Presentation Progress

This week is all about presentations and I'm a little worried about mine. I'm passed the layout phase and getting everything to look the way that I want it to. I also pretty much got all the fundamental information placed on my slides. What I'm working on now is explaining everything that I put on my slides. Without a doubt I know my presentation and I know the information that I put in it. I explained why I chose the project that I did and how it means to me. Like I said, the ground work is finished and I know my material. The next step for me is to make it into a presentation. The next step for me is to make it so that the audience will pay attention to me from the minute I walk into the door to the minute they leave. I want to make it so that this topic that doesn't seem to interesting to a lot of people engages anyone who takes the time to listen. Today I worked on putting notes under my slide. I decided that the best way for me to practice and nail my presentation is to right down everything that I want to say on a particular slide, practice it consistently and what I don't have nailed down would go on my note cards in case I get tripped up. I spent the entire time on that making sure I chose the right words and explained what I needed to explain. I'm also thinking about how I plan to open up my project. I do have a first slide that it symbolic to my presentation but its not enough for me. I wanted to sort of open up my presentation with like a question. I wanted to hold up a blown up map - similar to one that I had at my Site Visit - and circle a few countries to quiz the panel and see what they knew. I would kind of tie it in to how much trouble it was for the students at my Site Visit to identify some of the countries and explain how this ties into the focus of my project. However, its just an idea and I'm not sure what is a good idea and what really isn't. This is where I am right now and I know I have way to go before I am completely confident in presenting.

For Tuesday

Hello all....After consuming about an hour transferring everything to my H Drive, I worked on my paper and incorporated some of my interview into it so I could get my teacher edit. After giving my paper to Mr. Hamilton, I then went on to work on my Presentation. It took me a while to figure out what layout and design I wanted to use but afters some deep pondering, I centered down on an idea. I realized while doing the project, a lot my pictures will need to be from students studying abroad. So...I made a note to e-mail the interns who I interviewed so they can send me their pictures from their experience and that way, I'll be able to explain every picture in my presentation.

Oh look...Mr. Hamilton just handed me my paper back....yay

For the Weekend

I made a lot of progress this week. On Wednesday I conducted my interviews with my mentor and 2 interns. It was very insightful and I have a lot of information to include into my paper. With this, I will finally be able to conclude my paper with all the information needed and get my teacher edit completed. Also, I'm just about finished with my website. I finished about 5 pages this week and am putting the finishing touches on it. Over the weekend I plan on working on my Literature Review so I can get it edited on Monday in addition to starting my Presentation and putting all the necessary information on it. It will be very busy but will for the better come Monday.

End of the Week

Its the end of the week but it has been productive. I have confirmed my date for my interview with two interns and my mentor. Its going to be next week and that will also be the time where I will take pictures of the office and it will contribute to the documentation of my action plan. I continued to work on my website for the entire two hours and am making progress. I'm almost half way down and once I complete my interview, I will be able to complete that page on my website. With significant time devoted to my website during the weekend, I'm sure that I will be able to complete the majority of it and move on to putting together my presentation.

For Wednesday's Forecast...

I don't remember what I blogged last time so I'm just going to relay the most recent things that I have completed since there really isn't a need to keep repeating myself. Yesterday I worked the entire time on my website. I changed the layout of the homepage at least 3 times before I was happy with the one I have now. I took me a long time to get everything where I wanted it to be. Pictures are a really pain to deal with and its really upsetting that we need so many of them. Today I continued working on my website and placed in all of my roll over buttons for the homepage. I think I can move on from it now and work on my FAQs page. After the first hour of working on my website, I turned to getting my interview completed. I already had my interview questions completed from last year and so now all I had to do was get someone to interview. I had been waiting on my mentor to e-mail me back and she hadn't yet so I sent her another e-mail and thankfully, she e-mailed me back 5 minutes later. Though the time and date is not set, I'm going to be interviewing her and another intern that she will provide for me hopefully before the end of next week which is tremendously great news. Now from then on, I'll be able to fully complete my Lit Review.

Update..

I haven't blogged in a while but have been making some progress. Today I finished my peer editing today with Eric F. and will be editing the many mistakes that we found in paper. There weren't as many as I thought there were but Eric said that it was a good paper so it can't be that bad. I've started to work on the homepage of me site which is coming along well. I've got an idea of what I want to for how I want to set up the rest of my pages. Overall, everything seems to going at a good pace. My action plan is done so I don't have to worry about it anymore. I just have to get the pictures that I'm going to use for my presentation and save them as my documentation of the project. I still haven't gotten any responses about whether or not the interns at my internship have been selected yet but I think I'll just change who I want to interview considering I might be waiting for a long time and time is precious.

Deviating From The Plan

So I'm wrapping up my Literature Review but my action plan was still in the back of my mind. After talking to my mentor, I just about lost all hope of an international fair taking place any time soon. It just wasn't coming together and I had came to the conclusion that I was just going to have to deviate from the plan and find another action. That was all before I spoke with Ms. Savido. After talking with her, she informed me that the Site Visit that I had done during my internship in March as a good action plan that I should use instead. I was a little shaky about it because I didn't think it would be a good action plan and I didn't have many pictures of what happened. She on the other hand said it would be great for an action plan and I could just go to the office, take pictures of it and explain the workings of the facility. In no time I was in love with the idea and it was great because now my action plan is already finished. I don't have to worry about that anymore and can focus all of my attention now to my electronic portfolio and literature review. Things are starting to look better.

C'mon

Coming into class today I was really groggy and it took me a while to get to work. For the first hour I worked on my paper and realized that one of my paragraphs was about a page long. I couldn't believe this. I didn't know where to break the paragraph up because I made every thing flow with each other so it sounded awkward when a new paragraph tied in with the previous sentence. For now I just left it the way it was and I'll attend to that at a later time. I still hadn't gotten a response back from Matt and time is running out in getting everything together so I contacted my mentor directly and told her that I couldn't get an appointment time with her like she requested. I couldn't continue to wait for Matt to e-mail me back and waste more time and by the time I get home, its after five and the office is closed. Hopefully she gets back to me by the end of the day, if not, tomorrow by the latest because I need to have confirmations and not assumptions.

Jumping Around...

It was a jumpy day for me as I decided what I wanted to work on. I came in today and the first thing I did was sketch out a rough draft of how I wanted the cafeteria to look like. My scaling was a little off but overall the job got done. I estimated to need about 8 college students who have studied abroad to come in and help me. Afterwards, I had my meeting with Mr. Mays and am on track with what I need to get done. I worked on my paper and got a significant amount done. As I was writing, I was getting confused if the sources that go in the paper should still be cited in parentheses if they were already introduced at the beginning of a sentenced. It was a question I didn't get answered but will be sure to clear by tomorrow. Lastly, I worked on my Electronic Portfolio and got searched for the pictures that I will be using for my backgrounds and so forth. I checked my e-mail to see if the sixth grade teacher had contacted me today but she hadn't. I expected her call over the weekend but I didn't receive one nor a message so I'm just waiting for her response. I can't wait to get some ideas down so I can start getting a little more organized for my event. I also checked to see if Matt had contacted me back with setting up a meeting time for me to go over my project with my mentor and it was empty as well. I'm basically waiting for everyone to get back to me with the information I sent them.

Thursday...

Hello Everyone...today was another productive day. I'm just about finished with my outline which is a good thing. All that is left to do is go over it one more time and put the information in the order that I plan to write about it. I really didn't work on anything else besides adding a few more websites to my Webliography that I hadn't put on yet so I could refer to the sources on my Outline. Aside from that, I looked at my e-mail and the sixth grade teacher responded to me and said that she would help me with my outline....great news! Lastly, today I felt like a complete idiot and one would not know that my project was on study abroad. I asked Mr. Mays if London was the country that Paris was located in...Yeah I know that I should have known that answer but for some reason I though it went: Paris, London. But Mr. Mays kindly acknowledged my stupidity and told me that London was in England and Paris is in France. :) I will make sure to not ask questions I should already know the answer to.

No Missing Pieces

Since I had finished re-writing the rubrics yesterday, I focused the majority of my time today on my outline. I know that the outline is the foundation of the paper and I needed to make sure I had crossed my "T"s and dotted all my "I"s. When I looked over my outline, I realized that there was some information on my notes that needed to be on my outline and that there was information on my outline from my notes that didn't really need to be there and I needed to get it all organized. With the whole outline due on Friday, I really buckled down and basically that is all I worked on today. The teacher that I had e-mailed yesterday hadn't gotten back to me so I'm still waiting for her response. I pretty much halted my writing on the Lit Review until after I turn in my outline and then so I will know exactly what I'm putting in my paper and what I'm not. I will probably try to get the anecdote that I started finished however because I don't want the ideas that I had in mind to slip away from me and I'll be stuck again. Afterwards, I'm going to put all the different Roman numerals in order and that way I will really be prepared to finish my Lit Review.

Getting the Rubrics

Today was a productive day. I started off today with re-writing the rubrics since they were going to be due on Friday. I also needed to get them done before I went any further on my paper so I would know what I needed to include in my paper. When I finally finished, it definitely helped me to understand how I should write my paper to get the grade that I'm shooting for.

I also talked with Ms. Savido today and we kind did a quick run through of what I wanted to do with my action plan. There is a possibility that I may have the International Fair during the parent teacher conference day. I had never even thought of getting the parents involved and it was a really good idea. I really need to start getting some information from the interns and mentors from my internship so I know that everyone is on the same page as I am. Right now I have to make something that sort of resembles a blueprint of the cafeteria so I know what I want and where so I can manage the space. It seems as though the some things are starting to fall in place.

Its Monday Again...

So its Monday again and its time to get back to work. Over the weekend I worked on my Outline and finished putting the extra detail in it. I really wanted to move on from my notes so I had to buckle down it get it finished regardless of how sore I was from Teen Quest. It worked out though because I was able to start of my Literature Review. It was hard for me to find a good way to start off my introduction. I really want to engage the reader and make them want to read my paper. I decided on doing an anecdote and put the reader in a study abroad experience and then tie it together with the main focus of the paper. After starting over the paper so many times and finally going through with one of my ideas, I didn't get a great start but I'm glad I got something and have something to go off.

I had my meeting with Mr. Hamilton and told him what I had done and what else needs to be done. I still have to conduct my interview. The interns for the fall semester haven't been selected yet and so the college study abroad student is what I'm still waiting for but I'm am going to try to set up an interview with one of my mentors or another person who works there to get some insight from a mentor's point of view and their perspective what they want their students to experience. In addition, we talked about my action plan. I still have a lot of work to do and time is not on my side. He gave me the e-mail address of a sixth grade teacher who did a world fair with her class and said I should contact her to get some advice. That was the very first thing I did today. I needed to explain who I was, what I was doing, and why I needed her help so after everything was explained, it was a pretty lengthy e-mail and I hope she doesn't mind. However, there was no need to send thousands of e-mails just to keep the length short. The quicker she knows about me and what I'm doing, the better off I will be in the long run.

Some Progress...

Hello everyone. Today I made some progress with my Literature Review. I had to add detail to my outline and thanks to me not reading the directions, I forgot to put my points into complete sentences. As a result, now I am getting real familiar with my notes and outline and pretty soon I will be ready to get moving with my paper. With this in mind, I do plan to do alot of work during the weekend. Also, I e-mailed my mentor and told her some of the specifics of my project that I was having trouble on. If I want to get this show on the road, I'm going to need to get moving and quickly. There is going to be alot of e-mails being sent from me really soon to secure my plan will be a success. I can definitely say that progress is being made. The one aspect of my project that I haven't secured, besides my action plan, is my interview. The college interns at my internship haven't been selected yet at the Study Abroad office so I'm still waiting on that. However, as soon as I get word of their arrival, I'm going to make an appointment to get their insight. This is where I am for now...

TGIF

There really isn't much else to add to the work done this week. I pretty much extracted the information from my websites and tried to put more depth into my notes. I created a system with what I felt was sufficient information, a decent amount of information and an inadequate amount of information regarding my notes. All that is left now for me to do is add whatever information to my outline. I still need to find a book source and conduct the interviews that I plan on making and that information will be included as well. After receiving the Literature Review paper today, I feel as though I'm on schedule now and feel more stable about where I am on my project than I did on Monday. I'll be working over the weekend to make sure I'm completely caught up with everything that way there is no reason for me to have to backtrack on any component of my project.

Getting the Research

In class today, I was busy with finishing up my notes. I found a new method to see what Foundation Questions still needed work and what questions had a substantial amount of information. Most of my attention was set on my last Foundation Question which really had no information on it at all. If I were to rewind back to my last trimester of Grad Project and find out why that question was unanswered, it was probably because I couldn't get any information but planned to extend the research over the break. Well we all know that my plans were altered when it was difficult for me to even sit at a computer. So now I'm hurrying along scrounging up all the information that I need and it seems to be coming altogether. Once the notes are done, I'll have to review my outline and add all of the information that I was missing to make sure that when I write my Literature Review, it will be a detailed paper.

In conjunction with finishing my notes, I plan on going to the library sometime this week so I can get a book source included in my information. I looked on the online catalog but I still have no idea what book I'm going to need. Even more unfortunate, I don't even know what library I'm going to go to. All in all, things are starting to come together and I should be caught up shortly.

First Post in Months

This week is mostly consisting of getting myself organized and retaining all the work that was done during 11th grade. Today I worked on...

• Emailed my intern mentors and got them up to speed on what I was doing so far
• Organized my notes and made a note as to what else needed additional attention
• Updated my webliography

I gave myself a goal for Sunday to be completed all the way up to a updated and detailed outline. At first I was getting discouraged because I wasn't sure if everything would still be where I left it on my H drive but luckily everything was exactly as I had left it. After reviewing all of my work I let out a sigh of relief and after going over the check list, there is very little that still needs to be finished.

I think I am ready to complete the journey laid out in front of me.

The Proposal Questionnaire

The pre-writing questionnaire is due on Friday and right now I am working towards that goal. I am still working on my notes since I altered them and now have to find extensive notes for not only the notes that I originally had but for the notes that I have added. However, because there is a deadline, I am gearing all of my attention towards the questionnaire and when that is complete then I will relocate to my notes. I have a pretty good start on my pre-writing so I am confident that I will have it done by Friday which will be one less thing that I will have to stress about.

The Nitty Gritty (Courtney won't leave me alone!)

For today my goal was to work on my notes. Ms. Savido had told us different strategies that people used to organize their notes and my notes, I must say, do need some serious reconstruction. I don't like my layout and I needed something that was going to work for me. Today, I reconstructed my notes to have one foundation question on its own separate document. It would make it alot easier to go to each note in it's own space and it would allow me to expand with alot of information. So today, I redid my notes and now it is a lot more organized for me. I am now looking through the articles that I printed out and trying to get some serious detail into my notes because I am so tired of note having adequate notes. I am finally getting into the nitty gritty even though Courtney continues to mess with me.

Life After Presenting

Yesterday I had presented my project and let the class know what I was doing. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be and everything seemed to go well. I thought a lot of other projects were really good too like Desiree's project (I hope I spelled that right), Danielle's project, and DeVaughn's project. Speaking of him, since DeVaughn's project was on police brutality, I told him that my dad is a detective and he could probably get an interview with him and probably even get to see the office he is in. I remember yesterday that I had asked him if he considered interviewing a cop for his project to get their perspective on his topic but I haven't even thought about my dad. (ha ha) Anyway, I e-mailed him my dad's e-mail and hopefully they can get things started. Back on my project, I am still struggling with the few foundation questions that I haven't been able to find the answers to. I am planning on starting some interviews next week and I am not sure how many I plan to do. I might have to interview students the week after next because Pitt is going on Spring Break next week and no one will really be there for that whole week. So that leaves me with the staff and I'll probably ask my mentor if she recommends that I speak to anyone as well. For now, this is where I am at and I probably won't tackle my other challenges until I can devote enough time to them.

Crunch Time

Hola everyone. I'm am working on my notes and I must admit that it is becoming very frustrating. It seems as though my foundation questions won't receive relevant results when I look them up on the Internet. Time is precious and I am starting to panic on whether or not I am going to be done on time. There are a couple of questions in which sources on my webliography can answer but a good 5 or 6 questions are left on the back burner. It is definitely crunch time and I am going to have to really dig deep to get the information that I need to answer these questions. Hasta Luego!

Getting Back to Business

It is been some time since a post has went up. My apologies. Right now, I am working on my interview questions. I haven't really decided on who I was going to interview but I am almost positive that I am going to interview some one at my intern. It will either be my mentor or the senior advisor at the office because many of my questions need to be answered by someone who has a to, for lack of a better word, deal with students often. I'm also starting to build some interview questions for a student who has already studied abroad and get some information from the students perspective as well. I will probably ask one of the college interns that work in the office to have that interview with me.

I'm almost done with the questions so I will soon be working on my notes. Those will be a little more difficult because many of my questions are not getting a lot of answers from the Internet. I will probably have to start going to the library for more resources so I can get my notes turned in on time. It is definitely time to start getting back to business.

Still Tugging Along

Today was mainly a continuation of yesterday's job. I finally reached my annotations and will probably be able to finish the assignment by tomorrow. I was ecstatic that students are returning my surveys. The numbers are really starting to increase which I know my mentors will be thrilled about. I'm curious to know how the categories will turn out after all of my research is completed. Also, I talked to Allison Peters about her project and how closely ours are related yesterday. I mentioned her to my mentors and told them a little bit about her project and they already want to meet her! I plan to talk to her and get a better understanding of what she is doing so maybe in some way we could do some work together that would be mutually beneficial. The project is really going underway.

Cite it Right

Time to do the citing! I went through my websites and started finding the websites that I know are most beneficial for my project. Using Easy Bib was a great help too. So far I have about five citations right now but I haven't started the annotation yet. However, I do keep in mind what I am going to write about when I visit the sites for the MLA information.

Tell me...did you know...?

After researching the statistics for studying abroad, the numbers are very interesting. Take a look at what has been happening over the years.

QUESTION: Did you know…?


· Number of Americans studying abroad increased by 8% in academic 06/07 year

· Growth in Americans receiving academic credits increase close to 150%

· American students are more frequently choosing non-traditional study abroad locations

· Increase of study abroad locations relates to increase in range of study abroad locations

· New York University remains leading sending institution sending 3,034 students

· 40 campuses awarded credits to more than 1,000 students

· Top three fields of study of American study abroad students are Social Sciences, Business and Management, and Humanities

· National total of study abroad participation by state is 1.36%

· Europe hosts the largest share of U.S. students that study abroad (57%)

· In 2003/04, around 191,000 students studied abroad compared to the 76,000 ten years ago.

Sources

Open Doors Online
http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/

NAFSA
http://www.nafsa.org

Americans Studying Abroad
http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=50138

Vistawide
http://www.vistawide.com/studyabroad/study_abroad_statistics.htm

Quote:
“This increase remains a strong indicator of the tremendous interest in study abroad, both in spite of and in response to the changing geopolitical climate following 9/11.”

Source: Americans Studying Abroad http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=50138

Take a look...

As many students may have noticed, I started passing out my surveys that I had conducted for my intern and graduation project. The results are very interesting and it finally allowed me to start getting back some of the information that I will need later on. I now plan on conducting a way to organize my results so the people at my intern can evaluate them and create some generalizations. These surveys will be a huge contribution to my results and I encourage anyone who hasn’t gotten one of my surveys to please get one from me.

Here is the essential question that I have come up with for my topic of study abroad outreach to high school students following the foundation questions.

Essential Question: How do high school students become informed about the benefits that are associated with Studying Abroad?

Foundation Questions:

1. What are common high school activities?
2. Why is study abroad promotion so low?
3. Is Globalization taught in high schools?
4. What are commonly visited study abroad locations?
5. What are the most frequently asked questions about study abroad from high school students?
6. What type of media promote study abroad to student s (books, movies, TV, etc)
7. What are common stereotypes about study abroad?
8. Is learning another language forced in high school curriculum?
9. What colleges already outreach to high school students?
10. What study abroad promotion strategies already exist in which are targeted at high school students?
11. What are the positive and negative reviews that students who’ve studied abroad have about their experiences?
12. What do students who are in college wish they would have known about study abroad when they were in high school?

Moving Forward

I finished and uploaded my topic question and 10 websites a while ago. I started on foundation questions and brainstormed a few key terms. It was hard to figure out foundation questions that would relate to the essential question I have made for myself. I read through some of my websites and it kind of gave me an idea of what questions I need to ask and what key terms I need. My key terms may seem like they don't relate, but the benefits from study abroad in the long run strongly relate to the key terms and sort of quietly support the essential question.

In addition to making my foundation questions, I tried to create questions that I had a good chance of finding the answer to. Because I am going to be using a lot of people as my informational sources I knew that the Internet may not have as relevant results to my topics as I would need it to. I placed other sources such as the Internet but also the library and personal interviews with different authorities as sources where I am going to find the answers to my foundation questions. So far, everything seems to be moving forward.

Finally Getting Somewhere

After wondering and constantly thinking about what my project was going to be about, I finally found a good idea that I could create a project around. I chose to base my project on my internship at the University of Pittsburgh Study Abroad office. My part in their office is to help them develop an outreach to high school students. I figured; why not involve my intern in my graduation project? Once the thought ran through my head, ideas about what I could do with it just came flowing in different directions but I didn’t know which one was best for me.

I tried to put myself in the mindset of an average teenager and then the picture became clearer. Just telling students about study abroad isn’t going to leave much of an impression, however, showing them and presenting bits and pieces of the real thing may make a difference.

I told my mentors about my project and the road that I chose to take and they were excited about it, probably more than I was. I am very excited that they are going to help me with my research and assisting me in putting my project into motion. The materials the study abroad office has are endless and I can’t wait to put them to good use.

Even after having somewhat of a plan to get some ground work done, my mentor told me that it was going to take more than a few months to reach the goals they have set for themselves. The bigger question is, even if I do make an impression with my project, how do they use this information and replicate it for all the other high schools? It is a goal that is probably going to take a few years to reach but I am glad that I have become a small part in something that will become huge with time.

Initial Topic Ideas

The different news that I have heard about the graduation project at City High is that it is extremely important in terms of graduation. I know that it is a project that is conducted by the student and is surrounded by the student’s interests and motivation. I also heard that there is a panel that every student must present their project to when the final project is finally completed. I do know a few students who have completed their graduation projects. Though I don’t really know what their projects were about or how they felt when they presented them, I do remember that they told me they were very nervous when they were presenting, even after practicing their presentation numerous times.
When thinking about what I would structure my project around, I am completely lost. I have idea which direction I am going to take or even what interest of mine that I am truly passionate about. I do know that I want to find something that I can continue to do beyond my graduation project. I want to be able to stay involved in the work I do and see how far it can take me and how many ripples it can make to other people.
Some concerns I have about my project are first finding a topic. I am the worst person in making decisions and seeing that I don’t have forever to complete this project, I worry that I may take too long to figure out what I really want to do with this graduation project. Other concerns that I have are the actual points I would be making to the panel I am going to be presenting to next year. The main idea here is what the big deal is and why should anyone care about what I am trying to do with this project and I hope that I maintain my motivation and confidence and don’t become discouraged along the way by fear.