
Knew vaguely Boolean was something to do with libraries... Interesting to apply it to internet searching.
First task - for the biggest number of hits for advanced internet users I used Google (basic) and added OR logic between each word i.e. at least (or only) one of my three terms had to be present in the results. This gave an outstanding 2,690,000,000 hits! Putting AND between the words, and putting nothing (space only) between the words yielded far fewer hits, 276,000,000 and 91,700,000 respectively.
Second task - skills-based information on advanced internet users. This was interesting. Decided to stick with Google (basic, i.e. not 'scholar' or 'advanced search' etc.) This is what I tried:
Third task - advanced internet users only from university sources. I tried, again using basic Google:
First task - for the biggest number of hits for advanced internet users I used Google (basic) and added OR logic between each word i.e. at least (or only) one of my three terms had to be present in the results. This gave an outstanding 2,690,000,000 hits! Putting AND between the words, and putting nothing (space only) between the words yielded far fewer hits, 276,000,000 and 91,700,000 respectively.
Second task - skills-based information on advanced internet users. This was interesting. Decided to stick with Google (basic, i.e. not 'scholar' or 'advanced search' etc.) This is what I tried:
- (advanced internet users) AND skills (20,500,000 hits).
- (advanced AND internet AND users) AND skills (20,300,000 hits).
- (advanced + internet + users) + skills (6,920,000 hits).
- advanced + internet + users + skills -statistics (1,880,000 hits).
Third task - advanced internet users only from university sources. I tried, again using basic Google:
- advanced + internet + users + universities (1,170,000 hits)
- advanced + internet + users + universities + edu (905,000 hits)
- advanced + internet + users + universities + edu + databases (857,000 hits).
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Modifying post below...
Well, after all the below, I stumbled across the first search I did in Copernic Agent and I think it was the best. It gave 31 results and they had the three words together (exact phrase). The results looked very useful and had a short description of the site or tutorial or whatever it was - very handy. It also told me which search engine the results had come from. I originally had it configured to use 12 engines, before I got all confused as you can see below.
Have a bit more to learn about using Copernicus, but it's been a good start. Wish I had known about all these wonderful things last year while looking for online articles for my teaching degree assignments.
Module 4 - Search the Web (cont.)
After copying and pasting in the first hit from Google for the 'advanced internet users' task (see below), my blog would not let me add anything further to the post. I don't know why not, but am continuing in this new post.
I got a whopping 90,700,000 hits for those three words in Google.
Am a little confused about the rest of this task. I used Copernicus to do further searching of the phrase, but was hoping to use Clusty, SurfWax among others, but they did not seem to be options. There were also several engines that are there by default and I could not turn them off. I have screen prints of the whole thing above. I then did different searches (still with the 4 default engines) and added these search engines separately, each time: Ask.com (gave 10 results), Open Directory Project (gave 4 results) and Alta Vista (gave 11 results).
Obviously Google gives every Tom, Dick and Harry a go - indiscriminant to say the least, whereas the higher order search engines are extremely choosey and gave higher quality results. Also, all the engines didn't have the three words together - any individual word could show up anywhere in the result - the consequence of not doing speech marks? Better get on with the Boolean part of the tasks!
As an aside, Laura Cohen's notes/tutorials are excellent. Very interesting and well-written. It's a whole new universe out there. Will definitely use some of these other search engines. Google no longer has a stranglehold on me and my internet habits!
Module 4 - Search the Web
Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE
Information about using your internet browser's Help Menu is available and linked ... Choose what web page will be shown when you start Internet Explorer. ...www.k12science.org/tutorials/advanced/ - 16k -
Module 4 - Web Tools
Have enjoyed reading through Module 4. It feels like the nitty gritty of this course to me. Thought highly of the Internet Tutorials site - well written and covers just about everything. Think I will go back to this in the future and have bookmarked it.
But now the deadline for this course is fast approaching and I'm rushing to finish this module and my essay. I have downloaded (onto my Desktop, where I will see them and remember they exist!) the following: Copernic Agent Basic, RealPlayer 1 (have Apple QuickTime Player already, also Adobe Reader), BookMark Buddy and WebCopier for Windows. They all look pretty darn useful. Looking forward to getting more into BookMark Buddy as I've bookmarked so many things courtesy of this course and have tried to be sensible about where they are, but I know it could be improved. WebCopier looks useful for the same reason. I'm always online and have never actually saved things so I can access them offline, so will have a go with this.
The Glooton seach manager/combiner had such a poorly proofread page I didn't want to go near it - lost in translation, I'd guess.
All these things have 15 or 30-day free trial periods, from memory. It will be interesting to see if I actually purchase any of them.
But now the deadline for this course is fast approaching and I'm rushing to finish this module and my essay. I have downloaded (onto my Desktop, where I will see them and remember they exist!) the following: Copernic Agent Basic, RealPlayer 1 (have Apple QuickTime Player already, also Adobe Reader), BookMark Buddy and WebCopier for Windows. They all look pretty darn useful. Looking forward to getting more into BookMark Buddy as I've bookmarked so many things courtesy of this course and have tried to be sensible about where they are, but I know it could be improved. WebCopier looks useful for the same reason. I'm always online and have never actually saved things so I can access them offline, so will have a go with this.
The Glooton seach manager/combiner had such a poorly proofread page I didn't want to go near it - lost in translation, I'd guess.
All these things have 15 or 30-day free trial periods, from memory. It will be interesting to see if I actually purchase any of them.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Presentations Page on WebCT
After much angst I have finally managed to create a web page for upload to the Presentations area of WebCT. Am very chuffed as this has been on my mind for some time. Went back over all the posts discussing it, and also used my new-found HTML skills to create a very basic page but it links successfully to assignment 1, and to this blog. Have got a space to link assignment 2, when it's done. Also tried to link my volcano web page, which is there, but it's not showing the spouting volcano pic on the first page, nor is it linking to all the other pages. Too late to figure this out tonight. I also will link my Test page.
The other delight tonight was uploading some screen shots, though still need to improve on where they go on the page. Two dragons slayed tonight!
The other delight tonight was uploading some screen shots, though still need to improve on where they go on the page. Two dragons slayed tonight!
Saturday, February 10, 2007
HTML tutorial complete!
Have finally finished the HTML tutorial in module 3. It seemed to go on forever, but I certainly learnt a lot. It would have been good to get it done in a few days straight as I found coming back to it after a few days it would take a wee while to feel at home with it again. The stangest thing about it was using Notepad, as I think I have mentioned below. There didn't seem to be any easy mechanism for switching between several open Notepad screens, you had to retype in the name each time. I may be wrong on this, but I didn't see any navigational feature if there was one. Found the splitting task at the end quite fiddly to do - certainly have to have an eye for detail. Paid to check the web version when you'd done coding as you could then quickly see any typos leading to something not making sense. Always needed to refer to my handwritten layout as file numbers grew.
So, at last, I have my linked and flowing series of web pages Volcanoes. It was satisfying watching it all come together. I now have to link the whole thing to my Presentations section on webCT. I did my own independent practice page called "Test" as I went along (see above). It's rather ugly but was good for trying out the new things learnt in the tutorial. The only thing I didn't do on my Test page was split it into several linked pages. This was because at the very end I "lost" the page. I know it's there somewhere but it wasn't coming up in Notepad. I may do this very last splitting activity or I may not. I will however load my page also onto Presentations.
Am so behind in the modules, but at least I can move on now. Really regret not getting underway quickly way back in December.
Was encouraged (and surprised) by a very good mark for my first assignment. Just need the final push now for the concepts essay and the ongoing module work.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Logging in - HTML tutorial
This is just a quick message to log in and report progress.
I'm still slogging through the first part of module 3, the html tutorial. It's very long, but thankfully, is well-written and logical to follow. It's also been satisfying to work through as I see my html coding come to fruition on the both the volcanoes page and my own test page. I do hope to finish it today - I've got so much work to do.
The only problems I have found apart from my slow start mentioned in an earlier post is that it can be a bit of a juggle having three screens open at once. I've never really worked with tiling screens before, but have opted to size the three screens so they are all visible. I'm finding however I still often have to reduce or enlarge the screens to do or see the work.
Perhaps the biggest thing has been using Notepad. I find unless I have my file names written down I get lost, because there is no option for just going to the file menu then seeing what you have just been working on - you have to know the file name and start typing it in before it comes up. Now that I have a few files and folders in my HTML workspace folder I have had to write them all down in a diagram on a piece of paper and have it handy to keep my head around it all.
Hopefully this will be the largest chunk of module 3. I saw on the course discussion board some poor soul had done all of sections, not stopped at no. 14 as required. Still behind, but enjoying it nevertheless.
I'm still slogging through the first part of module 3, the html tutorial. It's very long, but thankfully, is well-written and logical to follow. It's also been satisfying to work through as I see my html coding come to fruition on the both the volcanoes page and my own test page. I do hope to finish it today - I've got so much work to do.
The only problems I have found apart from my slow start mentioned in an earlier post is that it can be a bit of a juggle having three screens open at once. I've never really worked with tiling screens before, but have opted to size the three screens so they are all visible. I'm finding however I still often have to reduce or enlarge the screens to do or see the work.
Perhaps the biggest thing has been using Notepad. I find unless I have my file names written down I get lost, because there is no option for just going to the file menu then seeing what you have just been working on - you have to know the file name and start typing it in before it comes up. Now that I have a few files and folders in my HTML workspace folder I have had to write them all down in a diagram on a piece of paper and have it handy to keep my head around it all.
Hopefully this will be the largest chunk of module 3. I saw on the course discussion board some poor soul had done all of sections, not stopped at no. 14 as required. Still behind, but enjoying it nevertheless.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Logging in again & module 3
It has been a week since I last blogged and it feels like an age. I can see that people could get quite attached to their own blog - it really is a little piece of you and you care for it!
It was so good to get the first assignment in and that's what has kept me away. I am now trying to catch up on the modules - I have felt behind all through this course. SP4 is not a good time to study! The kids went back to school today and I haven't started work yet, so hopefully these few days will allow me to catch up.
Have spent the day and evening working through module 3, writing html. Got off to a slow start by not being able to find my Notepad file easily. (It wasn't till the tutorial mentioned that Notepad was a text editor that I realised that was what I should be using.) I then saved it as something else and got all confused about versions. Decided to just start the whole thing over and finally got under way. As usual, it's all new, but am enjoying it and feeling a sense of achievement. The html tutorial is well written and relatively straightforward. I've noticed my attitude to things has changed - I'm not quite so scared of trying to find my own answers now. Should be able to finish the html part of module 3 tomorrow - it's a very big module. Am way behind...
It was so good to get the first assignment in and that's what has kept me away. I am now trying to catch up on the modules - I have felt behind all through this course. SP4 is not a good time to study! The kids went back to school today and I haven't started work yet, so hopefully these few days will allow me to catch up.
Have spent the day and evening working through module 3, writing html. Got off to a slow start by not being able to find my Notepad file easily. (It wasn't till the tutorial mentioned that Notepad was a text editor that I realised that was what I should be using.) I then saved it as something else and got all confused about versions. Decided to just start the whole thing over and finally got under way. As usual, it's all new, but am enjoying it and feeling a sense of achievement. The html tutorial is well written and relatively straightforward. I've noticed my attitude to things has changed - I'm not quite so scared of trying to find my own answers now. Should be able to finish the html part of module 3 tomorrow - it's a very big module. Am way behind...
Monday, January 22, 2007
The week so far
Not much to report, except of course hard at work on my assignment, which as usual, I have left rather late. Despite the pressure, am really enjoying exploring new sites, software and online resouces like articles. There is some amazing stuff out there. Have decided to use a range of resources for the annobib, not just things like 'How To...' tutorials. Will have to add my learning links to my page and get some screen shots on too.
Have decided to stay away from the discussion board for a couple of days. I've been spending a lot of time on it, mainly just reading (which can be fruitful) or sometimes posting comments/questions. But it does keep me away from the assignment and finishing off the modules which I am yet to do.
Confidence has definitely grown and curiosity definitely sparked through this course.
:-)
Have decided to stay away from the discussion board for a couple of days. I've been spending a lot of time on it, mainly just reading (which can be fruitful) or sometimes posting comments/questions. But it does keep me away from the assignment and finishing off the modules which I am yet to do.
Confidence has definitely grown and curiosity definitely sparked through this course.
:-)
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Something new...
Finally!!! I've been able to upload a picture to my blog. Has taken a long time to be able to do this - I know it's meant to be easy, but just couldn't get it to work when I went through the Template, Add Page Element, Add Picture path. Finally asked Blogger for help and found if I just use the pic icon in the top bar it was easy to use. I also posted a question on the db which two people were kind enough to answer for me, even though I still couldn't get it to work. I can see I'll enjoy this feature, though important not to overdo it I think.Next challenge, uploading some screen shots. Have also just learnt what Labels are and how they work. There is so much to learn, and am finding Blogger pretty good for someone not technical like me.
Online chatting
Participated in my first ever online chatting today through webCT with classmates. Had no idea you had to press enter to post your message, but finally worked it out. It's a strange thing - very immediate, fast and can take a while to read three messages that pop up together. Threads of conversations can get lost - I asked a question or two that didn't get followed up, or sometimes non-related things come in first before an answer. As others commented, being able to touch type is an advantage! I guess since we were just having a general chat and had nothing specific to chat about, our subject matter went all over the place, and because of that, you can't necessarily participate in everything. But I can see that if a group met to chat about a specific topic it could be very rewarding and fruitful. It was certainly nice to 'meet' some classmates in a different way to the discussion board. It was nice knowing that someone was in from overseas. And I really liked the immediacy in comparison to the discussion board.
I can't imagine what it would be like having a large number of people chatting at one time together. We had about 8 today by the time I jumped in.
I installed ICQ yesterday but now every time I turn my computer on it tells me there is a problem with it and I can't use it. I asked about it on the chat, but no-one seems at all interested in using it - I guess it's old hat, but I wouldn't know.
I can't imagine what it would be like having a large number of people chatting at one time together. We had about 8 today by the time I jumped in.
I installed ICQ yesterday but now every time I turn my computer on it tells me there is a problem with it and I can't use it. I asked about it on the chat, but no-one seems at all interested in using it - I guess it's old hat, but I wouldn't know.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Module 2 - ICQ
Something else I haven't done or heard of before. Downloaded and installed the ICQ software OK. As advised, put the minimum stuff about myself - it's easy to gain the impression there are lots of people out there who are happy to meet strangers online for just about any purpose. Was happy to have a nickname option. Don't want anything to do with the whole dating/relationships stuff! My ICQ number is 479579941 and have found a discussion board thread that gives a lot of numbers of classmates, so I will have a go at chatting to someone just for the experience! (Have missed all the webct chatroom get togethers - hopefully can make it to tomorrow's one.)
Didn't note the early postings about the ICQ tasks for advanced studies nickname and number - they no longer exist, so went through that until I found mention in someone's blog and then realised. Don't have much more to add until I have a go at chatting.
I do have to add all the ICQ nos of classmates - I'm assuming that is on the ICQ page and not on my learning log? That's where I'll do it until i know better.
Didn't note the early postings about the ICQ tasks for advanced studies nickname and number - they no longer exist, so went through that until I found mention in someone's blog and then realised. Don't have much more to add until I have a go at chatting.
I do have to add all the ICQ nos of classmates - I'm assuming that is on the ICQ page and not on my learning log? That's where I'll do it until i know better.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Module 2 - newsgroups
This part of the tasks has taken some time. I had never heard of newsgroups before. Got into it using Mozilla. It took an age to find something. Tried www.newzbot first including searching: gardening, teaching, desperate housewives, and the singer Pink (which came up with lots of unsavoury stuff!). Usually got the message that there were no articles in that newsgroup or that it did not allow posting.
I then tried www.usenet which was instantly easier. I went to discussion groups, and there found an Australian parenting forum know as 'kidspot'. It's very attractive, relevant, friendly and looks well run, so I think I'll stay with it even after NET11. My first post to it is below. It looks like a busy site and it took no time for my post to show up, so people can discuss things almost immediately - that is assuming things always post so quickly.
Still having some trouble getting my head around the differences between newsgroups, lists and discussion boards.
I then tried www.usenet which was instantly easier. I went to discussion groups, and there found an Australian parenting forum know as 'kidspot'. It's very attractive, relevant, friendly and looks well run, so I think I'll stay with it even after NET11. My first post to it is below. It looks like a busy site and it took no time for my post to show up, so people can discuss things almost immediately - that is assuming things always post so quickly.
Still having some trouble getting my head around the differences between newsgroups, lists and discussion boards.
Module 2 cont. - newsgroup post
1 Posts
 Posted - 16 Jan 2007 : 22:51:07      |
| Hello everyone. I thought I'd introduce myself too. My name is Penelope and I live in Sydney ("Seedney" to my NZ relatives). I live with my husband and son who is 9 and daughter who is 6 on Australia Day. She is nursing a broken arm at the moment - not much fun for the rest of the holidays. I am about to embark on a new career as a primary school teacher and am wondering what impact this will have on family life - don't think my partner realises how busy I will be, but he was great at supporting me through my studies and with the added bonus of a new income, he should be keen to help! There is a great sense of community on this site. Cheers P.  |
Friday, January 12, 2007
A long absence & more on module 2
I have been three and a half weeks away from my blog and NET11 and was a little nervous about coming back in as I feel so far behind - nothing for it, but to jump in again. Started by forgetting my password for my blog but now it's reset and I've written it down!
So, to Lists. Have had a look through the two links provided on webCT to explore some lists. Tried 'main groups page' for women's soccer (175 lists given), then herb gardening home. Liked the info provided on the 'contents' page, especially seeing how many people belonged to a list and rightly or wrongly this influenced whether I might look at the list archives. Saw a list relating to the Matildas but it was membership required. A lot of the initial lists that came up were USA-based. Don't know why. Herb gardening home came up with only 6 lists. Tried knitting on topica - quite a bit available. Overall though, each list I looked at seemed quite old and in some cases now inactive. Very little dating from 2006.
I've realised I do however belong to a list, though it was not something I actively chose to join - I belong to the NSW Teacher's Federation and am on its list. I get quite a bit of mail from them about campaigns general teaching issues. There is no member discussion, it is a one-way thing, simply for information. I chose to join the Federation and membership includes the list emails.
Back a notch though, also noticed some odd entries in my earlier searches, such as lists for surgical clubfoot, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (!!) under my women's soccer browsing. How did they end up there? Must be something in the words they use that make them pop up on this list.
What are the pros and cons of email lists vs discussion boards?
Discussion boards allow the managing of different subjects or 'threads' such as on our course. As long as people use the threads correctly, it enhances use of the board. It's great being able to search for certain topics or authors on a discussion board, using the search tool.
Lists are hard to find in my experience! They also may or may not allow posting. They are good for sharing information to members, such as my Teacher's Federation list and I can unsubscribe at any time.
Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than another?
The example above of the NSWTF is an ideal use of a list - a large, active organisation with lots of busy members with whom it wants to share information. Also the discussion board for study is excellent - a community is formed all around the world and people can ask questions, get them answered or provide answers or comments.
So, to Lists. Have had a look through the two links provided on webCT to explore some lists. Tried 'main groups page' for women's soccer (175 lists given), then herb gardening home. Liked the info provided on the 'contents' page, especially seeing how many people belonged to a list and rightly or wrongly this influenced whether I might look at the list archives. Saw a list relating to the Matildas but it was membership required. A lot of the initial lists that came up were USA-based. Don't know why. Herb gardening home came up with only 6 lists. Tried knitting on topica - quite a bit available. Overall though, each list I looked at seemed quite old and in some cases now inactive. Very little dating from 2006.
I've realised I do however belong to a list, though it was not something I actively chose to join - I belong to the NSW Teacher's Federation and am on its list. I get quite a bit of mail from them about campaigns general teaching issues. There is no member discussion, it is a one-way thing, simply for information. I chose to join the Federation and membership includes the list emails.
Back a notch though, also noticed some odd entries in my earlier searches, such as lists for surgical clubfoot, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (!!) under my women's soccer browsing. How did they end up there? Must be something in the words they use that make them pop up on this list.
What are the pros and cons of email lists vs discussion boards?
Discussion boards allow the managing of different subjects or 'threads' such as on our course. As long as people use the threads correctly, it enhances use of the board. It's great being able to search for certain topics or authors on a discussion board, using the search tool.
Lists are hard to find in my experience! They also may or may not allow posting. They are good for sharing information to members, such as my Teacher's Federation list and I can unsubscribe at any time.
Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than another?
The example above of the NSWTF is an ideal use of a list - a large, active organisation with lots of busy members with whom it wants to share information. Also the discussion board for study is excellent - a community is formed all around the world and people can ask questions, get them answered or provide answers or comments.
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