Tuesday 1 July 2014

Assessment Task 3 Report



CULINL30IA Develop and use information literacy skills and ICAWEB20IA use social media tools for collaboration and engagement
Assessment Task 3
Report
What is your topic
The topic was Canaries (Serinus canaria domestica)

Why did you choose it?
My Dad has been socially breeding Canaries for many years and I wanted  to know more about them and I felt that if I had to make a blog I would make a blog that I could use and that I would keep on with.

A)     How did you decide what to look for?
Since my Dad could not help with details, I started at the beginning with a beginners guide to Canaries and expanded each area as I could find information at the library and on the web.  From this I started with the birds and what they eat, how they breed, and continued on to cages and aviaries, then I looked for health and even training your canary.

B)      What was your required outcome?
To get enough information to create a blog that was informative, educational, accurate and that I could be proud of.

What retrieval strategies did you apply?
Google
Used reference book

Which of the following tools were relevant and why?

Print
Books on canaries gave me a start but most of the books available at the State library were a bit out of date and only gave me directions and reference points.

Non print - specify what social media tools have used and why. Give a definition of social media tools
www                     I used the internet to find information and linked websites to my blog
facebook             I found three

The book I use was Canary Owner’s Guide by Landmark Press as well as sever web pagers all of which were backed up by my book or each other.

Which information agencies or internet sites did you use?
I used information agencies such as library to source printed information about canaries and Google to source web information. I search for canary blogs and Facebook pages.

Why?
To make sure the information on my blog was accurate and informative for people wanting to find out more about canaries.

How did you analyse/sort the information?
I grouped the information on my blog according to topics, to make it easier for the users to find the links/information.
Visitors could scroll through whole blog by clicking “Canary Birds” and scrolling down or view individual posts by clicking on blog archive and selecting heading topic.

Did you need to reassess or follow up?
I need to fix up my link accreditations.
I need to take of ‘The Martha Stewart Blog’ as there is not enough information on the topic in this blog.
I would like to do another a couple of posts to keep it going a little bit.
I could not work out the Facebook widget and need to go back and fix that up.

How have you recorded and managed your information?
I recorded information by putting in posts.
I have one side bar showing all the links divided into topics. I have a translator at the bottom, so users who do not speak English can also read my blog. I have a Germany follower.

Evaluate of blogging experience 
I enjoyed the blogging experience and would do it again.
I had four weeks to have the blog completed, so I gave myself one to two weeks to do all the posts. They were all initially in draft and I made them live gradually. I continued to tweak as I learnt more about blog how to set out blog and found more on the topic.
I had trouble with background because it did not look how I wanted it to look. I had a bit of trouble getting the pixels down to the right size. I changed it about four or five times until I was happy with background.
I have tried to do Facebook widget but Google blogger will not allow me to add. I am still working on how to fix this. I hope to also add a Twitter widget too.
It was fun looking at the stats and the overview to see how many people had visited my site every time I logged on. At last count it was 270 hits.