Week 10

I have been working on my prototype and getting feedback from my colleagues. So far I have started my basic outline of my webpage, my tutorials for my project, and a few problem solving strategy guides. It has been a very busy week.

Week 9

I have completed my revisions for my masters proposal and am now working on my prototype. I presented a few of the powerpoint presentations I created to my 4th/5th class and have made several adjustments to them based on my students' responses. I am now working on creating more powerpoints for this project. This has been a very busy quarter for me.

Week 8

So on Monday I completed my IRB appliation as well as all of the CITI lessons and posted them onto blackboard. Then blackboard crashed and lost my posting, so now I am going to resubmit it. Isn't technology wonderful :)

Week 7

Well so far this week I have registered on the IRB website and have started reviewing the assignments. There is a lot of reading to do so I am trying to find time throughout the day to cover it all. I have reviewed the application and hopefully will be able to complete everything fairly soon.
I have also been working on my project, taking in the input Dr. Baek has provided and adjusted my storyboard to reflect her suggestions.
I have been working very hard this quarter and am struggling to complete everything on time.

Week 6

Well I'm just about done with my lit reviews and am almost ready to submit it. I hope I did it right because it was a lot of work and the thought of re-doing it is not good. After countless hours of reading and re-reading, highlighting and noting, I feel as if my brian has fried. I feel completely overwhelmed with all of the work but know that in the long run I will be glad I have completed it. With state testing going on right now my focus has been on my students and trying to fully prepare them for their icky test. But I have to remind myself that if they are not ready by now, drill and kill won't help them.

Week 5

What a hectic schedule I have had the last few weeks. Unfortunately I didn't make much time to complete my lit reviews. I have so much work to catch up on, my head is spinning. Hopefully I will be able to complete it all in time.

Week 4

Well this week I have been working on my lit reviews. There are so many sources to search that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I am at least heading in the right direction since I selected my project topic. So much reading to do I'm not sure if I'll ever be finished. I have also been working on a few more powerpoints to add to my website. Hopefully I will be closer to completing my project soon.

Week 3

I did it! I finally completed my premliminary thesis and submitted it to Dr. Baek. After several hours of reading articles and following the outline I have finally completed the beginning of my project. Now I just have to work on the rest which will probably take me forever.

Here is my outline. It is very rough so please offer suggestions.

Topic: Utilizing Technology to Enhance Reading Comprehension with Mathematical Word Problems.

1. Analyzing word problems
a. word problems and word meanings
b. Word problems and testing
c. word problems and special education
d. word problems and EL students

2. Strategies to improve reading comprehension within word problems
a. powerpoint presentations on word problems
b. small group instruction
c. interactive lessons
d. study island

3. Web page
a. incorporating different forms of technology (powerpoints, streamline videos, etc.)

Week 2

This week was a pretty productive week for me. I emailed Dr. Newberry regarding my lack of thesis topics and while I was waiting for his response I narrowed down my topics to two and then I changed it all over again. So as of right now my topic is Utilizing technology to enhance reading comprehension within mathematical word problems. I think I'll be able to find several different literature review articles to research for this topic.

Introduction

I have not yet decided on a topic for my thesis project. My initial topic for Etec 544 involved using bloom's taxonomy to enhance reading comprehension. For this particular topic I have already gathered several articles to review. I created a web page and powerpoint presentation.
If anyone has any suggestions on a project, I would greatly appreciate any ideas.