4.a+Indexing+of+Researcher+Notes+&+Participant+Comments


 * Monday -** Kira had parent teacher conferences today and shared with her parents face to face about the project. A couple of parents are participating in the project!


 * Tuesday**


 * Wednesday**


 * Thursday**


 * Friday** - After looking at google analytics, it looks like users tend to be more active with interactive actions like the GRUB game and the PUR water packets.


 * Saturday**


 * Sunday** - Ben and Kira both decided that we need more games, and websites with interaction in order to engage the students. While we had positive participation at high levels early in the week, it tapered off on Thursday and Friday, precipitously so on Friday when we asked for ideas of their owns actions, when most of the students just copied each others answers.

We felt they needed more time to process the information and receive additional sites and resources to educate themselves with, before they were ready to take action on their own.

__**Week Two**__


 * Monday** - Significant drop off of people actually "taking action", in addition to a reduction in the comments on the site.


 * Tuesday** - Second day of less than half the number of people taking action. Not sure if "caring fatigue" has set in, but some of the comments in the student surveys from week one point to many students "not caring". Kira and I are thinking about trying to find ways to encourage something beyond just "stoking the fire"


 * It has been agreed that trying to reach a K-12 audience is very difficult**.


 * Wednesday** - I was very excited about the game we had planned this day, but completed actions were way down. Part of the problem might be that the site was blocked. Ben's school had a snow day for this activity, although some participants completed the game.

Thursday - We got a bump in people completing the daily action when the day's deed was "Ask your teacher what you can do to help a student in class today". Comments were also up, and one of the 3rd grade classes was so motivated that they made it the topic of their writing journals. They then all took turns and the entire class posted their ideas for helping the class.


 * Friday**


 * Saturday** - Participation slipped off considerably at the end of this week and then into the weekend. Kira's school was out of sessions for both Thursday and Friday, so that might have had something to do with it, although Ben suspects there might be some significant "caring apathy" about completing all of these actions simply based on educating yourself or playing a game.


 * Sunday** - We've created more "actionable" deeds, in which the participants will have to create something, or participate in leaving comments or suggestions on another social website. Ben is thinking that perhaps we might want to include short video of us completing the action, or talking to the participants to "boost morale".

Kira expressed in her observations that the kids are engaging on a superficial level, and haven't been moving themselves beyond the act of educating themselves. Just seeking information, without actually looking for ways to seek out actions of their own.

Ben has found that the elementary kids have been very active, and have not only been seeking out resources to better understand a topic (one class had to look up the definition of poverty), but they're also starting to reflect on the topics by including them in their daily journals.

__**Week Three**__


 * Monday** - Participation is way down. Ben and Kira think this is because of the massive break that Kirs'd schools had. (They had 5 days off - the elementary kids had 6 days off!) There has been an interesting pattern of participation after breaks. Participation has lagged after weekends, and now especially after the long break. This pattern makes Kira wonder what we could do to continue the interest, motivation to participate every day.


 * Tuesday** - Kira noticed that a teacher in her building just started her class with Taking Action. We are half the way through the project, so she's curious what this teacher's interactions will be like compared to the other participants. The teacher also had a lot of the same questions that people at the beginning of the month had like "how do I get Karma?" and other technical issues like why the "I've Acted" button doesn't show up all the time and how to navigate between the comments and back to the home page. Her feedback about the content was very positive.


 * Wednesday** - Ben noticed that one of the 5th grade teachers who gave her students access to her account have been active a few times a day beyond the school hours. At least two students are posting on their own after or before school, and on the weekends. One of the 5th graders has also discovered Karma, and apparently has been "gaming" the system by going back and visiting all of the past actions the class has completed, and giving their classes comments all "5s". They now have the highest karma level in the project, well over 300.


 * Thursday -** Kira and Ben are surprised to see that not many people "took a stand" today and names the MDG that they thought was the most important and why.


 * Friday** - Kira has noticed that today's action, which was asking for people to spend more time on the action (create a poster), has very few comments. As of the time of this journal entry, Ben and I are the only ones who have commented. She is wondering if people would get into an activity like this if there was more time to complete it. For instance, as we work our way toward an action like this one, maybe we prepare participants by letting them know what they are going to be doing in a few days. This way they have more time to think about it. Hopefully there will be more participation yet tonight!


 * Saturday** - Ben was looking through the mid-pilot surveys and noticed that there were very few teachers who completed it (only 4). About 55 students took the survey, but almost all were two classes that Ben had complete the survey in his computer lab. Students and teachers in Kira's building, as well as other sites don't seem to be taking the survey. Wondering if this is just a lack of cooperation/interest in the project anymore, or if the president's day off helped push people out of the habit of checking out the project site. We should include a question about school holidays, snow days, and/or breaks in the final survey, would be nice to know.

Additionally, in completing today's action (don't drink sugary or carbonated beverages), Ben saw that there was a number of comments (about a half dozen or so), from previous days in the month, spread out across the first three weeks of the pilot. It would seem that people were participating on there own, but not necessarily on the current days actions. They were either seeking out their own actions, or merely trying to find actions that suited them. We should ask this in the end of pilot survey.


 * Sunday** - Ben has witnessed a few people logging in over the weekend and acting on random actions, not just the current day's action.

Ben was talked with a few teachers in his building and found that while two of the teachers have become much more engaged, and have taken to the project, a couple of others have waned in their participation. However, the classes that have been participating on a daily basis have noticed significant increases in the amount of time they have been participating, and discussing their daily actions! One 3rd grade class, and one 5th grade classes have been spending upwords to 40 minutes on engrossing discussions and explorations of other resources each day as they become more interested in the project.

One of the 3rd grade classes gave me all of their posters that they created for their "create a poster about the MDGs action". The majority of the posters didn't contain any factual information, and were more "rah-rah" style with globes, people, and the words Take Action on them.

__**Week Four**__


 * Monday** - Kira noticed that, despite a push to get people back to the site, our numbers weren't as high as they were the first week. She thinks that a couple classrooms have given up. Despite this, interest was very high in Kira's classes because a lot of kids had played freerice.com (that was today's action) and they were excited to play it. Response was really positive to something familiar to them.


 * Tuesday**


 * Wednesday**


 * Thursday** - Kira was unable to access www.mdgpledge.org due to the site being blocked by the district. She was able to get it approved by noon, but this may have lost us some participation in the morning. She was also intrigued that several students in her class told her they don't use e-mail. They all have e-mail addresses, but they don't really send e-mail. (Maybe this means the future of the site needs to look to alternative forms of communication.)


 * Friday**


 * Saturday**


 * Sunday**

media type="custom" key="5978699"