There were a few interesting points in the Oxford periodical reading that stood out to me:
—The historical aspect: the oldest music periodicals featured only sheet music, no prose about music. I would be interested in looking at some of the earliest music periodicals (for fun, not as part of a research project).
— Another historical aspect: the composers (Schumann, Debussy, Berlioz and Schoenburg) who contributed to music periodicals. This reminded me of the fact that Dickens originally wrote "Great Expectations" for serial publication, and that great artists in many genres have written for periodicals.

Beall:
I have heard of this issue before. It is unfortunate that scholars are falling into this trap. Given what I have been told about the peer-review process, it seems that any true scholarly journal should have a number of steps required to submit a paper, and that a speedy process should raise a red flag.

Kolata:
I read this article when it came out! I hope that Beall's list is becoming more well-known and that scholars submitting to journals frequently check it.

Other questions:

— I have used periodicals for my personal life, but not for research. I have an hour-long commute on the subway to and from work each day and usually use at least half of that reading articles on the New York Times app for Iphone. However, I don't have very much experience actually citing articles from periodicals in research.

— At this point I'm not very comfortable finding periodicals, but I assume that the periodical assignment will help me become more confident. I do feel like the lesson on Boolean search terms and my own subsequent use of advanced searches will be helpful in sorting through periodical databases online.