Journal
Thursday, 14th January 2010
It's been over a month since I last made a journal entry yet I've been spending about 8 hours a day on my computer over the school holidays. This was all on the update for enable Bass including a complete overhaul of the web site (www.enablebass.com). It wasn't really taking away from my thesis because it extended my use of multimedia.
I have also had some new ideas about metacognition which I'll look into today. They involve the way children visualise ideas as animation makes these ideas visible. Another area this could lead into is imagination. Once again, what seems to be intangible could be studied when children add commentaries to their animations.
Friday, 22nd January 2010
I met with Tony and Julianne today. I deliberately arranged to have them both together at the meeting as I got so much out of the last meeting. That last meeting was disheartening as I felt like I was off track but I knew it was good for me to be forced to rethink what I'm doing.
Today was also like that. I've been guided to read a seminal book called Constructionism edited by Seymour Papert and Idit Harel. This is comforting as I feel that I've found other ideas that resonate with my ideals about education. Normally I would skim through a 500 page book like this but I'm determined to read it all.
Monday, 25th January 2010
Last night I revised my research question again as follows:
How can authoring instructional animations enable children to learn by teaching and participate in their own curriculum?
The idea of children learning by teaching has been part of my plan all along as one of my initial statements in the overview section is that "you don't really know something until you can teach it". I've left the content of what the children teach open which explains my final part where they "participate in their own curriculum".
Friday, 29th January 2010
Today all of the Elwood Primary School staff attended a seminar about Personalised learning by Dr Jenni Wilson. She's the same lady who did her PhD on Metacognition which formed part of my discussion last week with my supervisors. I feel confident now that my original research statement encompasses what I'm proposing for classroom practice. I have now changed my research question back the original statement with the following three sub-questions.
1. How does the process of designing and creating an instructional animation challenge the author to visualise a concept?
2. How can authoring instructional animations enable children to learn by teaching and participate in their own curriculum?
3. What insights into metacognition can be gained when primary school students add commentaries to their own animations?