1. Abby commented on my journal entries: ” . . . The only suggestion I could give is that the two entries are very different in format, and I’m not sure if that is what you intended. The second has a great deal of dialogue and less feelings or reflections. It has more of the feeling of a story/play/dialogue than the first entry.”
2. Abby commented on my brochure: “The only thing I could think of that you may want to consider is whether or not such a center (day care) would actually care for Stage 7 patients, and therefore provide services such as speech therapy for them since (even indirectly) since it isn’t a long-term care facility. Then again, maybe they could still provide services to the families even if the patient herself could not come for the services.”
3. Alyssa also commented on my brochure: “Did you ever consider allowing the client’s to stay and receive care if their family went out of town or caregiver became ill? . . .”

2. Quote three specific pieces of feedback (not the whole responses, just parts of responses) that you gave to someone else that you believe were most likely helpful to them in revising their own work. Include links to these comments.

1. I commented on Kara’s interview transcript: “I think that maybe the clinician could ask the mother about the actual implantation process. . .”
2. I commented on Abby’s newletter: “The only thing that I would recommend changing is providing a professional background of the guest editor. . .”
3. I commented on Kara’s podcast: “Do you know what the expressive vocabulary of a child with a cochlear implant is at 18 months of age (if they were implanted at 12 mos — if that was when Caden was implanted)? It would be interesting to know that to make a comparison to the 110 words of a child without a hearing loss.”

3.  Examine your examples for the first two items above and write about what this information tells you about the kind of peer responses you give.

I usually had a much easier time finding something to “bless” about my groupmates’ genres than telling them what to address.  These girls are my friends and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.  The more reviews I did, the more I realized that I wasn’t helping make their work stronger by not saying anything.  Criticism does not have to be hurtful if you give it constructively.  The reviews I got really helped me improve my genres and I’m grateful for that.  I also noticed that I when I say what to address, I seem to say it almost indirectly, by asking a question or saying “maybe you should think about changing this.”  I did not just come out and say, “This is what needs to be changed. . .”  I didn’t feel like it was my place to say “Change this!” because it is not my work and the author knows better than I do where she was going with a piece of work.  I felt like it was more my place to make suggestions about what might make the piece stronger.

4. Write a goal (behavioral objective) for yourself as a peer responder. Specifically (this is an important word as I do not mean generally), the next time you participate in a peer response group, what do you intend to do differently?

I will be constructively critical and honest when evaluating the work of my peers.  I will provide useful suggestions that will help improve the clarity of the piece and make the work stronger.

• To begin revising my genres for grammatical errors as well as improving the content.
• To provide helpful reviews of my groupmates seventh genres so that they will be able to use my advice to improve their work.
• To make one of my genres a unifying genre by using the SCAR method of revision.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week I learned about revising using the SCAR method. The SCAR method (S-substitution, C-cut, A-addition, R-rearrange) is more about revising content than correcting grammatical mistakes. I found this method to be helpful because it made me actually focus on the words and not so much on the structure and outward appearance. SCAR revisioning involves focusing on what the piece actually says and not what it was intended to say. Substitution is changing a word to a more appropriate one. Cut is removing unnecessary information and taking out the so-called “wordiness.” Addition is adding information to make the piece more clear. Rearrange is moving parts of the piece around so that they make more sense.

Procedural Knowledge:

In order to create my references page, I opened the Word document that I have saved on my computer that contains all of my references and then copy and pasted it into a new page in WordPress. I checked to make sure they were all in alphabetical order and checked to make sure the APA format was correct, then I published the page to my site. To make my table of contents, I typed the words Preface, Acknowledgements, About the Author, Unifying Genre, References, and Reflection into a new page. I opened a new tab in my internet browser (Firefox) and opened my Preface. I copied the link and then clicked the chain button in WordPress, pasted the link, typed Preface, and clicked insert. I followed this process for each entry in my Table of Contents. After I finished that, I added separate links to each of my genres so that the reader could navigate to each one without reading through the unifying genre. The unifying genre was something else that I needed to do. Up until this point, I was not really sure what to do for this genre. I read through Missy’s unfiying genre, a letter to a parent, and a lightbulb went off. I understood! I decided to make my journal entries my unifying genre because I felt they provided a lot of insight into the characters in my project and I felt it would be the easiest genre to incorporate all of my other work into in an “unobvious way.” I also used this genre to do my SCAR revisioning. I added two paragraphs to the first entry that explain how Elisabeth, Hattie’s daughter, came to find out about the daycare and how she decided to try it out. I added information about how she learned what speech therapy can do for a person with dementia and how she was thankful that her mother was receiving the services from the SLP. Each time I mentioned a genre, I linked the word to that genre so that the reader could click on the word and the page would open in a new window. In the second journal entry, I cut out the last two paragraphs because I felt they had too much dialogue in them, making them sound more like a script from a play than a journal entry, and added two paragraphs about communication strategies Elisabeth learned at a caregiver counseling session (my podcast) and the poem that Hattie wrote in a period of lucidity. This paragraph included feelings that Elisabeth has about her mother’s worsening dementia.

Conditional Knowledge:

The knowledge I acquired this week about SCAR revisioning will be very useful anytime I need to revise a paper I have written. I like that this method makes me focus on the content instead of the grammatical structure and typographical errors. Of course, while I’m reading through, I notice these things and fix them, but they’re aren’t what I’m checking for. In a way, I have sort of unknowingly used the SCAR method before when I proofread my boyfriend’s papers for him. I cut things out that aren’t necessary, rearrange sentences, and tell him where he might add some more information. I also circle words that I think might need changed and have him find a better one. I have noticed that I don’t do this as much with my own work, so I would like to try to use this method more personally in the future.

• To write a good preface for my MRP. I have put so much work into it up to this point that I feel like it deserves an appropriate and well-written introduction. I also wanted to write acknowledgments thanking all the people who deserved it and elaborate on the about the author section that I had already written just so there was something identifying me on the site.
• To come up with a good idea for my podcast then write out my show notes and record the podcast so that it sounds good.
• To provide my groupmates with helpful evaluations of their sixth genres.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week I learned strategies that the SLP can supply to the family of a person with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia to help facilitate communication. The most important thing that a person can do is just be patient and supportive for their loved one. I also learned that a preface includes information about why I wrote this project and my reasoning for why I may have chose a particular genre. I also learned about digital literacy and that it is made up of all the literacies I have been researching over the course of the semester.

Procedural Knowledge:

I wrote my preface first. To write this piece, I really just wrote what came to me. As I wrote, I tried to remember to include things that would give my weblog some credibility by explaining that I am in a class that requires me to research a specific topic. I included how I came to be interested in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and the purpose of my research. I wrote about why I chose specific genres and about what I had learned from doing this project. I feel like this is one of the chances that I have to explain myself, so I wanted to use it to its full potential. To write my acknowledgments, I thought of all the people who had helped me or influenced me throughout the semester. I actually wrote my About the Author twice. First I wrote it in third person, but I didn’t like how impersonal it sounded, so I rewrote it in first person. I included a brief history about myself, information about my education, some personal interests, and what some of my future plans are.

To write my show notes for my podcast, I found information about strategies for communication and then wrote about them in a dialogue that I thought an SLP might say when holding a caregiver counseling session. I made my podcast an excerpt from a counseling session that the SLP for Lakeside Place Day Care and Therapy Center held for caregivers and families. By doing this, I have related my podcast to several of my other genres. To record my podcast, I called GCast and read my show notes. I had to do this several times, either because I coughed or messed up or thought it sounded bad. After about 5 tries, I finally got one that I liked and saved it. Because I can’t get the player to appear in my weblog, I linked to my podcast on GCast from my page.

To write about digital literacy, I reviewed all of my other writings about the various types of literacy. I used that information to create a definitions for digital literacy and to write about the skills required to be digitally literate.

Conditional Knowledge:

The knowledge I acquired throughout the semester and this week will be useful to me for the rest of my career as a student and as an SLP. Many of the research skills I have learned will no doubt come in handy and I have also learned many other useful things, like how to create a podcast and how to make a PowerPoint, that I will hopefully be able to use in the future.

There are, of course, certain skills required to be completely digitally literate. Throughout the semester, I have listed skills required in order to be literate in each area. To be photo-visually literate, one must have a good visual memory and strong intuitive-associative thinking skills, which allow them to decode and understand visual messages easily. Information literacy requires skills to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information, as well as cite that information. Branching literacy requires a person to be able to navigate through cyberspace without getting lost, which means good mapping skills are useful. Being reproduction literate is being able to take original forms and create something uniquely your own from the pre-existing information (Children & Digital Literacy). Some skills are required of the person faced with this challenge. Those who are digitally reproduction literate have good multidimensional thinking skills which allows them to discover new combinations for creating meaningful information.To be socio-emotionally literate, one must be highly critical and mature, have good analytical skills, and also understand “Internet lingo” like emoticons and abbreviations. There is a lot of overlap, each literacy requiring knowledge of all the other literacies. Digital literacy then requires skills in each area. Digital literacy is a combination of technical-procedural, cognitive and emotional-social skills (Towards a Theory of Digital Literacy).

While my skills in some areas are stronger than in others, I would say that I have a pretty good command of my digital literacy skills. Most of these skills have been developed in college, when I really started using the Internet for research purposes. Some of only digital literacy skills I had in high school where social ones. I knew how to Instant Message and chat and I knew how to use search engines and things like that, but I really wasn’t that great at researching. I often found myself at a website that I thought was interesting and then would never be able to find it again.

I have said that each digital literacy is important in its own way to future education. A digital literacy class might be the best way to go. Then all the skills required could be taught in a semester. Since this might not be appropriate until later middle school or high school, I do still think that children should be taught how to use the Internet and how to protect themselves while they are young. Various literacies could be worked into other classes, like teaching reproduction and information literacies in English class for research purposes, but combining all the literacies into one class might be the best way to go.

• Learn how to use PowerPoint so I can create a good presentation.
• Continue my research on speech, language, and Alzheimer’s disease
• Learn about socio-emotional literacy.
• Provide my group members with good reviews of their fifth genres.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week I learned about creating PowerPoint presentations. I know that they are a visual medium and should be visually stimulating so I worked hard to keep it uncluttered and to the point. I also relearned many of the basics of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia including that Alzheimer’s is a progressive neurological disorder and the size of the brain actually shrinks because of the shriveling of brain cells. I learned that socio-emotional literacy is being able to tell the good from the bad and the right from the wrong on the internet. It is a skill that combines many of the other literacies and requires good analytical skills and a higher level of maturity.

Procedural Knowledge:

I wanted my PowerPoint to be something that the clinician could use to show to a family who has recently found out that a loved one has Alzheimer’s. The people viewing this presentation would be wanting to know what they can do to improve or preserve communication skills. To create my PowerPoint, I first visited Microsoft online to find a template that I liked and that I thought would work well with the theme of my presentation. After finding a template I liked, my boyfriend sat down with me and showed me the basics. I played with it for awhile, trying to get the feel for it, then I created my first few slides to answer some of my foundation questions: What is Alzheimer’s disease and what is dementia? After I sufficiently answered those questions, I wanted to provide an overview of what happens to a brain as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. I found some wonderful images on the Alzheimer’s Association website and used them to help illustrate my point. I also wanted to provide an overview of the seven stages of dementia, so I used several slides for this purpose. Several of my slides talk about what happens to communication in an AD patient and then I use the last several slides to discuss the benefits of speech therapy. For my references, I had to refer to my APA manual. In order to post my presentation to my weblog, I had to upload the file and then “send it to the editor” which placed a link in the body of my post. I saved it published it to the parent page of “Project Pages” then added a link to that page as well.

In order to research socio-emotional literacy, I referred to trusty Google to find the articles that I’ve been using to research the other literacies. I used the information I found to write about what I knew about socio-emotional literacy, if there were skills required to be socio-emotional literate, and how this literacy might affect future education. I posted my thoughts to my weblog.

Conditional Knowledge:

I am glad that I finally sat down and learned how to use PowerPoint because now I will be able to use the knowledge that I have acquired to create presentations in the future. I’m sure I’ll have to do this again at some point in time. I still hope to use my knowledge about Alzheimer’s and dementia in my future professional career. And I will be thinking of socio-emotional literacy next time I’m watching To Catch a Predator on TV (which isn’t very often because it creeps me out a little).

This is the most complex of the five digital literacies because it requires the Internet user to judge and assess others without ever really meeting them. This is where many of the literacies overlap so several skills are required. To be socio-emotionally literate, one must be highly critical and mature, have good analytical skills, and also have a good knowledge of information, branching, and photo-visual literacy skills. One must also understand “Internet lingo” like emoticons and smilies, which are used to express emotions, and abbreviations like LOL (Laugh Out Loud) and BRB (Be Right Back). I’d like to think that I have a pretty good command of these skills, but like most of the other literacies, no one ever really taught me. These skills have developed from years of using the Internet. I first started talking on Instant Messenger when I was 13 or so, and I would talk to anybody, it didn’t matter who. Sometimes I even went into AOL chatrooms. I was totally enamored by this new technology. Only now do I realize actually how dangerous that was.

Socio-emotional literacy could and should affect education, if not only to teach students how to be safe and smart Internet users. If you’ve ever watched To Catch A Predator on Dateline, it is shocking and disturbing the amount of grown adults who target children and adolescents for sex. And some of these people are prominent community figures, they’re doctors, teachers, preachers. I think that teaching children to protect themselves is the most important aspect of socio-emotional literacy. They need to be taught that if an instant message isn’t from a friend, that they shouldn’t respond. Children should also be taught about the dangers of MySpace and other social networking sites. These sites can be fun, but they’re also a great place for Internet predators to track down vulnerable children. I think it is very important for socio-emotional literacy to be taught in schools, for the sake of protecting kids.

• Continue my research on Alzheimer’s disease to find speech therapy techniques.
• Learn how to create a podcast.
• Learn how to make a Powerpoint.
• Provide useful feedback to my group members about their fourth genres.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week I learned about Podcasts. They can be used for more than I thought. Until now, the only experiences I had with podcasts were through my boyfriend and his iPod. He is subscribed to a few podcasts and the only one that I really know of is from CNN, so I thought that podcasts were just ways to listen to the news through your iPod. Now I know that they’re more than news, podcasts are a new way to share audio files on the internet. In a way, they’re kind of like weblogs. Anyone can create one if you know how.

This week I also learned that reproduction literacy is being able to take existing information and create something new from it, be it text, art, audio, etc. Reproduction literacy requires one to be literate in other areas too, like being able to find information, navigate through cyberspace without getting lost, and being able to provide proper citations.

Procedural Knowledge:

This week I learned how to create a podcast. To do so I had to create an account at gcast.com. I dialed the 1-800 number on my phone and recited my poem. When I was finished recording, I just had to wait for my podcast to show up on GCast. It was much simpler than I thought it would be.

I decided to do lesson plans for my fifth genre, because they are very helpful in answering my essential question. I got the lesson plan forms and instruction for SOAP notes and behavioral objectives from the MUCD form index. I used these to create what I thought were functional goals for my client, Hattie, who has Alzheimer’s and is in the fifth stage of dementia. Since I know she is probably past the point where much new learning is possible, I tried to focus on maintaining skills that she already has and giving her skills that will help her as her disease progresses into the later stages. I had the most difficulty creating an individual lesson plan for the group session. I was going to use the Aphasia Group lesson plan as a template, but the link is dead on the form index page, so I used the regular therapy lesson plan form. I tried to think of functional goals. I wanted to include some caregiver counseling, because I have some useful tips for caregivers about how to communicate with their family member with dementia, but I didn’t really think that fit into a lesson plan. I think I will include those in my PowerPoint instead.

To find information about reproduction literacy, as always, I turned to Google. I found some information from the same authors that wrote about the other literacies, but not much else. I think this must be a relatively new concept, because there really isn’t a lot of research out there on digital literacies. I used the information I found to write about what I knew about reproduction literacy, if there were skills required to be reproduction literate, and how this literacy might affect future education. I posted my thoughts to my weblog.

Conditional Knowledge:

The information I acquired about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia will be useful when I create the sixth and seventh genres for my project. I also hope that all this information will become useful in my future professional career, as I really want to work with these types of patients. I want to be able to help them communicate with their families using the skills that they have left. I want to help improve their quality of life. I will use what I learned about podcasts and how to create them within the next two weeks when I create a podcast as a genre for my MRP. I think I might also be able to use these in future projects and they are also a neat way to share audio files with friends.

This list seems to operate like a support group. I think that is its purpose. Sometimes it is easier for people to discuss their problems somewhat anonymously instead of in a face-to-face situation. Most of the list members are sons and daughters caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia. There are members from the professional community and those whose family members who have already passed on. They typically sign their postings like this:

Name: 24/7 caregiver to mother, age 87, late stage six/early stage seven

Sometimes members post with questions. One particular posting that received many responses was a question about the Safe Return program offered through the Alzheimer’s Association. The list member was wondering about how to get a bracelet for her father who would soon be moving into her home with her. There were many responses to her posting. One member told her to check with her local pharmacy. Many others directed her to the Alzheimer’s Association page where she could find information about the Safe Return program. One member even told if that if money was an issue, the Association offers scholarships to help offset the cost. Another member posted about her mother who constantly scratched during the night time, sometimes even removing her underwear in her sleep so she could scratch her thighs. Many list members responded with ideas about taking her to the dermatologist, buying her gloves, or buying one piece pajamas so she couldn’t remove them. It has been really interesting to read the responses these questions receive. It’s almost like no matter what the issue, someone else on the list has had to deal with the same thing, or at least something similar, and has some type of advice to offer.

Members don’t necessarily always post with questions, they often just post with an update on their family members who have Alzheimer’s. One woman has continually posted updates on an interesting but sad story about her mother-in-law. In short, her mother-in-law was due to be moved into an assisted living facility (which list member’s abbreviate ALF) in Tulsa. There was much talk about the woman’s husband and what he would do. Eventually, with help from the list members and doctors, it was decided that the husband was going to move in the with family while his wife lived in the ALF. To help him cope, many list members suggested a body pillow in the bed with him, so he wouldn’t feel so lonely at night and some anti-depressants to help him through the first few weeks. They also talked about medications to give the AD patient to help her while traveling. Just as the movers left with the furniture for Tulsa, the family found out that she was very ill, in fact, she was only given an expectancy of 1-2 weeks from Hospice. There were many replies to her postings, many simply offering their condolences, others offering information from similar situations they had been in with Hospice and end of life care.

Aside from questions and updates, Alzheimer’s and dementia in the news is the other big topic of discussion. I recall a big discussion about drivers with dementia and how important it is to not let them behind the wheel of a car. There was even a story from the news about an eighty-something year old many who hit the gas instead of the brakes and drove into an open-air market killing several people. He now faces life in prison. There have also been several discussions about treatment drugs. And when list members encounter an article in a newspaper or online, they typically post the link to the list for others to view. For these reason, this list can be very informative.

I believe the list moderator is a woman named Geri; when there are problems on the list, she seems to be the one who steps in. And there have been some problems, particularly over list members discussing politics. The issue that I am thinking about involves voting in elections. Those with differing view points get offended and post their rebuttal. Geri had to step in and explain that two years ago there was a big upheaval around the discussion of politics and that she wants the list to remain a place of support, not a political discussion board. I have not received any e-mails relating to politics since.

I really think this list does fulfull it’s purpose. No matter what the issue, someone has been there before and can offer advice and support to make it a little bit easier. They can even make light of what could be a difficult situation. It is also good for the caregivers to have a place to voice frustrations and not be judged. I think the fact that so many remain active members on the list even after their loved one has passed on is a testament to how helpful the list has been and how strongly they support it.

Being a member of this list has been really helpful to me for my MRP because it has given me some wonderful insights into the world of Alzheimer’s, for the patients and the caregivers.

An enormous amount of information exists on the Internet in the form of art, articles, essays, music, graphics, etc. Being reproduction literate is being able to take those original forms and create something uniquely your own from the pre-existing information (Children & Digital Literacy). Some skills are required of the person faced with this challenge. Those who are digitally reproduction literate have good multidimensional thinking skills which allows them to discover new combinations for creating meaningful information. Before you can reproduce information, you have to know how to find it, so other digital literacy skills are important as well – skills like branching literacy, information literacy, and photo-visual literacy, one should also know about the rules of copyright as well. It’s fine to reproduce information as long as credit is given to the original author.

This is an important skill for young students to be taught. The rules of plagarism go right along with this skill. Students need to be taught how to rephrase information that they find online or in other sources into their own words, and then they need to be taught how to properaly cite that information, whether it’s in APA or MLA format. Digital reproduction literacy could be included in the curriculum for English/grammar classes or in a digital literacy type of class. I was taught how to paraphrase and create my own ideas in school. I don’t remember when I started being taught this skill, but I do remember it really being emphasized in my eleventh grade honors English class. We were required to a research paper in that class and the teacher taught us about plagarism, directs quotations, paraphrasing, citations, etc. It was a good lesson in reproduction literacy. She explained how we could take information from several sources and instead of just quoting them directly, we could use what we had learned to create our own ideas. She said she wanted to read our ideas, not someone elses. I think that is an important to remember and I always try to keep it in mind when I’m writing.

• This week I really wanted to spend some time working on my fourth genre, a brochure for an adult day care facility. I knew that if I wanted it to be realistic, it was going to take some work.
• Do more research ony my topic. I want to find out as much information as I can about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia and the SLP’s role.
• Provide useful reviews to my group members about their third genres.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week, I spent a lot of time reading about adult day cares, specifically facilites for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. I found that there are two types of adult day cares, medical and social. The medical day care provides the same services as a social center, but also has medical staff like speech-language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, registered nurses, social workers, and dieticians. I did not previously know that some day care facilities also provide therapy services. That must be very efficient for the caregivers. Not only do they get a safe place for their loved one while they go to work or take the afternoon off, but they can also get the therapy services they need at the same time! I also learned a lot about designing a medical day care. The environment of this type of facility should accomodate behavioral changes, maximize abilites, promote safety, and encourage independence. Signs need to be at eye level, so they are in the patients’ visual field and should be simple so they are comphrehendable. All exits should be monitored with some type of alarm system to prevent patients form wandering away. Handrails should be installed in the hallways, as well as in the bathrooms, and floors should have good traction, to help prevent falls. The amount of acoustical stimulation should also be minimized. There should be no PA system or music playing throughout the entire building and sound absorbing matierials are good for rooms with a lot of background noise. Rooms should feel homey and comforting, not stark and univiting. Patients are more comfortable in a welcoming room decorated with couches, pillows, and paintings than in a room with white walls and metal chairs.

I also learned about branching literacy. I had not had much exposure this concept until now, but I learned that branching literacy is being able to construct knowledge from non-linear, hypertextual navigation. In simple terms, it is being able to take the pieces of knowledge you obtain while navigating your way through multiple websites and make sense of them when you combine all of those bits to form a whole. Many of us have obtained branching literacy skills on our own, through trial and error. This is most definitely a necessary skill to obtain on the road to becoming a digitally literate person. Branching literacy skills are important! If you think about all the things you can do on the Web now, from finding a job to ordering shoes to doing resarch, the ability to find your way through cyberspace is essential.

Procedural Knowledge:

There were many steps involved in the process of creating my brochure. First, I opened Paint on my desktop and created a box, which is the outline for my brochure. I fiddled with the color scheme until I found one that I liked and then created boxes of color within the outline. I came up with the name, Lakeside Place (I got the name from my elementary school, Lakeside Elementary), and created a Text Box to type it in. I choose Book Antiqua font for my brochure. Next, I did a Google Image search for pictures of “elderly people” and “happy elderly people.” The second search term returned the picture that I chose to use for the cover of my brocure. After I pasted it and resized it, I typed a small number “1″ in the corner so I could cite it later. Next, I created multiple pages by copy and pasting the cover image onto a blank page. Each time I would draw a white box in the center so I could start each new page.

To create the inside of the brochure, I used my sources to see what types of things a medical day care facility should offer to its clients. The second inside page relates to my research question about an SLP assisting Alzheimer’s patients with Stage 5 dementia. I addressed the types of therapy the SLP does, when she is on-site, and how she goes about therapy with patients in the various stages. The last page is a sample calendar, so potential clients can see what types of activities are offered by this facility. I wanted to include functional activities like ADL’s, exercise, therapy time, and also social time. When I was finished, I went back and created a Footnots reference list so I could give credit to my information.

Posting these images to my weblog was difficult. WordPress doesn’t allow the uploading of pictures (and if they do, I don’t know how!), so I needed an external source to host my images. I created a Webshots account and tried to upload my pictures, but they were saved in Paint is bitmap files, so I had to go back and resave them as JPG instead. Then I tried linking the pictures that way by using the insert image box that looks like a tree and putting in the Web address. This did not work. I could see the pictures in the Edit Post screen, but when I viewed them on the page, they didn’t show up. So I tried Photobucket. As far as I know, this is working. I can see the pictures and I sent the link to my sister and she saw the pictures, so I think I was successful.

To research branching literacy, I used Google to search for “branching literacy.” I found a few useful sites, but mostly sites about “Branch” libraries and their “literacy” programs. Luckily the few sites I found were credible and I used them to write about what branching literacy is. I took that information and thought about whether they were skills required to be branching literate (yes!) and how branching literacy will affect education.

I also reviewed 2 of my group members, Abby and Kara’s, third genres using the format provied on the class website. Actually, I also reviewed Alyssa’s by mistake. But I suppose that doesn’t hurt anything. Reviews are always helpful.

Conditional Knowledge:

The information I acquired about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia will be useful when I create future genres for my project. I also hope that all this information will become useful in my future professional career, as I really want to work with these types of patients. I know that I won’t be curing this patients, but I think it is important to work with them and teach them how to use their existing communication skills. Caregiver counseling is also very important in this and I found a lot of information about communication tips for caregivers.

I learned about branching literacy and now, when I’m searching the Web, I will know that I am using my non-liner, hypermedia navigation skills. Very handy.

Additional Comments/Question:

I was not sure how to go about doing footnotes for my brochure. I looked all through my APA manual and couldn’t find any useful information about this. I am actually not even sure if it was okay for me to use footnotes. I just thought they appeared nicer for that type of genre. Also, I wasn’t sure what information to includge when citing my images.