1. Summative Reflection:
Comment on each of the technologies we implemented, making sure to touch upon ease of use,
quality of information gathered, and potential for further use:
PLE: The PLE was somewhat difficult to set up at first and kind of useless when all we had up
were websites such as noodle tools, wiki spaces, and scoop it. I thought to myself, what’s the
point of going to one website to get to another when we could just go directly to that second
website. But, after research had begun, the PLE served as home for the research we found,
which was its main purpose. With all of our research in one place, it was much easier to make
bibliographies and gather data. I personally like the PLE and it should definitely be used in the
future.
RSS feed: I didn’t really understand the RSS feed because I missed the class period in which it
was described to us. It wasn’t very hard to set up, but I didn’t get any useful information from
it. That may have been because our topic is hard to get updated information for, but I think a lot
of people didn’t find this as useful as they previously thought. It could be used in the future,
but I didn’t find much use for it this time.
Scoop It: I found scoop it to be helpful at first, but with our short amount of time, I didn’t get to
explore what it really could do. In the end I stuck with the traditional ways of research. The
information I got from Scoop It wasn’t terrible, but there’s definitely better stuff out there. Also,
using scoop it is kind of hard because not everything is related to your topic, and your articles
don’t always get saved (at least in my case). If we had more time, I feel that Scoop It would be a
great way to gather information, and it should be tried again next year.
Videos/Interviews/Documentaries: Videos and documentaries were very easy to find, but did
not present great information. I know that personally, I didn’t use a lot of information from my
video, but that maybe different for my peers. Videos are, however, a different form of research
and kept me interested. They can be of great help depending on your topic, so they have lots of
potential.
Audios: Our group did not find any audios during our research. If we did, I would think they
would be hard to gather information from and not very effective because there is nothing for
the eyes to do.
Wikispace: The wikispace was wonderful. It placed our whole project on page and was very
easy to use. Along with our own project, we could see our peers’ projects and make sure we
were at the same step of the process they were. Another benefit of the wiki would be to help our
peers edit their projects. It was a great way to set up the project and has plenty of potential.
Wordpress: Wordpress was actually very fun to use. Tracking our selves through our blogs was
an effective way of helping us realize what we needed to do, and I’m sure that it helped our
teachers know we were not goofing around. It was easy to use and should definitely be used in
the future.
Voice Thread: Voice thread was a fun and easy way to present our information. The website
was easy to use and provided a way to record our information on to each slide. The final

2. product turned out well. I would encourage anybody to try using voice thread instead of the
traditional paper.
To what extent did this type of learning (completely student-centered with teacher as facilitator
rather than focus; self-guided; choice-based) result in a meaningful learning experience for you?
Please explain.
This type of liberal learning was wonderful. We completely decided our own fate
because there was no teacher to guide us. I felt free to research at my own pace on the subject
that I wanted to. We learned about more than just prisons through this project. It was very fun
and hopefully this type of research is encouraged in future years.
Remember that we fully understand the limitations and stress that came as a result of trying to do this
project in so little time at the end of the year. We appreciate your willingness and your enthusiasm, and
we even appreciate your candor in evaluating the process. That being said, what suggestions can you
make that will help us refine this assignment for future students. What did you like best? What did you
not like? {We know more time, and not at the end of the year; you don’t need to tell us that!}
I loved the fact that we could research what we wanted and on our own time. It was also cool because
we could choose our own final product and work with who we wanted to. The only thing I didn’t like was
the source requirements. Some topics don’t have sources in every form and it was difficult to find good
information in some forms.