Tony

__**Journal Entry (31/01/11 - 04/02/11) Week 1**__ During this week, I had to browse through many areas that I had interests in. Some of these areas involve the internet or harassment against others. Hypothesis's were created from these areas of interest and I had create five question for five different areas of interest. One out of these five hypothesis's would soon become my main hypothesis for my Research Project which I would spend my whole semester researching.

The hypothesis questions which I had thought of were:
 * Should South Australia introduce internet tracking to detect internet bullying?
 * Should Australia enable uncensored games which involve blood and gore to be played by people over 18+?
 * Should Australian schools issue iPads to all students so that they are able to read books within the device?
 * Should South Australia introduce fibre optic cables within households to increase internet speed?
 * How can Australia reduce the amount of bullying within the schools?

On Tuesday of the first week, the class was told to set up a Wikispace so that we could share information more easily with each other. I had used Wiki spaces last year for my other Research Project class and had already created an account. So all I had to do was to join the class's Wikispace and I would then be able to update the journal obtain information on this course. This site was a good idea because students are able to connect with one another from shool or at home.

Also, the class had also gone to the library to look at any other interests that we may be able to choose from. There were a variety of books within the library which the class was able to look at and obtain an idea that we could use for our project. Even though there were many books to reference from, I didn't think there was any good topics for me to choose from and so I chose my topic on one of my interests because it would make it more enjyoable for me to research because I am more interested in it.

This week was a good week because we had overcame the start of the Research Project which would eventually lead us to the final result within the semester. In the end of the week, I had thought that my hypothesis would have to be related to something within the internet and it would probably be about something similar to installing fibre optic cables within South Australia.

On Monday, I was working on my hypothesis because I was unable to find a good idea which could help me with my research. I had thought of the hypothesis //"Should South Australia install fiber optic cable to increase internet speed?"// but this idea seems to be a bit bland and there wouldn't be any information for it. This is because Australia has already been having fiber optic cables installed within their households and South Australia would soon have the cables as well. So I had thought that I should choose something else to research, which lead me to the idea of bullying. After thinking for a while, I had come up with the hypothesis //"How can Australia reduce the amount of bullying within the schools?"//. This topic could give me a variety of ideas to research upon and there has been a lot of bullying within Australia already.
 * __Journal Entry (07/02/11 - 11/02/11) Week 2__**

On Tuesday, I was also still thinking of my hypothesis. It was really hard to think of a good topic to research because many topics require going out to complete research, whilst I didn't have time for all that because I'm busy with completing my work from other subjects.

On Thursday, I was starting to write up my proposal which was due next week. I was given some examples and ideas which would help me write my proposal.There were six parts to the proposal and each student had to explain every point within their proposal. While working on the answers for the question, I thought that it was very difficult because I had to fit a lot of information from six questions into a short essay which was less than 500 words. During this lesson I had also started thinking and editing my hypothesis to see which one would suit the way I think and would make an easier pathway for me to research.

On Friday, I was away from the Research Project lesson because of my Specialist Maths class which was help every Friday from lessons one till recess.

On Monday, I had thought that I should have wrote my proposal as a table instead of a normal essay because a table would have been easier to write up and it looks more organised. I had made a large progress with my proposal and it's almost finished. It took me a while to think of ways to research the topic but I eventually thought of some interesting ways. After finishing my proposal I would have Mr. Street go through it so that there are no problems and I would be able to obtain a good mark for it.
 * __Journal Entry (14/02/11 - 18/02/11) Week 3__**

On Tuesday, I started to finish off my proposal which was due this week. I had successfully finished it by adding some more information on how I would complete my research during this semester. I had also added that one of my capabilities was communication and that I can communicate well with other peers to obtain lots of information for my research. That was all for this lesson on Tuesday and there is nothing much to talk about.

On Thursday, I had completed my proposal for my Research Project and was waiting for Mr. Street to check it. While waiting, I had started on creating my focus questions. The focus questions which I had created are listed below:
 * What is bullying and how does it occur within schools?
 * Who is involved in the bullying process and why?
 * What has Australia done about bullying within schools?
 * How can students/teachers or parents do to help the victims of bullying?
 * Are there any statistics or records of bullying within Australia?
 * Is the counselor's office really helpful for people who are victimized by bullying?

These six focus questions were really broad and I had thought that I should choose at least four of them or edit some questions to narrow down the amount of research needed, because the final essay only had a maximum of 1,500 words. Having 1,500 words as the limit of the essay seems to be too short because there is a lot of questions to research during the process and each questions would take up around 400-500 words each. Therefore I thought to myself that the Research Project essay should at least be at a maximum of 2,000 or 2,500.

Here is a word document of my final research proposal. Also during this lesson, I had created a logo for my Research Project because I had finished my proposal which was due tomorrow. The logo which I had created is shown below and it represents that bullying should stop. It shows that there is a bully stepping on a victims head and the big red circle shows that it should not happen within schools!
 * [[file:Research Proposal Table - Tony Tran.docx]] ||

On Monday, I was sitting on the laptop and thinking of which focus questions I should choose for my hypothesis. In the previous week, I had thought of some questions but I thought that I had to obtain around four focus questions for my research. The focus questions that I had chosen were:
 * __Journal Entry (21/02/11 - 25/02/11) Week 4__**
 * What is bullying and who is involved? (Elaborating about the topic and giving the reader an understanding of what's going on)
 * Why does bullying occur within schools?
 * What can the victims do if they are bullied and how can peers or adults help the victims?
 * Are there any statistics on bullying within Australian schools?
 * Has Australia enforced any source of retaliation towards bullying?

These focus questions had been narrowed down a bit from the previous questions and I thought that they would suffice for my research. Having five focus questions, I think I might go over the word limit, so I would have to really include the important information within the essay and leave out all the less relevant information.

On Tuesday, after going through pathways during the day, I had thought that I should go through option B for the Research Project so that it can be a backup for my ATAR score. If I do bad in any of my subjects, I would be able to use the Research Project score to get a better ATAR to get into University. During this lesson, I had also created a concept map to expand my ideas on bullying. This concept map would help me with my focus questions and I could improve my current questions to be more broader to research.

On Thursday and Friday, I was away from the Research Project class due to school activities. I was away on Thursday because the school had an assembly and it was compulsory to attend. On Friday I was away because I was attending my Specialist Maths class which was a two hour lesson. Even though I wasn't at the lesson, I had created a concept map for my topic so that I was able to obtain a variety of ideas to broaden my research.

Here is an image of my concept map:

On Monday, the class was shown how to create online surveys to send around to peers. Mrs. Woud had come into our class and had shown us how to sign up and use two different online surveys: Zoomerang and Survey Monkey. Even though she had shown us how to use the online surveys, I had already heard of them and had planned to use them in the first place. Therefore I had created an online survey this lesson and I would post a link as soon as possible when I think of the questions to ask my peers.
 * __Journal Entry (28/02/11 - 04/03/11) Week 5__**

On Tuesday, since it was the last lesson of the day, I didn't want to do a lot of work so I had improved on my survey. I had added some questions which were related to my focus questions and I had also included choices that the surveyer can choose from. The choices were under the question //"Why do you think bullying occurs in schools and why?".// I think that this question would help me a lot and I would be able to use this information to answer my focus questions.

On Thursday, during the start of the lesson, we were watching and doing a puzzle on plagiarism. The puzzle had consisted of examples and the class had to consider if the texts were plagiarised by the writer or what the writer had to add to the text to show that it was not plagiarism. During this lesson I had also started working on my focus questions and researched a bit of my first question. It would be better if I had started to do my research now as there would be more work from other subjects in a few weeks time and then I wouldn't have much time left to work on my Research Project.

On Friday, I was away from Research Project due to my Specialist Maths class. After finishing Specialist Maths, I had come back to class to see what the whole class was doing and if I had missed out on any important information. THe class hadn't done much and I was informed that next week was going to be based on planning our discussions and that I should get ready for it.

Here is a link to my survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GZ58S68

On Monday, Mr. Street was showing us what we had to do for our next part of Research Project. Our class was told to plan our discussion and get ready to see Mr. Street on Thursday. The discussion is to show how every student has been going with their Research Project. Times were allocated to each student and I had volunteered to go first because it's better to get it done with faster instead of leaving it for later and ending up completing the discussion at a later time. Therefore during this lesson on Monday, I was planning my discussion and getting ready for Thursday since I was going first.
 * __Journal Entry (07/03/11 - 11/03/11) Week 6__**

On Tuesday, I was analysing my results from my survey that I had casted out into the internet on Monday. I had a total of 23 surveys completed during the night and I was trying to get more peers to complete my survey. From the 23 surveys there were serious answers given to me and there were a few answers which were jokes. After reading the serious responses, I was able to see that I had gained a vary of responses which mostly consisted of people from Woodville High School and there were also other peers who had attended different high schools or were attending University.

On Thursday, the class was preparing and completing the discussion part of the Research Project. The discussion included having a talk with the teacher and discussing how much the students have progressed through their Research Project. I was the first person to have a discussion with Mr. Street and I found it very easy to discuss my issues and progress with my Research Project. After the discussion I was working on my focus questions so that I was able to complete another question after this week had passed.

On Friday, I was away from Research Project as usual due to my Specialist Maths class. I was unable to attend class after wards because I was studying for my Chemistry test after recess so I couldn't ask Mr. Street what the class had done throughout the lesson. Even without asking I knew that the class was probably still completing the discussions with the teacher and students.


 * __Journal Entry (14/03/11 - 18/03/11) Week 7__**

There was no lesson on Monday due to the public holiday, but whilst at home I was collecting the results for my survey and finalising them into a table on Photo shop.

During the lesson on Tuesday, the discussions were still on-going and I couldn't really ask Mr. Street for much help because I had figured that he would be busy with sorting out discussions with the students. Therefore during this lesson, I had taken the chance to print out the results for my survey that I had conducted a week before. During this lesson I had also taken the chance to fix up my two focus questions which I had completed. Having five focus questions means that I would really have to cut down on the word limit and include only the relevant information. My current completed focus questions consists of 700 words overall for both and I think that this is too wordy for only two focus questions. Therefore I thought that I had to fix my focus questions and reduce the amount of irrelevant information within them.

On Thursday, since Mr. Street was away from the lesson due to other reasons, I was working on my third research question. The third research question was to explain how peers are able to help the victims of bullying. I thought that I could base this question on my survey results because I had asked my peers for their opinions and how they think they are able to help the victims. There were many responses and I thought that my peers have many different ideas to help the victims such as making the victims laugh or divert the victims attention from the pain that they are suffering. Therefore this lesson was pretty straight forward and I only had to use my survey responses to answer it. I might also do a little research on the question but I wouldn't want to go over the word limit so I had to include only a tiny bit of extra information. I also needed help from Mr. Street this lesson about my first focus question but since he was away, I think that I would have to ask him next week, since I won't be here for the lesson on Friday due to my Specialist Maths class.


 * __Journal Entry (21/03/11 - 25/03/11) Week 8__**

During the lesson on Monday, I was working on my fourth focus question, which was //"Are there any statistics on bullying within Australia?"// After searching for a few sites, I had found that the Australian Bureau of Statistics website had quite a few pages on bullying. Whilst searching around the website, I had come across many pages of statistics for my focus questions. Therefore these pages had helped me get ready to write up and complete my focus question. Also, since there are only a few weeks left until the draft of the essay had to be handed in, I thought that I had to quickly finish my focus questions and combine them together for an essay. I only needed two more questions to complete my research on and then I would have finished my draft for my essay.

On Tuesday, I was using the statistics which I had found from the Australia Buereu of Statistics and completing my fourth focus question. That was pretty much all I did during the lesson as I had to complete the questions as soon as possible.

During the lesson on Monday, since it was getting closer to the end of the term, Mr. Street had told the class that the essay drafts had to be completed by the beginning of the holidays and must be handed up to be checked. I only needed one more focus question left to do and I thought that I had to complete. But during this lesson, I was fixing my previous focus questions so that there weren't any errors.
 * __Journal Entry (28/03/11 - 01/04/11) Week 9__**

During the lesson on Tuesday, I was working on my fourth focus question because I had found a picture which had shown some statistics on how bullying had affected Indigenous people within schools. Therefore I was completing my focus question and adding more to it to support the statistic graph shown.

During the lesson on Friday, I was busy analysing my survey results again to see whether I could use any of the responses within my Research Project essay. Since I needed one more focus question, I thought that the responses from the community would help me answer the question. But whilst I was looking for a good response to place into my essay, none of them seemed to fit my criteria. Therefore I thought that I would probably have to research on the internet to obtain information.

During the lesson on Monday, I was researching my fifth focus question which was "//Has Australia enforced any source of retaliation towards bullying?"// But since I already had found information which consisted of 1,100 words already, I had decided to drop this focus question as it would cause my essay to go over the word limit if also had to write my conclusion as well.
 * __Journal Entry (04/04/11 - 08/04/11) Week 10__**

Some questions which have been asked: //__1. What was the highlight of your research so far that you have enjoyed the most?__// The highlights which I had enjoyed during this project was reading the responses I had obtained from my survey. This is because my peers within the community had given me some of the most funniest responses and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them even they I wasn't going to use them for my essay. //__2. What were some of your challenges or difficult situations that you have encountered in your research?__// Some of the challenges which I had encountered within my research was to think of my focus questions. I had to think of questions which were relevant to my hypothesis. It was a difficult time for me as it was the basis of my research and without the focus questions, I wouldn't have been able to conduct my research because I would have been researching for information blindly without any guidelines. //__3. What did you find interesting that you did not know so far?__// The most interesting fact that I had found about bullying within schools is that there are many students who experience bullying due to the fact that the bully only wishes to act cool in front of their peers. And also, another fact I found to be really interesting was that the by standers play a lot of roles within bullying because they either support the bully or they stand there doing nothing because they're scared to stop the act.

During this week, I was focusing on completing my essay draft for Mr. Street to check. I've finished my draft during the early week and thus I had nothing else to do but analyse extra information and see whether I am able to include it within my essay.
 * __Journal Entry (11/04/11 - 15/04/11) Week 10__**

While waiting for my draft to be checked, I decided to create a Power Point presentation to present my final outcome. This seemed to be a bit time consuming but I decided I would try and complete it by the end of the semester.
 * __Journal Entry (03/05/11 - 06/05/11) Week 1 Term 2__**

This week, after receiving the draft of my essay, it would seem that I have not put my opinions into it. I had only researched about the topic but I haven't showed that I have analysed any information that I have found. Therefore by fixing this problem, I had decided with Mr. Street to change my hypothesis to //'What opinions do the Adelaide community have on bullying and how different are they compared to online resources?"// This topic would allow me to deduce my survey results and use it appropriately. After analysing my survey, I would compare the thoughts of the Adelaide community to the research that I have already completed, and see whether the thoughts are different or are the same. Thus this would hopefully attain me a better grade for my essay as it shows that I have analysed and completed my essay by planning carefully and discussing with teachers. Thus I had thrown away my idea of creating a power point and decided to start from scratch with my survey and my previous essay, to produce a new and improved essay for my final product.
 * __Journal Entry (09/05/11 - 13/05/11) Week 2 Term 2__**

After obtaining new information about Research Project, I had decided to change my proposal and obtain a new time for a discussion with the teacher. This would hopefully help me have an improved folio and thus obtain a better mark.

Last week I had decided that I would create a website for my final product. I have finally completed the website and it looks really good. Thus this would help me attain a better mark for my Research project as I had spent time in creating and producing the website. I am now working on my evaluation and would hopefully be completed by the end of the week.
 * __Journal entry (23/05/11 - 27/05/11) Week 4 Term 2__**