Memories…

This week has been crazy so far. I am taking my last two Praxis exams, content knowledge and the library science, on Saturday. All of my free time has been taken over by studying. I’m still freaking out, no matter how much I study. So word to the wise, if you are taking the Praxis, take them early and start studying at least two months beforehand.
For this week I planned on writing two posts on the Jing assignment, but it didn’t take me as long to do as I thought! Well, this left me with a blog to write and nothing to talk about, which happens to be a new concept to me! In the end I decided to reflect on the past several weeks and the assignments we have already completed.
Honestly, I do a lot of reading in my classes. This class does not have as much to read as some of my other courses, but it sometimes takes me longer to get through the material. I love using technology, but I’m not as keen on reading about it. I really have a hard time getting into the readings. It still makes me feel good that I actually have a clue what the book is talking about. However, I sometimes put off the readings as long as I can.
Before I started this course I had never heard of or used many of the applications. Scopus, was one of those, I had seen it but never used it to locate sources. I found it easy to work with and it located what I needed quickly, which is a plus. What came next was not a friendly relationship with Google Reader. However, even after the little bump in the road during the WorldCat assignment, I like Google Docs. It has made group work so much easier for me. I am an on campus student, but I live about forty-five minutes away, and with gas prices on the rise I do not always want to drive in for a brief meeting. Google Docs has allowed my group to work effectively from our homes and still get the assignment completed and turned in on time. Even though I have continuously played around with it, I still do not get or like Google Reader (and I will leave it at that.)
The WorldCat assignment was really interesting. I have never used WorldCat before; however, over the last three semesters I have used PittCat. WorldCat did not have some of the features I liked about Scopus, but it did give the user places they could locate the material. But I did end up having trouble exporting it as an RIS format and as an excel file. I posted to the Discussion Board and everyone was very helpful. I’m still hoping that I completed it properly. I guess I will find out when I get my grades!
The Jing assignment was really frustrating, since I kept having to rerecord due to outside noise and my own flubbed lines. I really found it interesting that we can record what is on our screen and create our own tutorial videos. I’m actually thinking of using this source in my future library. It would be an easy way to demonstrate items that children might have trouble with. The only other problem I faced was deciding how to embed it into my blog. Again, I will find out if I did it correctly when I get my grade.
I’ve actually come to enjoy blogging, which really surprised me. I will never have a personal blog, because I’m not really interested in others reading about my life, but I have found it interesting doing it for this course. I can now write about my frustrations with all of the assignments. I’ve found that I complain less when things go wrong and I do not feel like the only one who doesn’t understand.
Well, I’m about out of time (I’m on a study break) so I’m off to study!