Before+the+Journey

= Before the Journey = Research Plan and Timeline


 * Term Two: Doing the Researc**h

I'll spend ten weeks learning how to make a table in wikispaces and then I will go on a holiday to a real table maybe in Italy with a view or not and some good spaghetti. That is the table. Not some table that keeps shifting all over and disappearing. How would you ever eat spaghetti off of a wikispaces table. You'd be singing that song about the meatball rolling onto the floor. You try to put some words in and it just grows and that is very mean of the thing. There is a plan. If I could just remember what it was. My research is about picture books so I will read picture books. I will attempt to discover something about the culture of literacy and life children bring with them from their homes and see if I can watch and question and listen and film and photograph children making connections to books. I want to know which books they connect to. Why? Can using photos, film, acting, dancing, dressing up and playing, creating mixed media slides, talking and recording our voices support children to connect to books? How can I as a new entrant teacher find ways of hooking a child into reading? How can I make meaningful ways of communicating children's learning to their families? How can I bring parents into the teaching partnership? How can I support them to understand how we read and how children learn to read? What can they teach me? I am fascinated with words. I will see how children make meaning of stories. Which words do they like? How do they figure out the meaning? Which words have emotional KICK for which kids? Which stories have emotional power for which kids? That might be enough questions for now.

How will I find the answers. Experiment and try new things. Reflect daily and take time out to read and talk and have a bath under the kanukas. Open my self to chance encounters. Learn some technology skills. Share them. Watch our films, listen to podcasts, create a platform for sharing our work.

I think I am going to make a little documentary film in term three. We are going to meet the e fellows in Christchurch. I will get something together to present at ULearn and maybe the Reading Conference in Queenstown.
 * Term Three: Making Sense Of It**