Vinh+Nguyen+Research+Project

__//** Journal: Term 1 **//__ =**//Week 1//**= __Wednesday 02/02/11__ After giving the teacher our school emails, we were finally given an invite from him to join his Wiki space (Stage1ResearchProject). It was a website where we could share our information and discuss different topics to classmates as we progress through our project. We then had to register for a wiki space account and I had decided to use the username ‘Vinhnguyen1’. We were then taught how to use and navigate through the website and after a bit of looking around myself, I then realised that my username did not have to be my actual name, so I changed it to ‘noogen’ (a nickname for Nguyen). Some of the things we were taught were how to open documents linked on the page, how to ‘edit’ pages, post new discussion threads and a few others. After a while of more browsing, I then decided to group up with Mark for the research project. We both planned on having Daniel join our group as soon as he came back to school. I started on my starter pack and listed different topics that I was interested in. After completing question 1 and 2 of the starter pack, I had a trouble thinking of something to research although I had completed a list of my interests. The first thing that came to my mind was ‘online gaming and its effects’.

__Friday 04/02/11__ Today, we were informed of the task of keeping a journal. The teacher spent a little time explaining to the class about it, then I to make a start for a while. I had only written a few sentences before I decided that I would keep all my future journals in a single Word document instead of having to always enter the website and into my journal link to type in my journal. Afterwards, the teacher gave us a task of finding a certain rubric on a SACE board website. When we found the rubric, the teacher then explained how the numbers on his wiki space were used in relation to the rubric to assess our research project. I then saved the Rubric as a word document on my USB thinking that I might need it later on in the semester.

=//Week 2//=

__Tuesday 08/02/11__ Today we had Ms Miller as our teacher for integrated learning class (she is a permanent relief teacher for Tuesdays). Research topics had to be finalised today and I just chose the topic that first came to my head, which was online gaming and its effects.

__Wednesday 09/02/11__ Mr Stav told us that he had informed us of the wrong details, that we had to research different topics as a group but instead we were meant to work together as a group doing one topic. I felt relieved since I knew that I would have less pressure on researching this as we could split different subtopics in our group to research. Mark and I then tried to decide for a topic which was both in our interest, and we agreed on a topic along the lines of technology as we were both interested in it. Despite agreeing to this, we still were unable to think of a good topic in this category so we decided to wait until Daniel returned to school to decide then, as a group. I then decided to look around on [] which was a ‘widget’ to help us reference the books that we used and we had to choose 3 books as a n example and use this to reference them. This is the book that I had chosen to reference:





I had referenced two other books and they were: Not Just a Game by Robert Gott and Drug Use in Sports by Justin Healey.

**//Week 3//** __Tuesday 15/02/11__

Today, Ms Miller showed us a few clips which talked about different kinds of resources for primary and secondary sources. What I have learnt are Primary sources included sources like interviews, journals, notes, newspapers and oral recordings. Some examples of secondary sources are things like documentaries, websites, some types of magazines, and other types of journal articles (depends if it was a first hand journal of the person or a re-written journal - which would be a secondary source). Afterwards, Mark and I began to decide on a topic since Daniel had returned to school. We all agreed on doing online gaming at first, but Daniel was not very interested in things like that, so I decided to go with something he would like as I felt bad for him. We then decided to research Martial arts.

__Wednesday 16/02/11__ -absent-

__Friday 18/02/11__ Mr Stav introduced us to a website called 'Survey Monkey' which was a website to create surveys. I created an account and spent a little time playing around with the different options. We also discovered that Ali was planning to do the same topic as ours, so we let him join our group. My group and I started brainstorming a few questions for the survey but only managed to get a few questions down when the end of the lesson came. These questions were 'Do you think martial arts would improve everybody's day to day lives?' and 'Do you think martial arts should be taught at school?'. We also decided on our guiding questions with the aid of the teacher. These questions were:
 * What is the history of Martial arts?
 * What is the philosophy behind martial arts?
 * What are the physical and mental benefits of martial arts?

Week 4 Tuesday 22/02/11 After being given the guiding question 'What is the philosophy behind martial arts?' to research for, and after a while of research, I felt it wasn't something that I wanted to do and I felt regret for agreeing with this topic choice, that it wasn't of my interest. I then decided that I would leave the group and start over by myself with a topic that I would like, and not be selfish and ask my group to change the topic where they are already researching a topic to their liking. The topic that I had decided on was Online gaming addiction.

Wednesday 23/02/11 Did a little bit of researching to see how much information I can get out of this topic. Found quite a few websites where it's information can help me create some guiding questions. Thought of my guiding questions and began creating a survey as a start to this topic.

Week 5 Monday 28/02/11 After seeing the group of girls, researching the Khmer Rouge, create a concept map using a website, I decided that it could help me the same way so I worked on creating a concept map today using inspiration, starting with the concept map for my guiding questions, which I think will greatly help with my research. I didn't think that I would actually have this completed today but I still managed to do so. I plan on creating a concept map for the list of different resources I could use for each guiding questions later on. This is the concept map I have done so far:



Wednesday 02/03/11 Had a talk with Aaron about our progress in our research project. He told me that he was researching teenage pregnancy and was planning to change it to protein. He also told me how his partner for his research project was always absent and he did most of the things by himself. At this point I felt that I wanted abandon what I have done so far to join his group and help him out and how it would help me get through this subject easier. Aaron agreed with this and I told him that I would think about it for a bit before deciding.

Week 6 Monday 7/03/11 Joined Aaron's group today. Discussed about our tasks and at this point, Aaron had already decided to switch the topic to protein. I was actually quite happy with this choice, as it was something uncommon to me, something I don't hear about often and wanted to learn about. Spent a while discussing what to do for this lesson but the lesson had ended sooner than I thought.

Wednesday 9/03/11 Although we have not decided on the guiding/focus questions yet, we still created a concept map of the different types of information/questions we can use, which will guide us to creating our focus questions. We are planning to create the questions next lesson. A survey was also done in this lesson, which can be found at []. This is the concept map that we have done for this double lesson:

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//**Week 7**// __14/03/11__ Kian is absent again and the survey was on his account. Aaron was figuring a way to get into his account in order to check the results of the survey but eventually gave up. In the end, Aaron and I decided to create a new survey of our own which can be found here: [] Made some improvements and some spelling and grammar corrections. We plan on later on creating a survey by paper and handing it out to people for more results.

__15/03/11__ Continued with a bit of research, searching up sites and referenced the links for later use. While doing so, Aaron went back to the library to return some books that he had borrowed related to our research topic. Was admittedly a very lazy day.

Week 8 Monday 21/03/11 Mr. Stav gave the class a talk about the grading system, showed us the rubric and how we will be graded for this term. After the talk, I decided to get some things done, fixed some errors in our report scaffold and did a little more researching.

Wednesday 23/03/11 Did a survey today, then the rest of the double lesson was yet again very slack to be completely honest. The majority of this double lesson was mainly browsing things, where some of the times I would go off track and look at other things. I feel I should stay on task in order to get this completed by the end of next term.

Week 9

Wednesday 30/03/11 I feel that today I have done the most work compared to the previous lessons. Managed to complete the Research Report scaffold and put them together with Aaron's information. Helped him fix a few errors. Had a relief teacher yet again, at the times where we needed him to ask him a few questions about our work.

Friday 01/04/11 My group and I planned to meet at the Woodville Library near the school to find some books to borrow about protein as there was not many books found in the school library. For the rest of this day, I was yet again browsing for more sites and information for our guiding questions. I managed to find quite a few more links which were actually helpful and not protein supplements advertisements.

Week 10

Monday 4/04/11 Today, the teacher had a talk with the class, told us how we might be having a different teacher teach us for next term. He also told us that some of the things that he had taught us this term may have not been a part of the SACE rules. I then decided to begin creating a final document of information in protein supplements since we have completed the report scaffold. We stated in the research report scaffold that it only contained a brief amount of information and that in the final copy we will have the rest of the main information.

Wednesday 06/04/11 My group and I discussed what we would like to do as our method of presentation. We firstly agreed on doing a Powerpoint presentation but then Aaron also considered doing a poster. I honestly would have preferred doing a powerpoint presentation because I am very used to it and know the functions well. Kian did not mind either but we still ended up deciding on a powerpoint presentation. Did not do much this lesson other than that as it was the end of assessment for this term. Updated journals and continued browsing. Aaron had completed a new concept map with a little bit of help from Mr. Stav:





= __**Term 2**__ =

=**__Week 1__**= Tuesday 3/05/11 First integrated learning lesson this term and not feeling too well from having to wake up so early in the morning after two weeks of sleeping in during the holidays. Found out that our new teacher was Ms. Lawless. Decided to actually make a start on the written final copy of our research project which I had planned on doing last term. We decided that as I progressed with the information, Aaron would put the information into slides.

Wednesday 4/05/11 Did not do much this double lesson as my group members were absent. We still had to try and find a time available to head over to the State library to find some books. Aaron had already found two books to do with protein but not protein supplements in particular. The good thing about our research topic is that we will always have a primary source of information nearby, which is Aaron as he takes protein on a daily basis and works out regularly. Although he is a primary source, it is not necessarily the best information and I have to confirm the information by researching before adding it to our information.

=**__Week 2__**= Monday 9/05/11 After Ms.Lawless gave us some tips and guidelines on what to do next in our project, we had a good idea of what we were missing and what we should do next. Since we had not managed to get a hold of proper survey answers, Aaron decided to create a new survey on microsoft word and print 30 copies and hand it around to students around the school.

Wednesday 11/05/11 Kian is absent again and Aaron had to leave to go home due to sickness. I continued researching for more information to add to our final written copy. Aaron informed me that he was to do the powerpoint whilst he is at home. Was a very bad day as I had a headache throughout the whole double lesson.

=**Week 3**= Wednesday 18/05/11 After another 'bludge' lesson on Monday, I decided to get things done today. Almost completed the final copy while Aaron, with a little help from Kian, created a survey to hand out and gather.

Friday 20/05/11 The survey to hand out was finally completed. Aaron asked me to check for any spelling errors and grammar errors to fix. It was only then that I had noticed that the survey slowly turned into a quiz kind of survey and I thought it was good as it could give us information as to how much a teenager knows about their sources of protein and it's positive effects. Planned to print and hand out next week as it was nearing the end of the lesson.

=**Week 4**= Monday 23/05/11 Was informed that there were only 3 weeks left until our presentations would have to be presented and 4 more weeks before it had to be handed up. Started rushing as I have not given Aaron the rest of the information that I have gathered in the final copy for him to put into the powerpoint presentation. Only a few slides were done and I helped him put a few more in with some information as dot points.

Wednesday 25/05/11 The surveys were printed out today to students of different ages around the school. The surveys were surprisingly all handed back after about 10 minutes of time to complete it. After collecting them, we went back to class and analysed our results. The results were then put into pie graphs and into brief explanations of what people had answered. We completed this by the end of the double lesson:

=**Week 5**= Tuesday 31/05/11 FINALLY, brought in a folder for my research project. We firstly decided that it would be separate folders but then thought that it would be a lot easier if we were to make it a group folder and so we did. Began sorting out our folders, printing off whatever we can and what we have finished.

Wednesday 1/06/11 Felt very angry today as I had left my USB plugged into the library computers yesterday and when I had come back today, it was gone. It had my final copy of our research project in it. I have no other choice but to try and rush it to complete it, spent most of the time furiously typing any information I could get. I honestly regret not creating a back up of my documents onto the school computer, even though I had been warned several times in the school bulletin.

=**Week 6**= Monday 5/06/11 Feeling very, VERY relieved today as this morning my USB had been turned in and returned to me during homegroup. This took a lot of stress off of me and I could continue focusing on completing the end of the final copy and work on the powerpoint together with aaron soon.

Wednesday 7/06/11 Completed my final copy today, showed kian and aaron how to make a pie graph for each of the survey/quiz questions that we have made. Put together the pie graphs and this was what we had completed:

=﻿Week 7= Tuesday 13/06/11 Was a long weekend and during that time, I had visited aaron's house to try and complete the powerpoint presentation. Managed to get almost all the information onto the powerpoint and only had a few things left to put into. I told Aaron that I would do the rest at home tonight before our presentations tommorow.

Wednesday 14/06/11 I was yet again, very careless and had left my USB plugged into my computer at home with all the completed work in it as well as the script. Feeling very angry about myself as I really wanted to get this presentation over and done with as soon as possible. Most of this double lesson we sat and watched other groups present. Only managed to get through two presentations before the lunch bell went. Teacher did not know how we would get through ALL of the presentations on friday so my group asked if we would be able to come in at recess time on friday to present at that time, which would lead into the actual lesson as well.

Friday 16/06/11 Printed the scripts and managed to get our presentation completed at recess today. Was very relieved that it would all be over soon. All we had left to do was to organise our group folder, get all our journals printed off and hand it up by the end of next week!

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