This week has been a very productive one for me. I spent a lot of my time working on new genres and polishing up old ones. I still have a lot of revisions to make, but I feel like I have made lots of progress. I haven’t felt as stressed out about school this week either, which is always a good thing. Unfortunately, I am still spending 15 hours a week in my anatomy class, but I’m managing to make it through each class. We had our second lecture test on Thursday and it was HORRIBLE! I don’t think that I did very well because it was so difficult. Ordinarily, I would be freaking out but I’m not. I decided not to worry about it because everyone in the class that I talked to about the test is feeling the same way that I am. The way I see it, she can’t fail everyone. On a more positive note, I made a 100% on the last lab exam. I have to attend 6 more classes and take 4 more tests before I can stop worrying about the anatomy class. The end of this class is vastly approaching us as well.

Our goal for CD assignments this week was to continue working on our genres, continue reviewing some of our peer’s work, continue researching our topic, continue reading mail from our mailing list, and to send an email to the class that explained the nature of our professional email community.

The first assignment that I attempted this week was the email community task. In order to complete this assignment, I had to have knowledge and experience with my professional mailing list. I also had to read all messages sent to the list so that I could have a good idea about the mailing community that I was involved with. I composed an email explaining the name of the professional list that I subscribed to, the steps involved to become part of the list, the address where email messages were sent to, and the nature of the email community. After I created the email, I sent it to the class list. I thought this was the easiest assignment for the week because I already had all the information that I needed to complete it. I continuously read the incoming messages from my mailing list so the only thing that I had to do was to think about the nature of the email community and write about it. I also had to look back at my previous assignments to remind myself how I subscribed to the list.

Next, I started working on my peer reviews. I’m glad that I did this assignment early because it gave me ideas about how to improve my own work. For example, when I looked at Lekei’s newsletter I decided to change my own. She made her newsletter on word and submitted it as a goodie. I thought this looked really good so I formatted my newsletter and submitted it into a goodie file as well. I believe that this minor change made a major difference in the quality of my newsletter. Due to the nature of this class (Everything Online.), peer reviews are difficult to complete. You really have to be careful about wording your advice because they can’t see your face or hear your tone. I guess this is one of those situations where we begin to really appreciate various aspects of language. I also noticed how much we take little thing, such as body and facial gestures, for granted. Although the peer reviews are somewhat difficult to create, they are very helpful to receive. They are also helpful because it gives us a chance to develop new ideas and points of view that stem from looking at the work of our peers.

The last assignments that I began for the week was my genre assignments. Thankfully, I got finished with the other, smaller assignments early so I had all week to work on my new and old genres. This is where I made so much progress this week. I worked on genres all week long. I keep changing my mind about what I wanted to include in my MRP. As I mentioned earlier, the first thing that I changed was my newsletter format. I wanted my newsletter to actually look like one. After playing around with the newsletter, I finally got satisfied with the way it looked so I saved it to a disk, took it to Marshall and converted it to a pdf file, and then submitted it to my blog under the goodies category. After I converted my newsletter to a pdf file I noticed some changes that still needed to be made so I went home and corrected them. I haven’t had a chance to change it on my blog yet, but I will on Tuesday night, after I go back to Marshall. Next, I decided to change my PowerPoint presentation. I had difficulty completing it with a parental perspective last week and I know it was week. I tried to think of a way to improve it, but couldn’t think of anything really good so I decided to change the perspective completely. I decided to go from parental perspective to one of a Fast Forword representative. This PowerPoint presentation is much more ordinary than the view of a parent, but I feel like it works so much better. Because I made the PowerPoint from the view of Fast Forword, I had to do away with the brochure from Fast Forword so I decided to add a 3-day lesson plan genre. I figured that we went over the format of an SLP lesson plan last spring so I should know how to do one properly. The next new genre that I worked on this week was a letter to a parent. I wrote this letter in the viewpoint of an SLP who is explaining the child’s progress. We discussed letters to parents in my education class last spring and my teacher said that letters to parents should be informal, so that is how I did it. I didn’t want the parent to fill confused or inferior when reading my letter. I made it as casual and comforting as I could while still including the progress that the child was making. Work on the genres I just mentioned is about all that I did this week. I didn’t change anything from earlier genres, but I intend to. Hopefully, I will get to that sometime this week.

I am starting to worry about my essential question a little bit. I do not feel like any of my genres are answering my essential question. I don’t even feel like my genres are addressing my essential question so I am thinking about changing it. I am also starting to worry about the little time that we have left in this semester. There are a lot of things on the MRP directions page that I haven’t even started on. For example, I haven’t begun the reflections for these assignments and I think that they will take forever because each assignment for this class has been very time consuming. I guess that will be part of our assignments for next week. Oh, I also think that I am going to change my “pulling together” assignment. Initially, I said that I was going to do a story, but now, I think that I want to do another webliography. I want to do a webliography and include a link for all of the genres that I have done. I think it will work much better. I can do a webliography that tells a story that includes all the different assignments. Also, I really liked doing the webliography and would like to do one again. I thought that I would try to do a real web page, but I’m not sure about where to put the web page. I also don’t know if I would be able to figure out how to do a web page since I have never done one before. I will have to work on correcting genres and completing assignments next week as much as I did this one if I am ever going to get everything finished. With two anatomy tests, I don’t know how I am going to do it. Also, I was seriously thinking about leaving for Kings Island tonight (Actually, as soon as I get this journal done, maybe.) so that I will be able to enjoy a little bit of my summer break. Really, I haven’t done anything at all this summer and would like to do something fun. Monday is the only day out of my week that I don’t have to work or go to school so tonight’s the night to go if I am going to. Still haven’t decided for sure. Usually, I work on CD stuff so I don’t know if it is a good idea to go. I also have an Anatomy test on Tuesday that I need to study for on Monday. I don’t know what I am going to do. I know that I am just about finished with this journal because I don’t have anything else to say, but I haven’t made my mind up about the trip so I want to keep writing until I make my mind up. But, I am not going to do that. I will email or talk to everyone on MOO and let you know what I finally decided.

After looking at the small length of assignments on the weekly schedule, I was sure that the CD workweek would be short and simple. Of course, I was wrong. There was definitely a decrease in the amount of assignments, but the amount of time spent on the assignments was the same as usual, if not longer. With this class and Anatomy, I am beginning to realize that there are not enough hours in the day. My anatomy week was rough, but not as bad as the previous one. This week, I only had one test and a quiz. I was terrified of the anatomy class, (Which is why I kept postponing the semester that I would take it.), so I decided to take it in the summer thinking that it would be easier. I think that is the stupidest thing that I have ever did! I really believe that this class would be 1000 times easier in the fall or spring semester because we are flying through the material. We are averaging 2-3 chapters a night and the material is not easy, therefore it is getting difficult. I was very disappointed when I got back both of the tests that I took last week. I didn’t do bad, (I got a B on both tests.), but I was expecting a little better. I really want an A in the Anatomy class (Probable won’t happen!), which is why I spent the same amount of time studying for one test this week that I spent on two last week. Enough about Anatomy! Our mission in CD this week was to continue drafting our MRP. By the end of the week, the class was responsible for producing two genre drafts. In addition to the genres, we were expected to read an article then create and respond to a prompt about it, gather five resources about our research topic from Marshall’s on-line library, perform peer responses to our group members’ genres, and continue reading email from our professional mailing list.

I began the CD assignments on Monday after I received the week’s schedule. Immediately, I started working on my genres because they require the most thought, consideration, and time. The two that I decided to complete this week were the Brochure and PowerPoint genres. After many hours of contemplation and prep-work, I started drafting my ideas onto the computer. Actually putting my ideas onto a computer screen was a very fast process because I put everything the way that I want it on paper first. I tend to think better with paper in front of me. I think that it is because I feel rushed to complete assignments when I am drafting on a computer. Once my initial drafts were finished, I saved my work and got off the computer. I continued thinking about the genres as I went on with my week. Periodically, an idea would come to me and I would revise the genre versions. I revised both drafts several different times throughout the week before being satisfied enough to publish the final-rough draft on the Internet. Sometime during the middle of the week I realized that I didn’t know how to format my brochure onto my weblog so I began work on my newsletter genre. I decided it would probable be easier to wait on the brochure because I wasn’t sure how to do it and I vaguely remember hearing Mrs. McComas say something about scanning the brochure at Marshall’s campus library. (I don’t remember everything that was said which is why I decided to wait. I figured that I would email the class and ask when Mrs. McComas gets back in town. I don’t want to interfere with her trip if I don’t have to. In this case I could wait.) I also drafted and redrafted the Newsletter several times throughout the week. I didn’t get a chance to make as many revisions to the Newsletter because I started on it late, but I think it will due for now. At the end of the week, I published the two genres on-line. Actually, I haven’t done that part of the assignment yet. I plan to publish them on-line when I publish this journal.

At the beginning of the week, I only worked on my genre drafts for this class. Between the genres and my test in anatomy, it was all I had time to do. Toward the end of the week, I began working on the other assignments. First, I went to Marshall’s on-line library and began further research on my project. This assignment was not difficult to complete due to prior experience with Marshall’s on-line library and a similar assignment. However, it was more difficult to find good articles this time around. I looked at several articles and considered many angles for my research before coming up with five resources. Once I found the articles that I needed, I transformed the information about the article into an APA format and sent my resources to the class list.

Next, I began reading an article that I was supposed to create a prompt and respond to. In order to complete this task, I logged onto the CD 315 webpage, clicked on week 6 assignments, and then clicked again on the article title. I printed out the article and began reading it. Once I was finished reading the article, I created my prompt, responded to it, and sent it to the class list via email. These types of assignments are more difficult for me to complete. I guess it is because it requires thought. (HA!)

The last assignment that I did for the week was review my peers’ genre work. I really enjoyed this assignment. I hate trying to criticize assignments, but I liked looking at the work other people create. In fact, after I finished my mandatory reviews I glanced at some genres of people who were not in my group. This assignment is very helpful. It is helpful to get feedback on my work so I am sure that it is helpful to give it to others. Other than getting feedback on my own work, it was helpful to generate ideas. It is so funny how differently people react to the same assignment. When looking at the genres, I saw really creative ideas that worked well. It allowed me to think about how I can spice up some of my genres. I think that performing peer work is the best way to get someone thinking differently about their own work. I am going to continue looking at the genres that my classmates create to help give me ideas about how to make my own work better. It is a somewhat sticky situation to get ideas from other people though. You don’t want to look like you are cheating or stealing from the person you get ideas from. This concept gave me a little bit of grief this week as I contemplated revising my genre drafts even further. I didn’t make any major changes to my own work after reviewing other genres (I was a little afraid to.), but I am still considering it.

In addition to the weekly assignments, I continued to read the mail that I received from my professional list. Thankfully, I am still reading them as they come in. If I didn’t it would take me forever to read them because I get quite a bit of mail from my list. I haven’t spoke to the group, but I still enjoy reading the messages.

It took a lot of time and work to complete the assignments this week, but I managed to get all of it finished. Taking this class and Anatomy at the same time in a summer semester is killing me. I knew that this class would require a lot of work, but I think that I underestimated it a little. Actually, I wasn’t haven’t any trouble with time management until I started my Anatomy class. (By the way, my Anatomy teacher is Staci Aulick.) It really seems like time is passing me by this summer. It will be time to start the fall semester before you know it and I haven’t done anything FUN yet. I sit home all the time. When I am not here, I am either in class, work, or driving to Huntington. Driving to Huntington everyday is really starting to get on my nerves a little bit. I am constantly on the road. I would literally gain about 16hrs. a week if I lived in Huntington. I have been considering the move for a long time and I am just about to do it. I have been studying the classified section of the Herald Dispatch for weeks now. My only problem is that I don’t know where to live and not to live. (You know bad areas where your neighbors won’t try to steal ya. Ha!) Another biggie is money of course and I stay broke now so I can only imagine what it would be like to pay rent. I have bummed a dime from my parents in years and I am not about to start. I pay for everything except rent and food on occasion (I eat at home about once a week.), but rent is a lot of money. Oh well, I am going to stop whining now! I am going to quit writing this week’s journal for class because I am started to treat it like a diary. Thanks for listening to me vent for a little while, I feel better! Do you? (Ha!) Have a great week!!

I had another busy week! I had two tests and a quiz in my Anatomy class that took up most of my time for the week. I haven’t got either of the tests back but I think I did pretty well. Neither test was as difficult as I had anticipated. (Oh yeah, I got all the pts. on the quiz.) Unfortunately I spent all week studying which left me responsible for completing all the CD assignments this weekend. Along with CD, I had to work and I wanted to attend my county’s annual Relay for Life. Thankfully I did all of it and now I am exhausted. I started my CD work as soon as I got home from night class on Thursday. I worked consistently until I went to bed. The next morning I continued to work on CD. I completed a few assignments before I left for Relay for Life. I stayed all night at Relay for Life all night and I had a really good time. I left there only to go straight to work at 4:00 in the morning. When I got off work on Sat. afternoon I worked on a few more CD assignments before I passed out. I also had to go to work at 4 on Sunday so I didn’t get to complete all of the assignments until Sunday afternoon. I can’t wait to finish this journal because I really need a nap. It’s a good thing that I have always worked best under pressure and facing a deadline.

Our mission this week was to get caught up on assignments and do some library research. Getting caught up on assignments was the area that got me. If I had stayed on top of the assignments then I would have had an easy week! This week I managed to do some library research about my research topic, revise my essential and foundation questions, evaluate several resources, finish two genres, complete a project prospectus, and read some mail from my professional mailing list. I’ll start with the first assignment that I completed.

The first assignment that I attempted this week was the evaluation of resource assignments. In order to complete the first evaluation I went to the 315 homepage, clicked on assignments, and brought up the readings that accompanied the first evaluation. There were several articles listed to read that explained how to tell if a web resource is valid. I read all of the articles then decided to try my luck at the evaluation. By a small swift of the hand and a click I was on the evaluation form that we were suppose to use when evaluating the first article. I printed out the evaluation sheet and began to critique our resource. This article was about sign language with elephants. The article was only relatively interesting because the topic wasn’t my cup of tea. But interest was why I was looking at the article. I was there to evaluate how valid the information was based on how the website was set up. I read the evaluation sheet several times before deciding that the website was not a very valid source of information. After my conclusions about the website were drawn, I emailed my thoughts to the class website. The next two assignments were very similar to the last one. We were given different methods for the evaluation and got to choose our own site but the overall instructions were the same. After choosing the sites and evaluating them using each evaluation standard, I emailed my ideas about the assignment and the evaluation to the class. I mentioned this in my email to the class, but I think that this assignment is the most useful one that we have had to complete. I will definitely use the things that I learned from this assignment whenever I go to collect resources. I have learned how to narrow down all the clutter on the Internet by neglecting information that doesn’t provide information about the site. I have always known that anyone is able to put something up on the ‘net but I didn’t know how to decipher the “good” information from the bad. Now I do and I know it will save me a lot of time and energy.

The next assignment that I completed this week was the research assignment. This week we were asked to use Marshall’s on-line library to gather information about our project topic. This assignment wasn’t that difficult because someone had already explained the instructions of how to use the on-line library at the beginning of the semester. First, I clicked onto Marshall’s library, logged onto EBSCO, and began researching. The biggest problem that I encountered with this task was finding information that would really benefit me. After a while of looking at a huge variety of articles, I found several that would be very helpful to me. Then, I sent library information about five of the articles that I found to the class.

I think that the next thing that I did for the week was revise my essential question. The class met on Tuesday to discuss PowerPoint, and while we were there Mrs. McComas spoke individually with each person about their essential and foundation questions. I explained some of the problems that I was having and Mrs. McComas made some suggestions. I had previously known that it would be in my best interest to change questions and Mrs. McComas assured me that it was okay to change things when you encounter problems. I did all of this very early in the week but I did not put my new questions up until much later.

The next assignment that I completed was my poetry genre. This was a very tedious job. It took me forever. I decided to write my poem through the eyes of a child who has the disorder that I am researching. I really wanted to write a poem that sounded like a child wrote it so I decided to use rhyming. I did this because I do not know if I would have used other forms of poetry when I was younger. After hours of thinking I read the poem to my mom and dad and asked them if it sounded like it was coming from a child’s point of view. They said it did so I trusted their opinion and placed the poem genre on my weblog.

The last thing on my list of assignments for the week (or 2 weeks in my case) was to create my project prospectus. This assignment also required some thought. I had to think of all of the genres that I was going to use in my project. Before this assignment, I hadn’t begun to consider the genres that I was going to use. After a lot of thought and consideration, I choose my genres, completed my project prospectus, and posted it on the web.

The only thing that I haven’t discussed that was on my agenda for the week is my professional mailing list. All we were expected to do for this assignment was to get caught up on reading mail from the professional list. This was assignment was the easiest one of all because I didn’t left my email list get backed up before I started reading them. Thankfully, I read them as they come in. I don’t know if my mailing list is appropriate for the class but I really enjoy reading the emails. The list mainly consists of parents of children who have CAPD and some professionals. Usually a parent will write in about their concerns or to ask for advice and the other parents or professionals will respond to the email. I really like reading what the parents have to say.

Although I have had a very busy week, it has been productive. At the beginning of the week I was dreading getting everything turned in. Now, I am glad that all of the assignments were due. This way I have everything completed and I can start the new week fresh. If all of the assignments were not due by midnight tonight I know that I wouldn’t have completed them all and my panic attack would have been postponed. Even though I have been stressed, I really enjoyed several of the assignments. I really liked doing my poem genre. It was fun to try to look through the eyes of a child again. I know that sounds like I may have some problems, but it was really neat and I liked it. I also liked learning new things about web resource evaluation. I am not going to lie, I didn’t enjoy the assignment, but I enjoyed learning from it. I would have never learned about evaluating websites without the assignment so I guess it wasn’t that bad. I have been really stressed out about school this week which makes getting everything finished seem wonderful. I just have this class and Ant., but at times it seems more overwhelming than the fall or spring semesters. I think the reason why I think this summer semester is worse is because I have to sit in a classroom for 5hrs.-3 nights a week. My attention span really isn’t long enough to take a class that long. After 3hrs. the teacher really starts to lose me. Thankfully, the teacher of my Ant. Class has a wonderful personality. She is very funny and makes the 5hr. class feel like just 5hrs. instead of longer.