Week 4

Well if there's one thing I've learned from this weeks assignments it's that I need to spend more time focused on my work without distractions. I know that it isn't always possible with a very curious 8 year old and a, well, let's call her "spirited" 5 year old. I really need to work on my time management....hmm I think we worked on that a couple of weeks ago.

The assignments this week helped me think of places to look for information, and where I could get the best info from. In last weeks blog, I mentioned that I planned to do a lot of research, I know that the assignments are what contributes to the pathfinder, what I meant was I wanted to have a leg up on my topic. I think maybe I'm just really over thinking it and stressing way too much on it....which is pretty normal for me I guess.

I look forward to working on next weeks assignments and I really hope that I can get them done earlier than "the last minute"!

Just keeping Track.....

This post is just me keeping, or at least, trying to keep track of things that I've worked on....assignments that are important for the pathfinder, things I need to know.....
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~The Research Plan~
Title
The effects of poverty on children’s health in the U.S.

Topic Focus
Emotional health, physical health?

Scope
I would like to cover the effects that poverty has on children’s health and well being in the U.S. I’m thinking that a good way to go would be to cover the changes that it has taken over the history of the U.S. and how things are different today than they were “back then”.

Outline
I honestly don’t know where to begin with an outline, at the moment I have 4000 different things on the subject, and could use some help narrowing them down. Any suggestions on where I should start and maybe how to narrow my topic down would be GREATLY appreciated!

Academic Disciplines
Psychology, Sociology, History

Key Terms
Poverty, hunger, famine, low-income, children’s health, population this is just a starting point, I know there will be many more to come.

Nature of Topic
I think for my topic I will have to focus on both current information and historical information. I still need to narrow my topic down a bit, but basically, the effect of poverty on children is something that would be best looked at from a time line sort of view. I guess my topic could focus more on how it has changed over time. I could probably get a lot of information from sources dealing with Economics and certain medical sources, but I’m not quite sure what yet.

Library of Congress Classification (LC) Areas
Class H – Social Sciences / Subclass HA-Statistics / Statistical Data HA154-4737
Subclass HC-Economic History and Conditions / Special topics HC79
Class R – Medicine / Subclass RJ – Pediatrics / RJ101-103 Child health. Child health services
*so far that’s all I have*

Week 3

This week was challenging for me. I had some things come up that made getting my work done a bit hard, but now I'm sitting here at the end of this week, and taking a great big breath! Because of my stay at home mom status, I wasn't able to go to an academic library, but you do what you've got to do I guess.

I thought that this weeks assignments helped a lot with the final project, I loved the organizational one. Coming up with a system for my kids closets was fun. Maybe when we move this summer, I can actually put this this plan in action, or something close to it.

I am really hoping that Week 4 will be a little smoother for me. This weekend I am hoping to really start doing some serious research for my pathfinder.

The topic for my pathfinder is: The affects of poverty on children in the U.S., and I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion about how I could condense that down a little bit. I keep thinking that it is too long, but I've been wrong before.

Week 2

I had a really hard time picking my topic for my pathfinder, and was really nervous about researching it. Once I started it actually became fairly easy, anxiety played a key part in the ease of the assignments this week or the semi-lack of ease! I used the Seattle Central Community College Library systems Brittanica online to do some research. First I just typed in "poverty", I got quite a few articles that helped aid in my search for information. I decided to try searching for the different types of poverty I was reading about; cyclical poverty, collective poverty, and concentrated collective poverty. I got a few more narrowed results from that. I still need to do some "digging" on the subject, but it's getting there!

I didn't run into many problems with the assignments this week, I did however, get really frustrated. It was mainly due to the fact that I'm taking 3 classes (this one, psychology 200, and sociology 101) that involve a lot of research and writing. My time management skills have never been the best, but I'm finding that I am better at it than I thought. I just keep getting so stressed, wondering if I'm doing my assignments right, and if I got them all completed on time. I did learn from the 3 topics we all had to pick, that people, at least for the most part, think a lot alike.

Easy as Pie....

After looking around on this website, and setting up my blog, I found it to be a very easy process. You read the instructions, follow them, fill stuff out and voile, you have a blog! I managed to get this done without any outside help, but honestly I'm not sure how much my 5 year old would have helped me! My dog didn't spill any coffee on me, but my cat did manage to jump onto the keyboard and typed her own post...I had to rewrite my entire post thanks to her.

I love the "Save Now" button, and the little window that pops up saying "Now Blogger saves your drafts automatically!" That is definitely a feature that I need, not only on here, but in our "classroom" too!