Almost There....

I've been working hard on this project since Thursday when I last posted. I want to reflect some more on what I've been doing the last few days. The first challenge I faced when putting together my project was deciding which questions I wanted to answer. I approached my research with the broad idea "I want to know about the history of Ft. Wayne." It wasn't until I begin looking through the information I had gathered that I developed more specific questions. In this, I really didn't follow the order in the 8Ws, I-Search, or Research Cycle models. Obviously, this is not the way I was "supposed" to go about my research. However, it worked for me. I found general resources and when I dug into them I came across topics that interested me and then read everything I could about those topics. Maybe this means I "did it wrong," but as I said, it seemed to work for me. In the end I would up answering these questions: What were the circumstances surrounding the founding of Ft. Wayne? How did these events affect the Native American population? What events were important to the growth of Ft. Wayne? What role have African-Americans played in the development of the city? Where is Ft. Wayne headed in the future? In some ways I'm glad I didn't make a list of specific questions and stick to it before looking for resources. I probably wouldn't have focused any of my questions on African-Americans, and would have missed out on the interesting and important information I read about in a great book I discovered specifically about African-Americans in Ft. Wayne.

Once I had explored the information I found, I organized it by creating category headings and placing the information under those headings. If something didn't fit into one of my main categories I cut it. For example, I read a very interesting quote where an 1875 issue of the Chicago Tribune referred to Ft. Wayne as "the most lawless town in Indiana." I found the quote amusing, but it didn't fit in with anything else, so I cut it from the project. Organizing my information in this manner worked well as I am creating a PowerPoint presentation. I took my category headings and made them into my slide titles. This presents organized ideas to the viewer and makes it clear when we are transitioning from one topic to another.

If you've read my previous posts, you know that I decided to create a PowerPoint with pictures because I enjoying looking at the historical pictures so much when doing my research. I also decided to add voice narration to my PowerPoint, due to another course I am currently taking. I am taking High-Tech Learning, also with Dr. Lamb, and for an assignment due this Monday we were to research a topic of our interest and then present our findings using sound, animation or video. I automatically thought, "I could add sound to my PowerPoint about Ft. Wayne. That would be perfect!" I was amazed at how well the two assignments fit together. I emailed Dr. Lamb and she graciously agreed to let me combine the two assignments. I am very glad I decided to add sound because I believe it will add substance to the presentation.

I am still finishing up my final project and will be posting a final reflection soon!