Information Inquiry

Wish I had more time. Wish it hadn’t been for a grade. Wish I’d been working on this with friends or classmates and not alone. Wish I could have sent it to this class of Information Inquiry classmates, had it critiqued by them, then had a chance to revise it before it was finally graded.

Wish I knew how to use my new MAC better. Wish I still had my PC for this course.

Mostly I wish I were born a concrete sequential thinker and a random abstract thinker, so I could combine the two and pool my creativity with organized thoughts. 

One of the most difficult challenges throughout this process was explaining how and why I made the choices I did. On the ISTEP kids sometimes have to show their work. It’s hard for me to explain how I think, to show my work because it is so random. I think in clusters, not linear.

Following a process of selecting and organizing information isn’t natural to me. I may think about my trip to Boston, then the Freedom Trail, then Paul Revere’s house, then it would be very common for me to think about the family with the obese and obnoxious kids who walked ahead of me into the house, then I might think about what I ate yesterday and wonder whether it will turn to fat. Next I’ll be back at Paul Revere’s house, think about him riding to warn the colonists of the arriving British, wondering if his horse got tired.

Still, I’m intelligent and have learned ways to assimilate and present information to others. This journey to teach the Freedom Trail has been fun and interesting, but mostly frustrating because the final product isn’t transferring successfully from my MAC to the ONCourse site. Some of the links won’t stay the color I’ve selected. The look isn’t what I want it to be. The content is fine.

Students have the same kinds of thoughts I have when doing personal inquiries. Depending on the subject matter, depending on the way the students thinks and learns and the mood they are in at the time they’re researching colors the outcome. Kids are just like me in smaller bodies and younger minds. This process has made me more aware though of the need to be patient and flexible with kids.

I don’t think I’ve successfully conveyed how much I personally value the history to be learned by a visit to Boston. Virtually or in person.

I think kids will be fine with the lesson as few if any of them will have traveled the Freedom Trail. I think they like the visual presentation and learn from it. As I mentioned previously it’s geared towards middle school 7th graders.

It could also work for elementary school, 4th and 5th grade. Probably taking out most of the links to the Freedom Trail and concentrating on 5 instead of all 17 sites. Young students like play acting, too, and they know how to create power points.

More often than not I think and create quickly skipping valuable processing steps. This assignment makes me recall how important being thorough is for my well being. By referring to inquiry models and using all the steps the outcomes of research will be more successful, and I’ll feel more satisfaction.

The Blue Book, Constructivism by Danny Callison, pg. 334, “learning is an active process of constructing rather than acquiring knowledge, instruction is a process of supporting that construction rather than simply communicating knowledge.”

I wish as a young person being educated, teachers would have had The Blue Book for reference. I wish they had taught me the difference between constructing, acquiring, and communicating knowledge. Still, I’m glad to be learning it now.

The Freedom Trail is being shared with all of you. Oh, I wish I’d had more time to tweak it to death, to revamp it, to create it for different age groups. I’d like to have a job simply working on making the Freedom Trail engaging for all. It has so much potential.

The local middle school social studies teachers may find it interesting. Certainly, my family members will receive an invitation to view it.

My best friend, a middle school social studies teacher from North Carolina will be invited to view it and no doubt have much feedback.

Finally, it will be stored with many other lessons created over the years. How valuable it will be remains to be seen.

Here is is:

freedom-trail-pdf

I found so much information it was a huge challenge to incorporate it into a product. I decided to gear the product towards 6th graders, so it was important to select information that wouldn’t overwhelm the students but give them a content rich lesson appropriate for their age.

After finding a gazillion resources such as, videos, utube, students in other school’s work on the same topic, student friendly websites, art work, my own postcards from my personal trip to Boston, and local, national, and even British teacher’s approach to teaching the American Revolution, I realized I had to concentrate hard on trimming all of it.

I limited the amount of slides I created, but added solid information on each slide. This should create a good foundation from which I can create extended lessons on the same subject.

After viewing and reviewing the Power Point we can being to extend.

I have a strong theater background, so the kids could become citizens of Boston during the 1770′s. They could create their own script based on what they’ve learned in The Freedom Trail. Then we could portray ourselves as contemporaty citizens of Boston and discuss how what happened in 1775 affects us today.

Students can create their own power points based on sites along The Freedom Trail or on key figures of the American Revolution.

A great resource I’ll use is located in Curriculum Connections, chpt. 5, Librarian Morphs into Curriculum Developer by Charlotte Vlasis. 

Step 1 Standards

Step 2 Brainstorming

Step 3 Essential Questions

Step 4 Assessment

Step 5 Post Unit Reflection

It’s practical, sensible, and thorough.

1. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
2. I have spent hours and hours creating the project, editing, revising, editing, revising, reading, researching.
3. I have finally become ill, literally. I picked up some kind of virus.
4.  My defenses wore down with all the juggling of personal, job, and school responsibilities. 
5. So there.
6. Does everyone who reads this feel sorry for me?
7. No?
8. Well then…
9. Putting the project together is going well, terrible, pretty good, excellent, sucky, not so bad, and okay.
10. I think learning can be painful, and I’m really working hard at learning in this course.
11. Did I mention PAIN?
12. It’s a good thing I love information and the subject of my project “The Freedom Trail.”
13. It’s a good thing I love to learn.
14. It’s all salve for the journey.

Once I decided that this project would ultimately be used for middle school students it made discriminating between resources I wanted to use and resources I did not want to use fairly easy. Middle School students will not burrow into too much information, so the resources need to be succinct. This age needs something to engage them other than lengthy printed information. 

Some kids are visual, and some are auditory, and some are both. The resources I chose have photographs, brief explanations of sites on the Freedom Trail, and even a video on how a middle school age student might have lived during this period in American history. Very appealing and engaging to kids.

That’s what I’m going for – information that is engaging and appealing to middle schoolers.

This is also the stage that Carol Kuhlthau describes as the 4th part of Stages of the Information Process model labeled Focus Formulation. The task is to formulate a focus for the encountered information, sometimes characterized by a sudden moment of insight. One of the strategies is choosing a particular focus while discarding others.

The resources for The Freedom Trail are outstanding. It’s exciting to find so much rich potential for learning on this subject. Websites abound.

Many are geared toward educational research and are student friendly.

Freedom Trail Fieldtrip

http://curricula–region.suite101.com/article.cfm/boston_freedom_trail_fieldtrip

http://www.worldstrides.com/OLC/main/default.asp

Freedom Trail Highlights http://www.worldstrides.com/student_center/sitesandsnapshots/colonial_sites/boston.asp

A powder monkey on the USS Constitution – a boy’s lifehttp://www.nps.gov/webrangers/easy/tour1/powdermonkey/index.html

http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/

Freedom Trail map: http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/maps/pdfs/boston-nps-map.pdf

Places on the Freedom Trail to study: http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/maps/pdfs/audio-guidebro.pdf

Choose 10 places on the Trail, create a list of priorities and detail why these 10 places fit the criteria.

Virtual Tour: http://gonewengland.about.com/library/blfreedomtrailindex.htm

Maybe the kids and I should create a trip to Boston. How many days, where will we stay, what will it cost, where will go, what will we see, what activities will be do when we return, how will we prepare for the trip?

Book titles.

http://www.fourcornersbooks.com/freedomtrail.html

Art work. Photographs. And the possibilities for springboarding from The Freedom Trail into other interesting subject areas is equally exciting. Paul Revere’s home is on the Freedom Trail. Let’s study Paul Revere. The cemetary where Benjamin Franklin’s parents are buried as well as John Hancock are along the way. Let’s study these important men. The harbor where the Boston Tea Party took place is in sight as we walk the trail. Hey isn’t that a replica of the ship where the Boston Tea was dumped overboard? I mean a real ship that we tour, not a miniature. It’s floating in the harbor. Do we detect a hint of Earl Grey still drifting through the air? 

Kids can dress up as famous and not famous citizens living in Boston and other kids can be tourists, just like they do in Boston today. Costumed kids have to know the background of their character. Tourists have to know the times and ask relevant questions of the characters about themselves and the historic time.

I had thought I wanted to create an Inquiry for 7th graders, but after deciding on the topic and content I discovered that Indiana 7th graders don’t study the American Revolution.

Ergo, the URL for the IN Academic Standards for 6th grade Social Studies is

http://www.doe.in.gov/standards/docs-SocialStudies/2007-SS-Grade06.pdf

The specific standards I’m correlating are:

Standard 1  HISTORY 

Historical Knowledge - Early Modern Era: 1500 to 1800

6.1.13 Explain the origin and spread of scientific, political, and social ideals associated with the Age of Enlightenment. (Individuals, Society and Culture)

 Example:

The American and French Revolutions and the spread of democratic ideals 

Standard 2   CIVICS AND GOVERNMENT

Functions of Government 

Project 1 is on its way. I’ve chosen a topic that I really like, and I know it has value to students as well as others. It’s a good fit for me personally and as an educator.

1. What do I think is interesting about Boston? American History, Kennedys, architecture, Harvard, food, accents.

Boston is too big to cover. 

2. Which of those topics can I turn into an interesting presentation in a short amount of time? All of them! But I HAVE to choose.

3. Maybe it’s important to choose something that can be turned into a lesson I can use at school.

4. And what do I feel the most comfortable in exploring right now? The topic I learned the most about was the American Revolution history. The Freedom Trail is a stand out tourist attraction in Boston. I spent time in the North Church and Paul Revere’s home and walking the Freedom Trail.  The Freedom Trail has a lot of potential for study and research. It’s relevant to all ages; it’s interesting.  It feels like the best choice.

 Where will I collect resourcrs?

One of my favorite resources is Follett’s Titlewave, on the internet. It’s a warehouse with 1000′s of library resources, particularly books. And I’ll be researching the internet for websites relevant to middle school. It just occurred to me while typing this entry the importance of further limiting my topic. Even the Freedom Trail may have too much information for me to cover. 

I choose the 8 W’s of Information Inquiry. Of course Dr. Lamb required it as part of the assignment, but I still choose it. sniff…
(This model was developed by Annette Lamb in the early 1990s. It was published in the book Surfin’ the Web: Project Ideas from A to Z by Annette Lamb, Larry Johnson, and Nancy Smith in 1997 and in an article called Wondering Wiggling, and Weaving: A New Model for Project and Community Based Learning on the Web (Learning and Leading With Technology, 1997, 24(7), 6-13).)

 Even though I still am getting information overload in the class, I prefer it to information underload. I’m trying to stay focused with the vast array of choices, and find it challenging. It’s difficult to know what to ignore and what to absorb. Successful time management requires sorting through all of Dr. Lamb’s course offerings efficiently. It’s getting to be more comfortable, but I have this nagging feeling that I’m losing a lot of good stuff. 

As a professional librarian, it’s killing me to discard any of it. My motto, even though it’s a curse, is “Everything has value.” Still…discard I must.

Onward “ho.”

I just reread this. Maybe what I really mean is discriminate rather than discard. I need to discriminate between information that I actually need and will use at a given time and information that I have to let go. I mean is isn’t as if the information will suddenly disappear if I don’t use it. It’s not going anywhere. 

I wonder though will I be able to take a subject I love like Boston and history, describe it online succinctly, and engage students to appreciate it, and even enjoy studying it. 

I hope to teach students the difference between primary and secondary sources, where to find them, how to use them. 

Information Power, chpt. 2, Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning, p. 13, Examples of Content Area Standards, History – Knows different types of primary and secondary sources….

!st project…must write on blog, must discuss how I’m thinking, must share with others, must get through this course with some degree of pride in tact.

I’m in North Carolina for Labor Day weekend with close family friends and one of my 4 adult children. My life long friend, Kathie has taught middle school for over 20 years. My daugher, Jordyn, works with elementary-middle age kids in inner city Boston.

Maybe you need to bounce your class assignment off of these excellent resources, Ann.  We ‘re on our way to tube down the New River, a longish drive through the Applachian mountains. A captured audience. Good time to pick brains.

After complaining about being overwhelmed by all of the information and links and resources and assignments, blah, blah, blah, I get down to business. What shall I use for my subject?

How about:

A visit to Korea ( my youngest son is an adopted Korean who just returned from his first visit and meeting his birth mother), being a professional actress, traveling around the world, drilling for oil in environmentally protected areas, making ethanol in Indiana, a virtual tour of Boston? I like all of these topics and so many more…Get focused, Ann. Kathie and Jordyn, like the drilling and ethanol idea, but the tour of Boston also appeals to each of us.

What subject will give me the biggest bang for my buck? One that has appeal to students, that has a lot of potential for questions, research, answers. Ethanol or Boston? I know more about Boston having made my first visit last March. I visited Jordyn during spring break, so the trip is memory fresh.

Okay, Ethanol in Indiana is shelved. Boston wins. Now…what about Boston? Contemporary Boston? Harvard? Architecture in Boston? Development of Boston from a small ocean town to the city it is today?

What do I already know about any of these areas? Not much except historical Boston having studied it in school and touring it by foot, tour trolley, and foot last March. It makes sense to go with the most knowledge I already have and build on it. I choose historical Boston, but what part of its history and how much? The Revolutionary War history seems obvious. It’s relevant to every American. Well, it certainly SHOULD be at any rate.

Now I have a subject area and a focus. I like it. I’m excited to begin!