My first concept is about e-Books and e-Readers. Times are changing, as we move towards the future more in physical information is turning into data information. Physical information such as books are now available online and through hand held portable computers such as kindles, I pads, and even cell phones. Which brings up the concern if the amount of time students actually read is increasing or decreasing. Do students prefer actual books or electronic books? In my opinion the electronic books are better not only in the making students read more but to making it convenient to carry many book at one including any text books college students may need for the classroom all in a lightweight portable computer rather than dealing the weight of many books or taking repeated trips to the lockers. I've added a video below to show you the top ten e book readers and the prices they range in.
Secondly I found the concept Free-Text, Keyword, and Boolean Searches. Free-Text searches are helpful when you are not quite sure what you're looking for but have somewhat of an idea. In this case you will get many search hits to look through to try and find what information you're looking for. If you know exactly what you're looking the Free-Text would somewhat of a headache considering that you would obtain a vast amount of information in which you weren't searching for. That's where Keyword come to play. Keyword searches are for more specific searches for users who know exactly the information they need to obtain and can find it in a matter seconds to minutes with least amount of irrelevant information. And Boolean helps specify searches by adding words such and, or,and not. OR would be used to make the search less restrictive as AND is more restrict and included other specific information and NO would be to exclude any and every unwanted information to specify the search.
Finally I found the last concept Wikipedia: An Online Encyclopedia to be interesting because it's an easily accessed well known website about fact and information that is constantly updated. Wikipedia has hundreds of millions of users that visit every year learning facts that other users have posted which is then verified by other online sources. That being said, Wikipedia is also known for having false information. There are thousands of users who post information on this Wikipedia daily making it nearly impossible for Wikipedia to double check every all information uploaded on the website whether false or true.
Now for my conclusion I found all three concepts e-Books and e-Readers, Free-Text, Keyword, and Boolean Searches, and Wikipedia: An Online Encyclopedia. Online reading material like e-Books and e-Readers seem to more convenient for use rather than regular books and seem to have peaked the interest of readers. Free-Text. Keyword, and Boolean Searches are used to specify, widen, and exclude in order make searches more adequate for obtaining any information. Meanwhile Wikipedia: An Online Encyclopedia is used for Biographies, stories, and history events but since these facts were written by many users who may not be well informed about the facts they are publishing it is pretty likely that some information on Wikipedia may false.
Resources:
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
O, M. (2015, January 9). Top 10 eBook Reader 2015/ Compare E-reader. Retrieved February 4, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzT-EshWwTI
Urich, C.(2015, February 4). Digital Blog Post #D. Created with PowToon https://www.powtoon.com/show/d4NFxNf8aIt/school-syllabus/#/