Metaphor

I made sure to submit my literature review by last Friday because my parents booked the kids and I on a Camelback Mountain Adventure over the weekend.  My daughter and I completed a five hour tree top course (tight ropes, zip lines, and various other obstacles) that was 50 feet off the ground!  My son was too young for the big course but he went on a 1000' zip line and a mountain coaster--so cool! I recommend the course for anyone who wants to feel like they accomplished something. It was great for my daughter (and me!).
There were 6 courses to get through and I kept thinking it was a lot like our course--you have to tackle one problem at a time--you can't get too far ahead of yourself or you'll feel overwhelmed.

The lit review was a challenge--it was my major during the last 10 days.  I spent about 30 hours on it between research and writing. It was very difficult keeping my sources straight. I wish I had less. And even after I submitted, I kept thinking (and still do) of things I should add to it!

I also got the results of my survey. The teachers I targeted perceive PowerPoint and email to be their students' weakest skills. Tomorrow I test out my rating scale! I was supposed to do it last week but we had a fire drill that period so we had to reschedule.

Reflections:  I realized that at teacher conferences I have no idea what's going on in my kids' lives, probably because I'm usually at school until 7:30. It annoys me but I also recognize that this course is like a millimeter on the ruler of my life (ha! simile!).

Oh the research...!

 I am literally driving myself nuts.

Task 1: Crunch the massive amounts of data that I received from my teacher survey and create my revised/final rating scale to test tech skills (haha-only 2 teachers took it--that's all who were supposed to take it=o). It took about 3 hours. It's been eating at me that similar studies to mine always incorporated an assessment of students' perceived tech skills prior to testing their real skills. But it really serves no purpose for me. Based on the majority of findings (their perceptions far exceed their actual skills), I think it would be rude of me to give a survey to check their self-efficacy and then test them on their actual skills. It would be like saying, "This is what you think you know, and HA!, this is what you really know--not so great, are you?" I don't want to lower their self-esteem. I'm trying to help them!

Task 2: Research....again. I've spent about 10 hours this week so far. I keep coming up with different angles. Here they are:

1. Find studies that test tech skills of high school or college freshmen, focusing on the "myth of the   digital native" angle.

2. Tutorial vs. demonstrative instruction

3. The effects of not having a tech literacy program--I can't find anything--weird, right?

4. Importance of basic computer skills

5. The necessity of acquiring basic computer skills to have success in college and the job market.

6. ? Time will tell...

I cannot yet sit down and start writing. Every time I try, I find myself researching again. I am starting to wonder if a backwards approach isn't more my M.O.--start writing and then incorporate the articles I've found. I NEVER have trouble running at the mouth (keyboard). But now I do.

Daily Panic: See previous entries. Plus I feel like I'm in an endless Gravitron of research-I'm stuck and I'm spinning and I can't see clearly!

(I would rather spend Monday night writing at my computer, hint-hint).

Plugging Along....

This week has been a blur.  Here's what I've accomplished:

Task 1: Create my tools.  I created a teacher survey and a performance checklist. The survey took about two hours using Google Forms. The checklist was my own creation because I had to set it up a certain way that I could not manage using a table in Word (or Excel). The checklist took about three hours.

Task 2: Fix my intro and needs assessment plan. No more fixes!!! As I've stated in my previous entry, the introduction drives me nuts and I think as I progress through all the steps, I'm going to have to go back and change it again and again and again!

Task 3: Research. I think I spent six hours looking in vain for a previous study like mine. I now believe that it doesn't exist. There are several that were conducted with college students as the sample though. When the researchers are college professors, who else would be their sample? So I don't know what that means for me. How do I approach original research? Guess I'll find out...

Task 4: Article Critique. It took about 3 hours. The reason it took so long is that each time I read it, I got more confused about the intent of the authors. I had to walk away for a couple hours because I seem to think better. I actually recorded some memos when new thoughts occurred to me. I'm still a little confused. I'm worried that I wanted to find something wrong so badly that I was overly-critical. But I really don't think so. I still think I can cite the article though because it had some good points!

Daily Panic: I feel like I'm going to suddenly realize that I forgot to do something. I actually had a dream last night that I went on the portal and was able to access other people's article critiques. I opened Danyl's and she had created hers against a dynamic background. Hers was only one page but each sentence was so profound and succinct that I felt I could never compete with that! I need to build confidence in myself.

Reflections: Stress, uncertainty, satisfaction, my grad-school, stressed-out eye twitch is back.