Week 7:
Well I was just wondering were all the time has gone. I was just sitting around thinking this week and realized that next week was my birthday. I have been so busy lately I lost track of time. Or it could be that I just don’t believe that July is almost over and August will soon be here. It does not feel like we have almost completed 7 weeks. My goal this week was to get the majority of my assignments done before the weekend that way that I could just relax. I haven’t been swimming once this summer and I hope it does not rain this weekend so I can swim and catch up on my tan. So far I have finished most of my assignments I think, I have one more peer review to do. I would like to start polishing up my genres but I think I will do that Sunday after all of my genres have been peer reviewed. That way I can look at everyone’s suggestions I find them to be really helpful.

This weeks assignments included to continue searching the ebscohost and to get more articles if we needed them. We were to answer several questions about our professional mailing list and email that to yahoo groups. We were to put 2 more genres up. Then we were to peer review 2 more genres of each person in our group. Which I think it is neat that when I go to peer review my group Andrea, Matt, and Christy appear in that order on the bayarea home page. I just thought that was neat that I just go in order of how they appear in the blog list, which happens to be right in a row.

Well the assignments to do have definitely been shorter but the time it takes to complete these assignments are lengthy. I like to go through and do the assignments that are sent out to the yahoo groups by Monday if possible. Which this week the assignments were posted Sunday and I was able to complete one Sunday night which really helped me. Then having this assignment done I could now concentrate on my 2 genres which were power point presentation and the journal entry from the teacher. It took me several hours just to complete the PowerPoint presentation. I had to read all my materials highlight what I wanted to use and then put this information in the order that I wanted it to appear. What I found was most of my articles was 15-20+ pages long but I only needed a little paragraph of information from each source. Also, while doing PowerPoint presentation is that some articles you can get one statistic about communication disorders and another article can give you 2 more that you need. So I had to combine a lot of statistics from different sources, but I think it turned out o.k. Also, I put pictures in my slides, which took me a while to find they are just simple pictures that relate to my topic. Then after Jennifer sent an e-mail to the class about how to site references in the power point presentation I had to go back and add references in my PowerPoint. The first time that I published my power-point I did not include the references. I still need to get the 5th edition APA book I think I will buy it first thing Monday. Then the next genre that I did was my journal entry in the voice of the teacher. Which I ended up changing the order of my genres. I originally was going to do newsletter, I am poem, interview, PowerPoint, and then my webliography. Then when I sat down to write the journal entry I changed it around a little bit and decided that I was going to switch the PowerPoint presentation and the interview. Also, when I first read the criteria for the journal entries and saw that we had to do 2 that are at least 150 words, which total would be about 300 words. I did not think that I could write a journal entry that contained that many words, but actually it does not take too much to write before you have 300 words. I guess everything always looks like it is impossible but once you set out to do it is not as bad as I thought. Another assignment that we had to do was to answer questions about our professional e-mailing list. This assignment really helped me see if the mailing list that I signed up for was benefiting my topic of research. Which I think my list is a good list for my research topic. I think in the past my list has been real active but right now it seems a little quiet. But if I emailed them I am sure they would answer my questions, which is another purpose of the list. Then we had to peer review 2 genres from everyone in our group. I don’t know but for some reason I always do the peer reviews in 2 days. I did one genre from everybody in my group on Monday, and then I finished the other peer review on Wednesday. It just takes me a while to peer review everyone’s work. The hardest part of the peer review is thinking of what this person may want to address further. I really think that most of the work that I peer review in my group is really good and sometimes I can’t find anything to change. I like reading everybody’s work to see how everyone is approaching their research project. Also, I did read the useful tip on the bayarea home page about how to help ourselves review our work, which is read our work out loud. I often drive my boyfriend, my family, and Laura crazy because everything I do I always have to read it out loud. Even if I am just starting to do an assignment I will always talk out loud to make sure what I am doing sounds right. For some reason I think talking out loud helps me think better. Also, I drive my sister, and boyfriend crazy because I make them read my assignments. Sometimes I find if I do review my own work I find that I read it out loud but I will read it the way that it should sound. So when someone else reads it they are like that does not make since. But it makes since to me. I don’t know why I do that but I always do that.

I can’t believe that this week marks the last week of completing all the genres. I guess for the next couple of weeks we will just be polishing up everything and getting our project ready to submit. I cannot believe that we are almost finished with this class. It is crazy how fast time flies.

Questions: I do not have any questions right now.

Week 6: Busy, Busy, Busy

All and all I think this has been a very busy CD week. This week my plan was to get most of the assignments other than the genres done by Monday and Tuesday so that I could spend the other days working on my genres. I knew that I would need more time to work on my genres so I wanted to makes sure I could have this time. For the most part I think I have finished my work. The more I think about it I want to go back and add a bit more to my letter to the editor genre. I also, need to back and fix my references pages. I was doing everything from the 4th edition APA manual and need to fix it to the 5th edition format.

This week we had to continue our search on EbscoHost and find five more articles. We had to keep reading our mail that we our receiving for our professional mailing list. We needed to complete 2 more genres. Then from the 2 genres that we completed last week we needed to peer review the 2 genres for each person in our group. Then we needed to read “The three “R’s” of Inquiry: Teaching Literacy in the Academic Cultures,” and develop a prompt.

In the library search I was able to find some more useful articles for my research. I was able to find more articles that contributed to my essential question by trying different key words than I used in the first library research. Instead of using communication disorders and self-concept/image etc. I used speech therapy and self-concept/image, counseling etc. and was able to find valuable articles. Then only problem I ran into was this time all but one were abstract articles. So I had to go to the library and get them there. They did not have all of my articles, one had to be sent down for me from the graduate college and the other I need to get off inter-library lone. Next, the assignment was to just keep reading the mail that we are receiving from our professional mailing list. Which I had a hard time signing up for a new mailing list once I changed my essential question. I had signed up for several mailing lists about communication disorders and therapy but I guess many are low volumes because I have not yet received any mail. I am still searching for another one. I still kept my phonological list and I get tons of mail from that list. Next, I had to do two more genres. When doing my genres I ran into a little problem. I really did not know how often SLP’s use techniques in therapy to help increase a child’s self-esteem. I did not know if they could devote a whole session on just improving their self-esteem/image. So I e-mailed Mrs. MCcomas and she told me they can do the intended therapy plan and then maybe do one activity for increasing one’s self-esteem in with the therapy plan. I decided that I would do and interview with the clinician and teacher instead of the lesson plan that I had previously intended to do. The interview is how a SLP can help a teacher use techniques to help build a child’s self-esteem. This way I can provide several techniques on how an SLP can help improve a child’s self-esteem. Then since I chose to do an interview instead of a lesson plan I needed to come up with another genre since I had originally planned to do an interview with the clinician and peers. This was really hard to come up with but from input I got from my e-mail I sent out and from me brainstorming I decided that I would write a letter to the editor in the voice of a parent (not my client’s just a parent who has a child with a communication disorder). She is writing a letter to the editor explaining how her son gets treated because of his CD and how something needs to be done. Then, another one of the assignments was to peer review the 2 genres that we turned in last week. We had to give peer responses to each of person in our groups. I think the outline of the peer review is really helpful because each of the questions will really help you to see if what you published is exactly want you set out to accomplish. The last assignment was to read an article, “The three “R’s” of Inquiry: Teaching Literacy in the Academic Cultures,” and establish a prompt. The article really was informative and helpful since we are doing a research project. It really gave good suggestions on how you need to go about research.

I really can’t believe that week 6 is almost over. I am really beginning to see my research project develop. I know that before we even started the research project and we were just reading the direction of the MRP I was really nervous about completing the genres. Now, I have already have 4 rough drafts completed. It is exciting to start to see this project come together.

This week I wanted to complete the majority of my assignments by Thursday. One reason is that I had to study for my last exam for my class on Thursday. I also wanted the majority of my assignments complete so I would not have to spend a lot of time this weekend doing my work. Because Saturday my family is giving my sister a baby shower, this is her first baby. She is almost there, late July or early August the baby will be born. I am excited because this will be my first nephew. Then on Sunday I have to attend a wedding shower. Well anyways I am just glad that my other summer class just ended about 15 minutes ago. Yes!!

This is week contained less assignments and focused more on the research that we are doing. This weeks assignments included library searching on the Ebsco databases. Also, this week we needed to get two rough drafts of our genres. Other than polishing the webliography , I did an I am poem in the voice of my client. Then also, we had to reflect on what we think about credibility and reliability of publishing work on the web. Also we were to read about power point.

Well when I first sat down to research on Ebsco databases I was having a hard time finding a lot of information on phonological disorders. Finally after searching for a couple of hours I was able to find 5 good resources on my topic. I had a little trouble with citing my references. First I was trying to cite them as an on-line journal when I realized that that it should have been cited as an on-line database. Then after this the next assignment that I did was write about how I feel about the reliability and credibility of publishing my work on the web. Which reading the articles and evaluation forms from last weeks assignment really helped on what exactly I need to do in order for my work to be published on the web to be reliable.

Then the next day was moo day and instead of doing moo-online we had a class meeting to show us how to use power point and to talk about our research questions. The face-to-face meeting was really helpful. I was confused about how to integrate my genres but after discussing a few in class, it helped clear up my confusion. I also was able to learn how to do power point presentations. Which I have put one together before but it was just me playing on the computer. In class, I learned how to do a power point presentation and basically how we should present one (title page, don’t overload a slide with a lot of information etc). This was helpful, because people do have a tendency to put too much on the slide. I also I noticed that a lot of people go to fast and it is hard to follow. From reading the assigned article on power point presentation gave a lot of good tips and ideas of different things that you can do. Also, from the class meeting I realized that I needed to narrow down my question that it was to broad and the tentative point was too much to address for one research question. I realized that what I was doing is that I am interested in several things so I was trying to make sure I could put all that information in one question. Instead what I did was picked one of my foundation questions that I really was concerned with and developed by essential question on that. Which it is now, How can Slp's help children with communication disorders over come the negative impact that public perception can have on a communication disorder? Then I realized that I had to go back and redo my foundation questions, project prospectus, and library researching, and find a new mailing list that I had previously done on phonological disorders. I really thought that this was the end of the world and that I would have to spend a zillion hours redoing everything. But I was glad to find out that it did not take as long as I thought, only a million hours, just kidding. It actually took less time than before. I think this is because I was one, more interested in this concern and I new exactly what I was looking for, and also any time you do the same assignment twice it does take as long because you are familiar at how to complete it. The only problem I am really having now, is finding information on the web about my topic so I can put it on my webliography. I have one research resource from ASHA but I am still searching to find more. I will probably just put general information about peer relationships and self-esteem, and general information about communication disorders.

Next, I finished up finding things to put on my webliography and worked on my I am poem. I am almost done with the rough draft of the webliography I just want to find at least one more site to put under my research resources. Then I worked on an I am poem. Which I was able to complete all of it but one line where it said I touch-----. I thought maybe during peer review someone could help me. I can’t really thing of anything to touch. Other than that, it is complete. I really have enjoyed doing this research project so far. I like the idea of having different points of view for one question. I also find it hard to write something in a child’s point of view. You have to really sit and think can a child 6-7, would he/she say that. All and all I think this is a very interesting and fun way to do a research project, you just don’t learn one main thing about your project you learn many things ex. feelings and thoughts of child, parent, or friend, general information about your disorder, and maybe even how therapy sessions work etc. There is a variety of information that is being learned from one research question.

All in all the research project is not as bad as I thought. I remember that I was really worried of starting the research project. However, since I have started the research project it is a really neat way to approach a research question.

Questions:
Right now I do not have any questions. I have had trouble trying to sign up for the mailing list. I have tried several different ways but if I do not get it soon, I will e-mail what I have been receiving so I can get some help.