Blog Post 11

Here are the final details of our (unfortunately incomplete) project, which we hope to continue working on next year: Throughout the past few months, I have been working with a friend (11th grade) on what we call S.C.H.O.O.L., which stands for Successful Children Have Outlook On Learning. We have created interview questions and permission slips to give to various middle and elementary school classes in hopes to develop ways to help the students gain an interest in their school education. Our main goal has been to help connect Palo Alto and East Palo Alto schools.

Blog Post 10

In preparing for my Ted Talk presentation, I am currently encountering several difficulties, which includes the unfortunate event that we will not be able to conduct and conclude our research in time for the Ted Talk. Although we are on schedule for the meetings with the principals and we are also on schedule in our creation of the permission slip, we cannot schedule a convenient time with the various schools for us to visit and interview students. However, my project partner is a junior this year and I plan to attend a college in the area. We hope that our work will not go to waste, and we plan to continue our project next year.

Blog Post 9

So far at this point in time, we have met with the Palo Alto Unified School District Director of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment. Ms. Diana Wilmot, Ph.D. has helped us in creating a permission slip form to give the different schools, along with helping us conduct our research in the most efficient and reasonable manner. Due to scheduling issues, we are behind schedule in conducting our interviews and surveys, but we hope to coordinate a date to visit the schools within these following two weeks. We are almost finished with creating an acceptable permission slip, and will distribute these forms as soon as we finish, which will hopefully be within the following week.

Blog Post 8

I plan to use an overhead projector for my TED talk in order to show people a sample of my project’s survey questions. Since most of my project has been contacting school staff and other administration people, we do not have results to share. Instead, I plan to use notecards and describe our project to the class. So far in class, I liked the TED talks that used the white board. I am still unsure as to how I can incorporate the white board into my TED talk, but I hope to try. I also enjoy TED talk presentations, and I may also show pictures of the schools we are interviewing.

Blog Post 7

For rule one (There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion), we are currently in the state of action. Rule two (Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done) applies, but  rule three (There is no editing stage) does not apply because we need to edit our survey and interview questions. Rule four (Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it) applies and so does rule five (Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it). Rule six (The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.) does not apply and neither does rule seven (Once you're done you can throw it away). Rule eight (Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.) applies and so does rule nine (People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right), metaphorically speaking. Rules ten (Failure counts as done. So do mistakes), eleven (Destruction is a variant for done), and twelve do not apply (If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done). Rule thirteen applies (Done is the engine of more).

Blog Post 6

For part 1 (Define), our project has narrowed the audience to elementary and middle school students in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. For part 2 (Research), we are currently scheduling to interview students in grades 1-8 from an elementary and middle school in both Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. For part 3 (Ideation), we currently plan to create a program or website our class of some sorts that will help the students in these schools. Our plans will narrow down after we finish conducting interviews. At this point in time, we do not yet have parts 4-7 (Prototype, Choose, Implement, Learn).

Blog Post 5

So far our project is progressing well. We have emailed the principals at JLS Middle School and El Carmelo Elementary School, as well as called and left voice mails to the principals at Brentwood Elementary School and McNair Middle School. Currently the principals have not yet contacted us back yet. In our emails we also provided a copy of our survey questions and interview questions that we hope to ask both the teachers and the students in each grade. We plan to contact the schools a second time on this coming Wednesday if we do not receive a response by then.

Blog Post 4

This week we worked more on coming up with interview questions and also possible survey questions. After talking with the people in the main office building, we learned that we need to contact each school and ask for the school district’s specific permission slip requirements. These permission slips are necessary for us to give to the parents of whichever students we will be interviewing. We plan to begin phone calls and emails to the schools next week. Also, we need to finish organizing our questions such that we can give the school principals a copy of our interview and survey questions.

Blog Post 3

Key traits of a good mentor for my project are interest in the topic and also willing to help. Ideal skills would be someone who has knowledge about conducting interviews. This would be useful so that the mentor can help us phrase questions in a way that is not leading. We currently have the Paly psychology teachers in mind. We hope to ask for advice in how best to interview young students. We want to learn about the student’s background, interests, and feelings about their school, but we do not want the students to feel uncomfortable or at a loss for words.

Blog Post 2

My friend and I have decided to interview elementary and middle school students in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. We plan to ask the students various questions such as “What do you want to be when you grow up” and “What are your favorite subjects” and other school related questions. After interviewing a handful of students from each grade, we plan to compare the data between to schools. We are interested in seeing how the students’ interests change as they get older, as well as comparing results to see if the East Palo Alto students’ interests change similarly or differently from the Palo Alto students’ interests as they grow.

Blog Post 1

If I could do anything for my 20% Project, I would do something significant that would help others. But I would also make sure that I am interested in the topic. To be honest, I currently do not know exactly what I plan to do, but I am interested in talking or interviewing other people. I am also interested doing something that is related to either young kids (elementary and middle school) or education. I think this project will be worth my time because I enjoy helping others and by talking to other people, I may be able to figure out and help solve a problem. I plan to brainstorm over the weekend and decide on a project topic within the next week. Because I have not yet come up with a project topic in mind, I do not know to what degree I can make this dream project into reality. At this moment in time, the only obstacle that stands in my way of my dream project is my own indecision in deciding on a project topic. I will overcome this by further considering over the weekend. I will most definitely have a project idea in mind before next Friday.