Thinking about my Final Project

In preparation for my Final Project, I have chosen to do Option A, which is a research proposal. I am not doing Option B because I think that would be much more difficult to accomplish considering I am not directly involved with a library at this time. I also think Option A fits the research I conducted for my Literature Review better, and I can summarize my findings for the Literature Review component. When I was doing the Literature Review and reading so many research studies and reports, I kept thinking of ideas how I would do my own research.

When I consider the significance of my research to the field, I think that if I actually conducted this research, it would be a really good study. It would be a study I would want to read if I were researching. Why is this research important? iPads are such a new component to using technology in the classroom and we, as educators (teachers and librarians), need to identify how to use them to their highest potential. As a classroom teacher, I don’t want to just hand my students an iPad and play drill and kill games. Furthermore, as we transition into Common Core Standards, this is a great moment in education to really get a handle on how we can use it.

My plan for data collection and analysis—well, I’m leaning toward qualitative methods, but perhaps a mixed method approach would work best. I know my school administration loves hard data in the form of numbers, so having a quantitative aspect would be powerful. Therefore, I think I’ll have some kind of pre- and post- test or assessment, a survey, observations, and interviews.

My participants would be my students. I know that creates other certain issues, but that is who I have to work with.