The Baltimore County Public Schools state the following on synthesizing.

"Synthesizing information requires a student to process and interact with information rather than simply copying and pasting information. Students are actively engaged with information when they categorize, analyze, combine, extract details, re-assess the value of the collected information, look for bias, omissions, etc. Finally, they related this new understanding to their own knowledge and experiences and develop new meaning or solution."

Prof A. Roux from USB also stated that one of the challenges with the "Scanning" assignment will not be to find relevant articles, but to decide what to include/exclude.

Well I have information overload and it is difficult to synthesize as well as decide what to include/exclude to make the Environmental Scan meaningful.

So, I am still enjoying the assignment, but its not an easy assignment at all.  :)

Well today I have wasted almost the whole day trying to get a certain batch of RSS feeds into Google Reader only to discover that Google reader does not cater for authenticated feeds.  

:(

There is a workaround to use FreeMyFeed, but that did not work to well either. 

double :(

I then tried a few RSS client readers only to discovered some time later that these specific RSS feeds do not conform to the latest XML required layouts.  

tripple :(

Now its back to creating these feeds and reading them within its own created environment and application.

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I have been doing a fair amount of additional reading and synthesis of articles for the SE, Scanning the environment, assignment.    It still amazes me how much information is available on the net, but also within Stellenbosch's research libraries.

The Stellenbosch information sources that interest me the most are:

• Research databases
• E-journals
• E-newspapers

The E-Journals specifically contain to many journals to mention and it is a real battle to chose the appropriate ones to read without drowning as a result of information overload.

In the Research database section it is "EBSCOhost" that intrigues me the most.    The databases in EBSCOhost contains a huge amount of information and I have a new respect for RSS feeds to assist with the scanning process.  :)

Well the studies are now in full swing.     It is difficult to balance study time, work time and family time, but that is to be expected.     I am enjoying the challenge to some extend.  :)

At the moment the "Scanning the environment" assignment is ongoing and it needs to be complete in 4-5 weeks time.   It is not going to be easy.     It is an enjoyable assignment, but as usual it quickly becomes challenging as time is limited.      I need to complete it as soon as possible before major work is started on the "African prognosis" assignment that I plan to do for Tanzania.

O yes before I forget.    For the "Scanning" assignment I am using the following toolset to try and keep the information flow under control.

• Google reader with some RSS feeds setup for the bulk of journals that I need to scan
• I am using the "Starred items" feature to identify interesting articles for further reading
• The Firefox "Scrapbook" plugin to manage the Journals/Websites that I am scanning
• Dropbox to sync the whole lot on multiple computers
• Open Office for the formal work product