This will be my last post in my blog.
Farewell to all, this has definately been an experience and a huge learning curve. I must admit this unit of study was so much more full on than what I expected. I ended up having to put in over double the workload than I have in any previous units. It has been fun though and good to take myself out of my comfort zone and try something else. Whilst in the short term I will not be continuing on with blogging I will not rule it out for the future. Like Peter's friends blog of her travels I think blogs can have a great use as a travel diary to keep everyone up to where you are at. Plus it must be better than having the in laws ringing at all hours of the night as they don't consider the time difference!!
Big thanks to both Peter and Cynthia who have been the most wonderful, amazing, hands on tutors I have experienced in almost 4 years of online study. Keep up the good work even though you guys must hardly sleep at all with all these posts to read and the amount of marking that it must entail.
So bye to all maybe we will cross paths somewhere, who knows.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Evaluating the Web
http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/1999/archives/25/roadtests/dog_breeds/staffordshire_bull_terrier
For my own use the snapshot is probably better as you are able to get a pretty good overview of what the site is about.
the reliability and authority of the site / source / article
My search took me to the Burke's Backyard website, whilst there is no author listed here it is presented as information supported by Burke's Backyards so to me would be considered fairly reliable as they have experts for their show and magazine on all sorts of topics.
the main ideas or subjects discussed in the article
the area of the site which I was directed to is a fact sheet on staffordshire bull terrier dogs. My search was for their behaviours and the fact sheet lists all areas of the dog from appearance to temperment, health and maintenance.
the purpose for which the site was written (this might include any apparent external interest, intellectual motivation or contextual information)
This site is written for a whole range of purpose, there is an abundance of information relating to plants and gardens as well as animals. It is all about lifestyle issues and topics.
For future use I think that a I would provide a link to external userss staffordshire bull terriers fact sheet which would take the reader directly to the source of the information especially since the website contains so much other information on other topics.For my own use the snapshot is probably better as you are able to get a pretty good overview of what the site is about.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Organising Search Information
I chose the first three hits , none of them are academic sites they are just giving information about the breed.
1.
http://www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/dogbreeds/staffordshirebullterriers.html
Author -Michele Welton
Institution – none
2.
http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/1999/archives/25/roadtests/dog_breeds/staffordshire_bull_terrier
Author - unknown
Institution – CTC Productions
http://www.petplanet.co.uk/petplanet/breeds/Staffordshire_Bull_Terrier.htm
Author – unknown
Institution – Pet Planet
I don't have a specific program to organise my files. I create folders and subdirectories to store information in. I use google desktop to search for files if I can't find them but I generally sort my folders that I am always able to locate files when I need them. I use favourites in my internet explorer to bookmark pages I visit frequently or for later reference to save searching for them again.
Boolean Searching Task
Using the same key words as the previous task "staffordshire bull terrier behaviour"
1. the biggest number of hits relating to these key words
i searched for "staffordshire or bull or terrier or behaviour"
this search returned 79,200 hits
2. information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to search for
I searched for "+staffordshire +bull +terrier +behaviour"
this search returned 22,600 hits
3 Information coming only from university sources
I searched for "+staffordshire +bull +terrier +behaviour and edu"
this search returned 36,600 hits
I don't think I did this last search correctly as none of the results look like they come from university sources. I think that my search phrase is not correct but am not sure how to fix this. Looked over the boolean searching information document and tried to search for how to do this to no avail.
In comparison to my very first search task where I used google to search I am still coming up with the same number one hit when I do my limited search using "and".
Learning to use boolean search techniques enables a more direct search that can filter out a lot of unwanted results. I will definately use this in the future.
1. the biggest number of hits relating to these key words
i searched for "staffordshire or bull or terrier or behaviour"
this search returned 79,200 hits
2. information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to search for
I searched for "+staffordshire +bull +terrier +behaviour"
this search returned 22,600 hits
3 Information coming only from university sources
I searched for "+staffordshire +bull +terrier +behaviour and edu"
this search returned 36,600 hits
I don't think I did this last search correctly as none of the results look like they come from university sources. I think that my search phrase is not correct but am not sure how to fix this. Looked over the boolean searching information document and tried to search for how to do this to no avail.
In comparison to my very first search task where I used google to search I am still coming up with the same number one hit when I do my limited search using "and".
Learning to use boolean search techniques enables a more direct search that can filter out a lot of unwanted results. I will definately use this in the future.
Search Engine Task
1. My favourite search engine is google, like everyone else I google everything.
The phrase I used is "staffordshire bull terrier behaviour".
Google
First Hit -www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/dogbreeds/staffordshirebullterriers.html
Total number of hits - about 64,800
2.
The phrase I used is "staffordshire bull terrier behaviour".
First Hit -
www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/dogbreeds/staffordshirebullterriers.html
Total number of hits - about 64,800
2.
I decided to use a couple of different search engines to see if the results I got using the same search phrase differed much. The results varied a lot. I still prefer google out of all the searches, yahoo seems to bring up a lot of advertisement and vaguely related sites. The most recurring website was as above which was the first hit for google this appeared in the top five on ask and dogpile too.
The results of each are below.
hits 17900
hits 695,000
hits 61
Tools for Using the Web Task
I had every intention of downloading Copernic for this task as I could use it also in the search task part 2.
After reading the discussion forum on this program and Cynthia and Peter deciding to make it optional after others comments I made an executive decision not to bother downloading Copernic after all.
I did not choose to download anymore programs from the list, most of them I already have on my computer at home. I have also downloaded a few other programs and tools throughout this course and did not feel that I needed anymore. I already have a few that I will be removing at the end of this course that I will not use again.
After reading the discussion forum on this program and Cynthia and Peter deciding to make it optional after others comments I made an executive decision not to bother downloading Copernic after all.
I did not choose to download anymore programs from the list, most of them I already have on my computer at home. I have also downloaded a few other programs and tools throughout this course and did not feel that I needed anymore. I already have a few that I will be removing at the end of this course that I will not use again.
Monday, February 23, 2009
External Free Forum
I did not find the free forum to be very beneficial to me so late into the study period. I signed up and accessed it however did not really find much time to use it. The ads were a bit annoying and I did not really find much time to navigate around and get myself familiar with it. I have found WebCT to be sufficient for my needs in this course. In saying that if we had made a move earlier to the other forum and had some time to become familiar with it and use it as our main communication tool, I may have used it more.
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