Wishing

The wishing phase of the 8 W's model relates directly to the reflection element of Callison's information inquiry elements. During this phase, I am able to reflect on the process and draw on its strengths and weaknesses. Callison believes that reflecting must occur as well in both summative and formative levels. Overall, I think the project went well. I had some frustrating points dealing with the tremendous amount of information initially. Once I decided that my topic was just too big, I was able to lessen the information and the frustration minimized. A strength would be the use of blogging. I felt the blog was a great tool to share the thoughts and feelings I had throughout the project. It also allowed me to see other students' frustrations as well. A weakness would be instantly reverting to my old trusty source, the Internet. I have a bad habit of trying to get all my information for the web. I really had to force myself to explore other sources. I think one of the greatest challenges of the project was keeping up with the requirements of spreading out the postings and comments. I am the type of student that wants to just dedicate a day to an assignment and do it from start to finish. Completing the project in small chunks gradually was different for me as a learner.

I am not sure if anything could be done differently for this type of project. Though I found the spreading out of postings difficult, I feel it is necessary to do it in this manner to show the process of inquiry.

I feel my personal inquiry experiences are very similar to those of my students. The generation of students I am teaching are very Internet familiar and often look to it for all their information. Every fifth grader I have knows how to "google". I also believe that they too feel the frustration of being overwhelmed with information. This is a major reason why I think students need to be taught models of inquiry to help sort through the information and minimize the frustration.

My personal approach to inquiry is still basically the same as it was before the project. I still need that haunting question to light a spark. In this case, it was my desire to learn how to play chess. And as usual, I turned to the Internet right from the start. I am not sure if that is good or bad. I know it is a great tool and it is necessary to utilize it in today's world. I do think that I have forced myself to explore other sources during this project. One thing that has changed is the reflecting. I rarely reflected on the findings but now I find myself analyzing and sharing the information. I find that I like discussing the topics with others.