Final Reflection

I guess the main point of my final reflection is that this was a worthwhile project for me. It had very authentic application to something I really wanted to do.

If there's one complaint I have, it would be having to try to follow a model and cite professional literature. That was a real drag. I just wanted to be free to explore without having to label everything I was doing. I kept looking back through the other models to see if another would be easier, but none of them seemed to be any easier. I think I was following the best one actually.

You know how at the beginning of the year teachers do getting-go-know-one-another activities of some sort? This would be great for that! I may have to do it at least with 6th graders. I don't know if I could get the computer room to do everybody. Maybe this would be a good way to get some collaboration going right away. I'm sure there's a teacher or two who would welcome me having this activity all figured out and ready to go on the first or second day. And it would be a chance for that free inquiry!

What standards, you might ask? I'm sure it would tie in with a number of them, but at 6:00 in the morning having worked on this project all night, I'm only going to mention two. Information literacy standard 1.2.2 states, "Demonstrate confidence and self-direction by making independent choices in the selection of resources and information." A 6th-grade English/Language Arts standard 6.4.6 states, "Use organizational features of electronic text (on computers), such as bulletin boards, databases, keyword searches, and e-mail addresses, to locate information." The process wouldn't have to be as complicated as we made it. It could be as simple as using writers notebooks to brainstorm a list of options, choose something, journal about findings, and share. It could be something a students decides to expand upon for a writing project later on.

Well, it is now almost 6:20 a.m. Time for bed, folks! I hope you enjoy my project!

Sandy

From Wiggling to Weaving and Wrapping

Well, the first disappointment was discovering there was no downloadable software program on FamilySearch (the correct name, by the way). It's either not there anymore, or it was on ancestry.com where I saw it. Obviously, I couldn't go to church at 12:30 in the morning to access ancestry.com for free, so I decided to do a Google search for "free downloadable family tree." The first result looked perfect! The URL http://www.myheritage.com/ said "Create, print, and publish your family tree. Completely free!" The web page was called MyHeritage. It turned out to be a genealogy software for Windows called "MyHeritage Family Tree Builder." I downloaded it and decided to investigate how user-friendly it was and what it could do. It was so easy! A Wizard guided me in entering my parents and us kids. I wanted to enter photos, so I looked in the User's Guide under "Handling Photos and Other Media." I found out the software has a photo handling tool. What a nightmare that turned out to be, though! Not because of the software (It's a snap!) but because of our old, junky scanner with its stupid, junky photo editing program! It wouldn't even let me save in "My Pictures!" I spent about two hours trying to find out where it was saving my pictures on the C: drive. Then I spent a couple more hours going through getting the photos scanned, saved, and imported into my project. But guess what?! When I finally went to save my project, I got a publish option to set up a site for my project! Therefore, you can view my project at http://www.sandrareid.myheritage.com/. The bad news is that the web site will only let you see part of my information without joining. The good new is, though, joining only takes a couple of seconds and is free. What do you have to lose?

I'm looking at page 54 of our Blue Book again where the 8Ws are. Oddly, I think I kind of stayed in the Wiggling stage, along with the Weaving stage, until I got to Wrapping. The reason I say this is because I thought I had more information to find while I was creating my family tree until I got to that surprise, unexpected place where I found out I could publish on MyHeritage. When I got to that point, my ideas to look for scrapbooking paper and a place to publish went out the window. I was thrilled with what I had! I can keep adding to my family history, and all of my family can easily access it. I really like how I can store photos in there also. I'm the lucky one in the family to have all the family pictures, and everyone is always wanting copies. There are more cool features that I will check out at a later date.

Well, time for a short breather! Be back shortly!

Sandy

Reviewing, Reflecting, and Moving On!

Well folks, here I am again at last! I don't know if any of my fellow bloggers will be reading this since the project is over, but this is what happened to me. My husband and I received some damage from the recent hurricane's strong winds in our area. My husband, Bill, has a physical disability, so there's a limit on what he can do. We can't afford to hire much done while I am not working. So, most cleanup fell on me. It took several days, and I got behind on my four very demanding classes. Annette was good enough to let me extend my project for another week. So, as I said, here I am! Thanks again, Annette! I really appreciate it! Are you sure you're not a Mormon because you could have fooled me! I asked for an extra day (which would have been impossible actually), and you gave me a whole week! If I burn the midnight oil tonight, I should finally be caught up!:)

I just spent some time reviewing what I have done so far and thinking of how this definitely simulates what might happen with students at my school! We only have one computer room and three to four computers (usually at least one of which is out of order) in our classrooms. Everyone has to share. Plus we sometimes have some kind of training sessions going on out of the blue without prior notice (you just show up with your kids in the computer room and find out you can't use it) and we have standardized testing (Scantron) eight weeks out of the year. Therefore, it just might happen that you start an inquiry project that you have to get back to after a time lapse. Difficult! I don't even think I have the same enthusiasm or momentum! This is now so yesterday! I'm afraid of the reaction the kids might have, seeing as how they have about a two-minute attention span! They do really love to do things on computers, though, so it might be all right. If not, I know just what will work. If they break our #1 classroom rule - Thou shalt not whine - I will say, "Well, let's go back to the classroom then, and I'll give you some seat work to do." Then they will say, "Oh no, Mrs. Brown! We're sorry! We love you! We won't whine anymore! We want to do this!" And they will dare anyone to open their mouths. "Mission Rejuvenation accomplished!"

Something else I noticed while I was reviewing is that I forgot to mention what I did with the information I found on my search at familysearch.org. I organized the information I found into a family tree in my genealogy book. The Church already has forms available for this either in the Church Family History Center or from the Church Distribution Center in Salt Lake. I could have printed off a family group sheet already filled out from familysearch.org (That's how the information is organized on there). However, I kind of like filling blank forms out by hand for my working documents. I think what I have found for my family tree so far is all I will probably use at this time for my project. I have a pretty good foundation. I would like to branch out now with some new questions:

1. Will the software I found on familysearch.org be sufficient and user-friendly enough for making a colorful family tree for my family history book and class project?
2. Are there any free, user-friendly sources for making a family tree online?
3. Are there free downloadable scrapbooking papers available online, or will I have to buy scrapbooking papers and scan them into a document?

One eventual goal I have is to make our family genealogy and family pictures available for all the members of my family in some format. I don't know what that will be yet. It depends on what I find.

You know, I really like having the choice to do an inquiry on anything I want. It does make a difference in my enthusiasm for the project. I noticed that on page 63 of our book The Blue Book where it talks about I-Search, it says "Frustrated with student papers that dealt with topics of little interest to the students or to him, Ken Mcrorie (1988) moved the typical research paper into a personalized learning experience." It stands to reason that a research project loses authentic application if you're not doing it because you're interested in it or need to know something. However, as far as teaching in a school setting, I just can't get past all those overwhelming standards for which we are responsible. I just can't get past thinking that guided inquiry is the only way of getting through what the kids are really supposed to know. Sadly, there's just not enough time for a lot of personal inquiry. I think there's some wiggle room for making choices within guided standards-based broad topics, but I just don't really see much time for the kids to have free reign. I think, at this point, that's the main difference I see between the kids and myself. There may be some topics they will either have to investigate on their own time or wait to investigate due to need when they are an adult like me. For school, I discovered they can usually identify something they find personally interesting under the broad academic topics. Providing them copies of the standards and having them track what we do helps them to settle down also because they understand how many expectations there are and what needs to be accomplished. They become accountable for how many of those darn standards they can check off.

Ok, let's sum up what I've done so far. I'm looking at the 8Ws now on page 54 of our Blue Book. Watching: check. I explored possible topics to research. Wondering: check. I found my area of focus in family history and came up with some questions. Webbing: check. I organized information into a family tree. Wiggling: check. I think I'm stuck in this stage right now. I'm not quite sure where I'm going. I need to look for more ideas. So, here I go getting started at almost midnight on September 29, 2008. Be patient. I might need a power nap here and there. But, by golly, there will be a Project 1 to submit tomorrow!

Sandy

Whoops! And Waving!

I almost forgot! I think I've been doing some waving, too! Once again, thanks to my responders and your valuable information. I hope you visit again! Your responses have given me a testimony of how important this particular step can be!

Thanks a bunch!
Sandy

S574 Wondering Webbing Wiggling

Thanks so much to my responders! I got some really good advice I have already taken to heart, including a place to post my final project that sounds perfect!

Today I think I may have done some wondering, webbing, and wiggling. Since we have a family history center at church, I contacted my friends, Minnie and Darrell (wife and husband) who work in it a couple of days a week. Since my last attempt at genealogy was back when there wasn't a lot online, my first question was, of course, if I could do it totally online. My second was if I could do it from home (for free or subscription). My third was what web site was sponsored by the Church because I knew that's where I could find reliable information, find out what ordinances had already been performed in the temple, and obtain the information I needed to take to the temple if I want to do work for ancestors (I know all this sounds pretty weird and foreign to anyone reading who is not Mormon).

I found out most of the searching can be done online. Maybe not all. If I can't find it online, I may have to do some old fashioned searching, even if it entails looking for grave stones or writing to courthouses for copies of records. The Church genealogy web site is http://www.familysearch.org/. I have to create an account with my Church ID number to be able to submit information and view ordinance work. Minnie went in under her account so we could view information and do some searches. I knew that a lot of my family information would already be in there because my mother does a lot of genealogy. I had questions as we went along like if I can click on a person's name and get more information about that person (the answer being yes). I also learned that I could click on a name and view a timeline of that family or get a map of the area where the person lived. It was really cool!

We decided to try to find some information about people on my husband Bill's side of the family. We used Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/). This is a subscription site that is quite expensive. The Church subscribes, and anyone can come into our Family History Center and do genealogy research. You don't have to be a member of the Church to use an LDS Family History Center. Anyway, Bill had very little to go on. He wasn't even sure of his dad's middle name. A lot of his family's records on his dad's side had been burned in a fire. We found his dad's social security death record. For his dad's parents, Bill had the names of John and Lucinda. As we were viewing 1920 census records, we were trying to scan for a John with a spouse named Lucinda. All of a sudden the name Lulu stood out from the page to me (I guess Lulu wanted to be found), and I had Minnie back up and go into the record, stating that maybe Lulu was short for Lucinda. Sure enough, all the names of the uncles and aunts Bill remembered were listed as the children. This was so exciting! We ended up finding records for John's and Lulu's parents while we were there. Now Bill can go on from there to find more.

Do you know what's kind of a pain, though? How do you know which information is correct? For instance, there was no Lucinda. Did she just give a nickname for the census, or did Bill have the wrong name to begin with? Also, Bill found his Aunt Flossie to be Florrie in a couple of places. Was Florrie a typo, or is Flossie a nickname? I guess you just have to do the best you can, especially if ancestors are dead who would have known.

I had a question about the years for census records. I found out that many 1890 census records were destroyed by fire. The year 1930, then, is really the earliest dependable census year. And census records before 1850 only show the head of the household. After that, they show the spouse and children.

I wanted to know about any other web sites I might need to use. Minnie recommended the free RootsWeb (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/) and the free genealogy message board called GenForum (http://genforum.genealogy.com/). She said yellowbook.com (http://www.yellowbook.com/) is a good place to try to locate living relatives, and any search engine often works to search for a whole family line (e.g. Brown family archives).

Lastly, I found out something exciting to investigate for my final product. FamilySearch has a downloadable program that enables you to print family charts in color. That sounds like something creative for a project or family history album.

Good luck with your projects!
Sandy

S574 Watching

Well folks, here I go on another adventure to complete an assignment for a class (S574 Information Inquiry for School Teachers). This is a personal inquiry project. Today's beginning step is called "watching" according to our teacher, Annette Lamb. It's basically brainstorming a list of possible topics you might like to inquire about and coming to a decision.

One topic I thought about investigating was hummingbirds. As an animal lover, I have been putting out a feeder for the past couple of years. I've only seen a hummingbird maybe twice. The feeder is still full at the end of the summer. What is there I need to know about hummingbirds to get the enjoyment of watching them and possibly befriending them?

The other topic is family history. As a Mormon, I am admonished to do a lot of family history. I've started and almost immediately stopped in my endeavors so many times over the years that I don't even try to keep count anymore. I mean I've started to write my own personal history, write my family's history, attend classes at church to start my genealogy, make plans for scrapbooking family photos, visit the public library in Fort Wayne (that was years ago) to look for genealogical information on my family...you name it! But it's all been a big fallen-by-the-wayside flop every single time! Mostly it's a lack-of-time issue.

Well, what better time than now to make another attempt? I have to do a project for class anyway. And I know I have to stick to it for at least the end of the project. Additionally, I'm not ruling out expanding my studies in library science into the genealogy area in the future. Also, I want to get those old family photos scrapbooked and written about while my aging mother (getting ready to turn 80 in October) is still alive and well. Given those reasons, I guess family history wins out over my sweet little hummingbirds, no matter how cute they are.

That dicided, I'm still very intimidated by the rest! I'm not all that techy, so I'm really stressing out about the product thing. I have no idea right now where to store my product online! I did a web page for S401, but it was all HTML coding the hard way. I know I don't want to do that again (even though it's already created and posted at the university--The Elementary Litaracy Librarian)!!! That was a nightmare! If I do another web page, I'll try to figure out how to use one of Annette's suggestions. Or maybe one of yours! Please offer some if you can!

Thanks!
Sandy

What is Sandy's Neighborhood anyway?

I am very opinionated and vocal. Some people like that about me, and some people really hate it. One day in a staff meeting when a colleague made a point close to some I had made, my principal sarcastically stated something like, "You're getting into Sandy's neighborhood now." In his honor I so name this blog.

Get ready for my ideas, my opinions, and my work. Beware the opinions. But before you get too hasty to judge, honestly ask yourself how much sense they make when you really think about it. In fact, maybe Sandy says what you'd really like to say if you had the courage. Hmmm....

Anyway, if you dare to view some of my opinions, please visit a previous blog I created. You can view it at http://sandyss401spot.blogspot.com.