colinCHAOS

Week 1. I met the research project class today, but unfortunately, our teacher was absent so we worked with a relief teacher. He gave us sheets detailing the various methods of researching and we were then asked to form groups for the research project. Me, Leanna and Cindy decided to work together. s Week 2. Me, Cindy and Leanna then attempted to decide upon an appropriate research topic. Unfortunately, our minds were rather blank and we felt that all the good topics were already taken. Things were complicated further when Cindy decided to drop out of the class and move into a Biology class, leaving Leanna and I to work as a mere pair. Nevertheless, we visited wikispaces and made our own pages anyway. Miss McInnes also explained to us the DLSOPE method of researching, an acronym for Defining, Locating, Selecting, Organising, Presenting, and Evaluating. Leanna and I also decided to do a  Technology Revolution as our topic.
 * __TERM 1__**

Week 3. Unfortunately, our research is not going QUITE according to plan. We are finding it rather difficult to extract information from the internet about the Tech Revolution. On the other hand, we were taught how to use the WonderWheel tool on google, which im sure will be a great asset to us. We were also given sheets on what we were being assessed on. Miss McInnes also showed us a program which elaborated on the concept of Plaigarism. Of course, Ive had it drilled into me since year 5 that Plaigarism is very wrong and serious. Only after this program though, did i really understand what it truly meant.

Theres A LOT of ways u can plagarise, not just by copying exact words and sentences. Referencing becomes very important at this point. Most plaigarism, however, is actually unintentional so its best to avoid this by learning how to acknowledge sources. After this, Leanna and I decided to change our topic (as our current one was too hard to research) to Animal Cruelty

Week 4. Unlike our previous topic, the topic we are reseaching now proved to be much more easier and we were able to extract information quite easily. The fact that Leanna and I had some knowledge of Animal Cruelty prior to this research project also helped greatly. Everything seemed fine at this point..until of course, we were hit with another complication.. Today was the day Ms McInnes took us to the library (which has since been reduced from large rooms to a small caravan-like classroom, might i add) for us to listen to a lecture by Mr Noble, a teacher who has a good amount of experience teaching seniors. He gave us an enlightening speech about how to effectively carry out reaseach, step by step. Then he asked us what topics we were doing, in order to see if we could actually conduct decent research on them. Leanna and I discovered that another person was doing animal cruelty and we immediately realised two groups couldn't do the same topic. Predictably, Mr Noble agreed. After that, we were given a sheet regarding Blooms Taxonomy in order for us to familiarise ourselves on the six levels of thinking. Leanna and I, yet again, were forced to change topics. We are now researching Homeless People In Adelaide. Overall, i think our progress is being hindered by one complication after the next... w Week 5. Homeless People In Adelaide is now our topic (its been finalised) and Leanna and I are making rapid progress with this topic. It is a widely known issue and thus quite easy to find information. We have already written down various facts about homelessness and its quite astounding to know that even in a First World Country like ours, homelessness is still prevalent among the many states of Australia. We have been searching far and wide to gather as much information as we can and have our eye on the Salvation Army. We might be visiting a centre of theirs to see if we can interview a few people who are Sleeping Rough. Leanna and I have also managed to generate a total of 7 questions in preparation for our interviews. Here they are below:

__ The homeless __ 1. How do you feel about how your life has turned out? 2. Can you tell us about your past (career, family)? 3. What problems do you encounter living on the streets (climate, shelter, food, medical)? 4. Where do you live at the moment? 5. What other volunteer help are you receiving besides this soup kitchen? 6. How did you become homeless? 7. How well do you get along with others who are also homeless?

__ The helpers __ 1. How many homeless people do you think there are at the moment? 2. Why do you think they’ve become homeless? 3. How can people help? 4. How many homeless people do you encounter each day? 5. Do you think there are enough volunteers? 6. Are you receiving any government funding or help? If no, do you think you should be receiving some government help?

Hopefully,these will suffice in collecting enough information.

Week 6. Me and Leanna are now in the process of establishing useful contacts in order for us to find someone who will allow us to interview homeless people but we have now hit another problem. Miss McInnes told us today that before we even consider interviewing homeless people, we should consider the homeless themselves, for they may be embarrassed or upset at the thought of having to pour out their innermost feelings to two high school students. Leanna and I had not thought of this before, and I, at first, thought why? but as more time passed i began to see the sense in it. Miss Mcinnes has also showed us more useful sources and websites which we will use effectively. Leanna and I also have our eyes on The St. Vincent De Pauls charity now. We have had a thorough look through their website and it looks very promising.

Week 7. Leanna and I have located the contact details of Tim Taylor, a major figure in the St Vincent De Pauls charity. We have sent him a few questions via email which include mostly asking for a few interviews with homeless people who rely upon the charity. These interviews will be crucial for our success because we can actually look deeper into the issue of homelessness and see it through the eyes of someone who has experienced these traumatising events. Leanna and I are confident that our reception will be good.

Week 8. We recieved an email back from Mr Tim Taylor today, and most unfortunately, he is unwilling to let us interview his clients due to the fact that he would like us to respect the privacy and dignity of the homeless; interviewing them would embarrass them greatly or upset them. Now that Mr Taylor has bought this point up, I realised that it was rather tactless to demand an interview with the homeless, so it would seem that Miss McInnes was correct after all. Even though we aren't allowed to interview the homeless, however, Mr Taylor was willing to disclose certain pieces of information that will be just as valuable to our project. These included a variety of new questions, a few audio interviews that were conducted on a radio station and a suggestion for a youtube video. I feel that, at least for the time being, these resources will be the next best thing to an actual primary source.

Week 9. This week, we recieved yet another email from My Taylor, regarding an induction day that was to be held in the holidays. We realised that this would be an excellent opportunity to interview My Taylor himself, as our primary source.Leanna and I are going together; we wanted some of our friends to go with us too but they had other plans for the holidays. Leanna and I have also settled for a written report of 800 words. I personally like this approach to our presentation because I feel more comfortable with my writing skill than my public speaking skill. This week was honestly very hectic, because we spent so much time preparing for the induction day and finalising many things on our project. Im drained, physically AND mentally.....

Week 10. This week was rather uneventful because we had finished most things (for the term anyway) and were simply cruising along, making minor alterations to our project. All in all, I think this project would come out beautifully at the end of this semester.


 * __TERM 2.__**

Week 1. Well, it's ofiicially Term 2! During the induction day, we unfortunately encountered another huge problem; I was unable to attend (for personal reasons I won't disclose) and thus, Leanna was forced to go on her own. I feel extremely bad for leaving Leanna to go on her own, and I still regret it to this day. I was determined to make up for it however and so, I spent hours at home continuing our research. I managed to find a few good things, and hopefully we will be able to use these in the presentation. Leanna, during the induction day, also managed to procure booklets and leaflets about homelessness, which will be very useful. Overall, I think our progress so far has been steady..

Week 2. Leanna and I have yet again emailed Mr Taylor to properly thank him for providing us ( Leanna, to be precise) with the opportunity to go to the induction day held in the city. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons, our entire research class was relocated to J41 upstairs. This was a major blow to me and Leanna, since we have lost the convenience of having computers at our fingertips. Still, we now utilise laptops as a means of conducting research, which is almost as good, if not worse ( Leanna and I still prefer T9, our previous classroom.) After a few suggestions by Miss McInnes, we have decided to slightly alter our hypothesis, so that it now reads  What are the contributing factors and how can we reduce homelessness in Australia Leanna and I think that this is more suitable than  We are able to raise awareness about homelessness in Australia ( the latter being rather vague.)

Week 3. This week was a major turnaround for our project since Leanna and I decided to do a multimedia presentation (instead of a written report that we had previously decided upon). This was because Leanna had procured a number of radio interviews that would be very effective in a powerpoint presentation. We are currently organising our information so that it flows logically in the powerpoint. Things are looking fine so far.

Week 4. It would suffice to say that Leanna and I are cracking under enormous pressure from this project...the presentation stage of our research project is drawing closer all the time and we are only half ready. Other tasks from various subjects are crippling our overall progress in this subject. Things are getting quite difficult as well seeing as we have gaping holes in our research and we are frantically trying to find decent information to fill them. We are unsure at this stage if our emails have reached the Mr Taylor. On a better note, Leanna and I decided to do a cross cultural comparison to see what the rates of homelessness are like in other countries. I am very interested to see wha rates of homelessness are like in countries other than Australia.

Week 5. Leanna and I were told by Miss McInnes today to change our hypothesis from a a question to a statement. Our hypothesis now reads, we can reduce homelessness in Australia by reducing the contributing factors. I was all for the change because i felt that we were both trying to reduce rates of homelessness in any way we can, and that our previous hypothesis,  We can raise awareness about homelessness fitted perfectly into this new one as well. Things are going much better this week because Leanna and I were rather full to bursting with energy and managed to complete large amounts of work. We still have some minor holes in our research but we feel that it is enough to satisfy the criteria of the project.

Week 6. Leanna and I have finished almost everything now. We have done everything to the best of our ability and are now finalising everything and finishing off small things, probably over the weekend. We were unable to procure ALL the information that we would have liked, but we still think that with this information alone, we are able to get a high mark. All in all, it was a rather uneventful week but theres quite a lot of things to finalise and finish off....

Week 7. This week was presentation week, the week where everyone would be presenting their completed projects. Leanna and I decided that I would be the one to do the talking, since I'm a fairly confident public speaker (it Is my dearest ambition to become a journalist after all!) and that I personally felt that Leanna had exerted enough effort already into this project and that she had already done a fantastic job. Still, I was fairly nervous and when I am, I tend to stutter or my voice cracks.

This indeed happened a fair few times throughout the oral, but then again, it could have been a lot worse. Still, I was confident that we had done a good job and that our powerpoint flowed logically and every slide was on cue. After that, we were asked to give a mark to other groups on their presentation and I was fairly impressed with them all.

There were however, some things that could have been improved. Unfortunately, Leanna and I had very little time to rehearse and as a result, our presentation dragged on for much longer than we thought. However, even if we had cut down on the time, we would also have had to cut out a lot of our information which would have resulted in a huge deduction of marks, which was definitely undesirable. As a way to work around this, Leanna and I tried to condense the information as much as we could. In the end, it was still too long, but we had done our best.

Needless to say, Leanna and I are currently feeling faint with relief that its over.

Week 8. This week is when we reach the final stage of our research project: Evaluating This week is being dedicated to reflecting upon our work, such as new skills that we have attained throughout the duration of this course, what we have learnt while researching our topic, and