This month’s class is interesting and helpful in that even though there is a lot of work to be done, there are not a lot of tasks to do that are not directly related to our Action Research Project. This class allows us the time to work on our AR from many aspects like reviewing example websites, working on our videography, setting up time lines, implementing our projects and building and utilizing our critical friends. Finally getting a chance to learn about a time line has been really helpful to me as I am one that works best when I can lay out the details of a plan and schedule according to that. Now I have something better to use in having my students plan out the garden project.
* What are you doing to setup your cycle? I have looked over Dr. Bedard's site to see how the timeline should be set up and I am doing ok. My cycle one seems to be starting on target as the problem has been identified and a possible solution has been chosen (the urban garden). I am having biweekly meetings with my students (there are action items every week) to check in and insure that things stay on track. Even though we have had to reschedule a few meetings with community helpers and such due to school meetings,etc., the enthusiasm of the students is still high. We just assigned roles and duties to individuals and will begin surveying the land around the school for the best spot (with the help of an urban farmer representative) next week.
I will have gotten some of my critical friends to review and critique my survey and have already implemented some of the suggestions. The plan is to break ground with in the next two weeks and be in the early maintenance stage throughout December. The great thing is that the kids live close enough to the school ( so do I ) that it will be easy to maintain the garden over the winter break as well.
I have also started work on setting up the AR Website. That is something fun to work on as it takes so thought and creativity to capture the essence of my project in the layout. This is where I get stuck in my head sometimes so it will take a minute. Thanks to all that have posted responses thus far to my blog. I will look forward to your suggestions and feedback in the future as well.
The learners being the students are responding with much excitement and resilience (since this is taking a minute to get set up) and I get inspired every time we meet and they talk about what they think the outcome will be.They have a list of ideas of what to do with the produce, amongst other things, donating food to the hungry, selling shares in the garden to faculty and staff as a fundraiser, using the funds to support a neighborhood healthy habits committee. This will help to increase awareness of nutritional value of food and how to prepare and purchase the best food on a budget. The kids were excited because it shows how our project will be able to serve a few needs in the community- their community.
* How this month’s course is helping shape your ARP: This course is helping by giving me room to design and implement the project with lots of help from instructors and my critical friends. I have developed a plan and have been making adjustments to my survey as suggested and fine tuning my video and interviewing skills. It is very helpful to have more time to think things out and work on them 'in class' so to speak. Right now, my goal is to stick as closely to the plan as possible. Will start recording our work sessions as some evidence of our planning and implementation. The website will be manned by me and two of the students ( I am going to manage it, set up times when they can do the updating and designing). Oh yeah, this class gives me an opportunity to re-acquaint myself with Second Life. I spent several hours in there last night with my group getting familiar with movements, redesigning my look and checking out several of the suggested sites that would could use for our video. We had some funny moments!
So much for now. Will keep you informed as the journey continues...
