Abby's Info Inquiry Blog

The specific forms of technology that I used were:

1. Concept Map: I used the Webspiration site to begin a concept map. It ended up being an outline because the actual concept map was just way too confusing. I had too much information to put in map. However, I still used the technology tool (which I will admit that it was much easier to create an outline with this tool than with Microsoft Word which tries to guess what you are doing and gets really frustrating).
2. Web-based Tool: I did not use any of these, but the Google Docs led me to the Google sites where I created my final product. I do enjoy the 4 teacher tools – specifically rubistar. It is a great rubric maker that makes a very readable table. I always have to export it to Word, though, so I can get it to fit on one page, so that is slightly frustrating.
3. Pathfinder, Social Bookmarks, or Bibliography. I used Delicious. I have heard Delicious mentioned quite a bit by school media specialists on my listserv, but never actually took the time to check it out. Now I have the tools on my tool bars so that I can quickly bookmark and tag my favorite sites. I wish I would have taken the time to check it out before!
4. Electronic Communication Tool: I used email for interviews with “experts” (mommies), text messaging, as well as my Facebook page. The most helpful was Facebook because I could ask a question, several people could answer, respond to each other and elaborate on other people’s comments. Since pretty much anyone who has successfully potty-trained a child can be considered an expert for this project, it was very beneficial. I also knew the people, so I knew which people had children with the same personalities as mine and which ones I don’t really agree with their parenting style, so I am not sure I would agree with their potty training style, either.
5. Productivity Tool – I used Google Sites to create a web page. Had my son been home with me this weekend, I might have included some digital pictures as well, but I didn’t want to start the potty training process and send him off to his dad’s. That’s why I will be starting tomorrow. He will have 2 full weeks of the new routine before going there and not getting anything. I loved using Google Sites. I thought it was incredibly easy (much easier than using the silly HTML like we did for that computer course at the beginning of our library courses) and I am even contemplating creating a classroom webpage to aid in communication with parents. It will also help when taking students to the computer lab to get on a web page. If they can just go to my page and click on the link, that would be so much easier.
6. Notetaking Tool. – I checked out both Diigo and Awesome Highlighter. I liked Diigo better because I could put the sticky notes on the pages. That was a great tool. I will definitely continue to use that as I do inquiry/research projects in classes.

I am not sure that my approach to inquiry is any different after this process. I have always tried to make sure that I researched lots of different types of documents (books, journals, websites, etc). I had never used interviews and that type of research for my formal inquiry projects before. A lot of times, as I am conducting inquiry, I am bouncing ideas off of people; however, I have never felt like that was a “valid” form off research before. That was probably my favorite part of the process (except for the one time that it caused an argument on my facebook page. That wasn’t fun). I did enjoy having a different way of organizing my research using the Diigo tools, Delicious bookmarks and the Webspiration tools instead of the old fashioned bib cards and note cards. I will probably continue to use those in the future.

I think this would really qualify as a “free inquiry” in Callison’s levels of inquiry since we had choice of topic, final product, etc. However, I did not really enjoy having free reign of how to have a final product. It is odd as a “Type A” student to not have specific directions of how to present your product. It was also very frustrating to notice that the final product was only worth one point. I understand that the process was very important, but I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that the final product of the inquiry would only be worth ~4% of the grade. I would, however, love to show that to my principal, who is requiring us to create benchmark exams for our classes for next year – which will be worth 1/3 of the students’ grade each grading period. He is also requiring that 1/3 of our grade be our classroom tests and the other 1/3 is left over to our classroom assignments, projects, etc. Talk about devaluing the inquiry process! No project is to be considered a test. Is that crazy or is that crazy?!? Did we just jump back a few decades?

But, I digress. I guess I can relate to how my students will feel next year when their projects are not worth as much as they used to be…and when I have to give more tests because I give virtually none now…

This project could definitely be translated into a curricular experience.

At the high school level, schools offer a child development class through the Family and Consumer Sciences department. Researching potty training methods would specifically address the following standards:

• CDP (Child Development) 5 : Students will analyze parenting practices and nurturing strategies that maximize growth and development of children. Specifically Indicator 5.3: Apply current and emerging research on human growth and development and parenting to assess parenting and nurturing practices.
• CDP 4: Students will analyze human growth and development across the life span. Specifically Indicator 4.5: Examine how gender, ethnicity, culture, and life events relate to individual development.
• Almost all of the AASL standards for inquiry.

The first one easily relates because the students would be finding the current research on potty training and can analyze how to approach potty training in the future. In the school system where I work, the high school child development class helps run a day care. Perhaps they could use the information they have found to share with the parents and day care workers on some other ideas to help the children become successfully potty trained.

This would be an example of a Guided Inquiry based on Callison’s levels of Inquiry. The students would have a choice of method of potty training. Depending on the size of the class, some may be researching something other than potty training – perhaps other developmental milestones and different methods of reaching those.

At the middle school level, the students could do a general inquiry of various potty training methods so that they are familiar with all types of  methods. They could then answer the question, “How can I help in the potty training process while baby-sitting a child in the process of potty training?” As a parent, I would love to know if my baby-sitters have researched this and are willing and able to help in the process. This would fall under the Family and Consumer Sciences Standard 4 (Students will analyze human growth and development across the lifespan) in the following indicators:

• 4.5 Caring for Children and Others: Demonstrate skills for positive guidance and care-giving of children and others, including Understanding Ages and Stages
• 4.6 Caring for Children and Others: Demonstrate skills for positive guidance and care-giving of children and others, including Caregiver responsibilities
• Again, many, if not all, of the AASL standards for inquiry

I would probably conduct this as a very controlled form of inquiry based on Callison’s levels of Inquiry. In this case, we would either come up with the questions they should be researching as a class, or I would provide the questions for them. Perhaps I would even guide them to reliable sources. I could make it a bit less controlled by giving them free reign, but it just depends on the level of the students and their experience with inquiry in the past.

I felt that my project went really well. I am satisfied with my search results and with the plan for potty training my son that I created. I think my only weakness is not including all of the research that I found. Obviously, to relate to the K-12 standards, the students wouldn’t (hopefully) have a child to apply the research to, so they would have to research one specific method (like the potty training in a day method) to report on, so it may not have been entirely authentic to what would have happened in a K-12 classroom. In a classroom, I would probably have pulled out the different methods of potty training and had one student/method. Then they could each report on the method he/she had chosen. However, we were asked to also do something related to ourselves that we could use, and I am definitely going to be using the information that I found (starting tomorrow).

This experience is something that I would have been doing anyway, without the final product, though. My experience was probably unlike the children who come into my classroom because I knew exactly how to find the information I was looking for and how to evaluate for accuracy and bias. I knew to not use the information on the “Pull-ups” web page or any other web page that was trying to sell me products with their “research”. It was similar to that of my students though, because the topic is one that has a lot of information and fairly easy to search for, with very few other terms needed to search (I searched potty training, toilet training, and toilet learning and sometimes threw the word “boy” in there to see what other information I could come up with).  I tend to make sure that any inquiry experiences with my students are fairly easily searchable terms so that they don’t have to worry about a lack of information.

I communicated my ideas to  others by creating a public website that anyone can access. I posted a link on this blog, on OnCourse, and also on my facebook account. It is a publicly searchable website, so it can be found by anyone. I think this is something that would be interesting to many people because the research is valid and all in one place, so it doesn’t take a lot of time to sift through. I also will have record of it for future children (hopefully), so it will be accessible to me and others for years to come.

I will also say that I am confused as to the difference between waving and wrapping. I feel like I am answering the same questions as in wrapping. Wrapping also tells us to provide a product, then here in waving, it is telling us to include the URL in the blog… Didn’t I just do that? I have mostly liked the process of the Ws, because it satisfies my “Type A” personality to know exactly what is required of me, but it also frustrates me because I feel like I am being redundant at times.

I am sharing this information with my classmates, friends and families, and really the world, by making a website using Google Sites (which was SOOOOO easy!) sharing my research. I include a disclaimer on the first page saying that I am not including all of the information that I found, only the information that I find helpful in MY situation. If your child is different than mine, then please consult the original resources and design your own plan. I did also include my plan for the steps I will take to potty train my son. I have started the process a bit, but not completely. I wanted to complete my research before I started the process. Perhaps I will keep updating this blog to let you know how it is going.

I am posting my link here, on Oncourse and on my facebook account (so that those who assisted in my “real world” research can see the final product. I also had friends who are getting ready to potty train who may be interested). It is also a publicly searchable website, so hopefully, it will come up when googled for others who need it.

Here is the link to the website:

http://sites.google.com/site/pottytrainingjacob/

I started analyzing and organizing my information by using a web on Webspiration. However, it quickly became VERY messy and I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I switched to an outline format. That was much more manageable. I am posting the outline in the forum on OnCourse so that you can see it.

I have also continued talking to my family and friends while collecting the research. We are analyzing the research and applying my son’s personality as well as my personality and lifestyle into what will work best for our family. Therefore, I haven’t even included any information from the book Toilet Training in Less Than a Day because this one day focus on nothing but potty training just won’t work for my son or me. First, he likes to change activities frequently and this approach just doesn’t call for that.

I have created a plan for my son and somewhat began it this weekend, before he left to go to his dad’s. It includes sitting on the potty twice a day at my suggestion and anytime he asks. He actually asked a couple of times in addition to when I had him sit there. Pretty much anytime I announce I have to go potty, he thinks he has to, also. Which is making for good bladder control for me!

In my outline, I tried to include only information that was important to me and my son. However, I think I still have some elimination of information to do. The unfortunate part to this is that when I create my “final product” to share, I will only be sharing information that I think is important to my child. Perhaps I will include a disclaimer to consult my sources for more detailed information and other methods in those sources if you don’t think my plan will work for you and your child.

I guess the thing that I have learned the most (that really, as an educator, I have known for a long time) is that every child is different. No one plan is going to work for every child and quite possibly, one plan may not even work for two children. Every child is unique and should be taught to his or her unique qualities. If only we could take the same approach in our classrooms. That is pretty difficult with 32 children or more in our classrooms, though. I guess that is why we are learning about the inquiry process in this class because this process is just about the ONLY way to individualize instruction to the point that many of these students’ need. I just wish we could convince administrators and/or the state that experiencing this process and expressing oneself throughout the process as well as after the process is just as important (if not more) than passing a standardized test.

Like I said, my outline with all of my organized information will be posted in Oncourse shortly. This is where I selected and organized my information to determine findings of merit and specific examples of my findings.

There seem to be two different questions in this question. First, What did you do with the information you found?

While reading the books, I mostly used the small post-it flags to mark the parts that would answer my questions. While reading the websites, I used Delicious to bookmark the pages and Diigo to highlight the important parts and put sticky notes for different notes on those pages. I figured I would come back and organize the information during the weaving process. I took notes on paper for the articles I read on the Inspire Indiana website, using a different piece of paper for each question I had (I know, how low-tech).

How did you evaluate the content, ideas, and perspectives? What tools did you use for evaluation?

Well, to evaluate which sources I would actually use for information, I used my preexisting knowledge, which would probably be a checklist or guidelines in my head (not an actual physical checklist). The first thing I look for online is if they are trying to sell me something related to the information I am seeking. For instance, one web page I found was also selling potty chairs, training pants, and various other potty training products. I skimmed a little bit of the information and it seemed to be mostly selling their products. So, that type of information doesn’t seem to be valid to me. I also look at the author’s credentials to see why they are considered to be an “expert” in the field. Some of the real people that I interviewed happened to be parents. Some have one or two kids, but one source I relied on quite a bit is a mother of six boys, two who have developmental delays. Now THAT is an expert on potty training boys! I also interviewed people who had an easy time potty training as well as ones who have chronic bed wetters (and one who was a bed wetter herself until a very late age). These “real life” sources are valid because many of them are the type of parent who has read all the research and applied it to their own children to know what worked and what didn’t for them. On facebook, it was easy to sort through the “experts” and the “non-experts” because I know all the people. There was really only one person who commented on my status that I didn’t take seriously and that was my boyfriend’s sister. She is a 41 year old single woman who has never had children, babysat, or spent more than a few hours with a child. When I would asked the question, “How do you know if your child is ready to be potty trained?”, she replied that they will go into the bathroom to go potty. She also wrote other things on other questions that showed that she didn’t know what she was talking about. Her answers didn’t coincide with any of the other research I was reading and people would even send me private messages asking, “Who is that chick? Does she know anything about kids?” So, those kind of comments from others made me even more sure not to trust her advice.

I also sorted through information in a few other ways. I wanted to read as much information as quickly as possible. I really enjoyed the books and articles that really gave straight-forward advice. I didn’t really need the examples and stories of successes with different methods for the most part. Also, after reading most of one book (The Everything Potty Training Book), I figured out that every child is different and that there are many methods that aren’t going to work well for my child, or that it is too late to begin with my son, so it was pretty easy to skip parts of other books that I don’t need to read. For instance, there is this whole movement of potty training babies from a very young age. Since my son is almost 2, I really don’t need to read that information more than once. I did read it the one time, but it seems to me that the parents are trained more than the kids because it is all about being able to read your baby’s facial and body language to catch the cues that they are about to go. I don’t know about most parents, but while I am a very attentive parent, I also do not have time to just sit and stare at my child waiting for these “cues” that he needs to potty. Even at 2, my son will pause and grunt when he goes poo, but I don’t always catch him doing it because often, I am doing dishes or folding laundry. He plays so well by himself and is getting to that independent age where he likes to play by himself in his room and I feel he should be allowed to have some of that “alone time”. Anyway, it is too late to use that information, so there is no need for me to read it more than once.

Like I said before, I appreciate straight-forward information when I am searching for information. I am not looking for entertainment. When I am looking for information, I am very determined and do not like to be distracted. So, when I picked up The Girlfriend’s Guide to Toddlers, I became quite annoyed. It is written very informally, which isn’t really my problem, but has more commentary and humor to it than what I really enjoy in my informative literature. I was having a hard time finding the actual information and advice in the “this is what I did wrong” stories. The style of this book actually seemed to make the author sound like she did everything wrong when her kids were wrong – so why would I want to listen to her advice. I quickly became annoyed and put down the book.

For the articles from Inspire Indiana, I looked at the limited author information provided as well as the journal it was originally published in. Most of the information I found on this site was pretty valid, if not redundant from what I have already read.

I started my search on the Evergreen Indiana website searching my public library’s holdings for books on potty training. I didn’t feel I had the time to request books to be delivered via courier through the Evergreen system, but I could at least find the books that my library has. I found 7 books that looked like they would have some good information. However, it was a Sunday when I was working on this, so the library was closed. I decided to search the internet until I could get to the library the next day to check out the books.

I started my internet search on WhatToExpect.com. This website is managed by the author of the best selling What To Expect books. While I was pregnant, I spent a lot of time on this website (they have community message boards, etc) and I still get weekly emails from them about developmental information for the age of your child. I have found this information to be quite valid and helpful both while pregnant and while parenting. I found the answers to many of my questions there. I also found that my questions were pretty perfect at that point. I am not feeling frustrated, yet, although I am afraid that I am going to get all of my questions answered in one place and want to make sure I have a variety of sources! While I was reading the multiple pages on this site, I used the note taking and highlighting tool Diigo, which I thought was absolutely AWESOME!

I also reviewed the requirements of the assignment more during this time and saw all of the technology requirements and the variety of sources that we are encouraged to use. I decided that I would use my favorite social networking site, facebook, to which I am completely addicted, as a productive tool for once! How fun to be facebooking (yes, I use it as a verb) and be productive at the same time. So, for several days, I posted one or two different questions a day as my status for people to comment. Many types of “real people” made comments, sent me email messages, or even stopped me at work or at WalMart to talk about my research. Most were moms, one was a day care worker (who kept apologizing because she isn’t mom – I had to convince her that her “expertise” IS valid), a few were dads, and of course, there were a few who just thought they knew what they were talking about. Ha!

While I was conducting my facebook, “real people” research, I was also reading the books that I found at my public library. Between the sources (I am really not sure at what point I came up with these questions because I was skimming several sources and reading comments on facebook at the same time), I realized that I had a few more questions. This is where I started realizing the concept of research being recursive, as many of our professional resources stated. I realized that I was constantly reevaluating my questions, revising the ones that I had and adding more questions to my list. I started to really think about the inquiry assignments I give my students and if I plan enough time into the process for the recursive nature of inquiry. The new questions that I came up with at this point were:

• Is a potty seat sufficient or should I use a potty chair? (Almost every book I have skimmed mentions a potty chair, but my bathroom is very small and we don’t really have the room for a potty chair there or anywhere else in the house.)
• Should the child be in a toddler bed before potty training or is it okay if he is in a crib? (Many of the books and people mentioned the child getting up in the middle of the night to get you up to take him to the bathroom. My son is still in a crib, so that wouldn’t be possible…)

I also tried a google search and came up with lots of hits, but had a hard time validating the sources as “experts” that I would trust, plus many of the websites were selling products and/or had the same information I had already found. I used Delicious to bookmark some of the sites, but don’t really plan to use most of these sites as sources in my final product. I do enjoy using the Delicious tool to bookmark sites. It is especially great when I am doing web searches at home and can bookmark them and use them in the classroom, etc.

I also went to Inspire Indiana and searched for some articles about potty training. I found several and plan on going back to read more of them, but when I was doing the search, I found that I was exhausted and couldn’t think of a good plan to sift through the information. That was the main negative feeling I had during this process. While reading the information, whether in books, on facebook, or online, I would find myself getting exhausted pretty quickly. I am not sure if that could be attributed to the project itself or the fact that my child was sick this week and increased stress at my job.

I also had a lot of conversations (live interviews, phone calls, and online chats) with my mom (a nurse), my day care provider, family and friends who have children.

I really feel like I am gathering a lot of useful material. I am also realizing that in order to report on all of it, I would really have to write a book, so I have decided to sift through the information and report only on the information that is going to be useful to me and my child. His personality (and my personality) and our lifestyle will not allow for some of the training methods suggested (he is laid back, but I don’t see him – or me – focusing a whole day just on potty training related activities). I am pretty confident that I will end up with a pretty decent final product – if I could only decide how I want to present the information.

I have been really trying to think about my feelings as I go through this process. Since I focused on Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process for my second Trailblazer assignment, I have really been thinking about the emotions and stresses that students feel as they are doing inquiry based assignments. Just about the only ones I could really relate to were at the very beginning when I was trying to figure out my topic. I really wanted to do something for my classroom in the beginning, but decided to be true to the assignment and do something for myself. However, I had no clue where to start and ended up making myself sound like a TOTALLY uninteresting person. I think that is where I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. The only other times I really felt frustrated were my own fault because I wouldn’t read all of the requirements and would have to go back and edit posts and change my inquiry approach. Other than that, I did not have a hard time asking questions, finding the information, or organizing it.

Well, in the course of this week, I have had no more brilliant topic ideas, so I have been thinking about the process of potty training and brainstorming some questions about potty training. Many of these have come from talking to friends, the comment on this blog, and my own thoughts while changing diapers, putting my baby to bed and chasing my naked son around the house before bath time. Oh yeah, and even one time where I was undressing him prior to his bath, he grabbed his penis and peed right on me. It seemed pretty deliberate, but he is not even two yet!

As I have been talking to my friends, the main thing they have said (they all have daughters) is that girls are easier to potty train than boys. So, I am not sure if this has more to do with watching or wondering because I am not sure that it is an actual question, but to narrow my topic, I want to narrow it specifically to potty training boys.  Also, I appologize to those who are offended that I don’t use the “proper” terms for actions, it is just hard to use the word “defecate” for an act that such a small person is doing. Plus, I am trying to train myself to use the terms I want my son to use and these words are as polite as I could come up with and are also the terms used at his day care facility. Some questions I have had for a while are:

• What is the appropriate age to start potty training?
• What are some signs that my child is ready to start potty training?
• Should you potty train boys to potty standing up from the start or should they be taught to potty sitting down? (When I was in high school, I babysat a couple of boys who were potty trained to go potty sitting facing the toilet, and then would poo sitting facing away from the potty. I thought it was weird at the time, but now wonder if there was a theory behind it – other than reducing the mess.)
• Should I stick with diapers (or pull-ups) until he is completely trained or go cold-turkey to underwear? (While I am ready to be done changing diapers, I also understand the ease of changing a diaper versus cleaning dirty underwear, pants, carpet, etc in the event of an accident.)
• What about nighttime and naptime training? (This was brought on by a comment on my watching blog. This is an interesting question because I never really thought about this. A lot of people may not worry about naptime, but my son naps 3-4 hours daily – which can be quite a long time for a little one to not go potty. Also, I am enjoying sleeping through the night – he sleeps almost 12 hours now – and I can’t imagine being in Beth’s shoes and having to get up once a night for the next three years to take him potty. So, needless to say, I am going to search this part quite extensively.)
• Is there a difference between potty training and poo training? Do they learn to do both on the toilet at the same time or do you teach them how to potty on the toilet first and then worry about poo or vice versa?
• How long do you allow your child to sit on the toilet waiting for something to come out before taking them off the toilet (even if they want to stay on the toilet)? (I came up with this question while sitting on the floor of the bathroom while my son sat on the toilet telling me that no, he was not done for a half an hour or so. I was wishing I had brought a book or my laptop into the computer with me, but didn’t feel comfortable leaving the room to grab either one real quick. I felt very unproductive and knew that he wasn’t going to do anything on the toilet, but he asked to sit on the toilet, so I didn’t want to say no. I also felt like I was crushing his spirit when I finally took him off of the toilet and put a clean diaper back on him.)

I am still thinking about questions and talking to people about questions, but this seems like a pretty extensive list of things to look for…