Wondering- I-SEARCH (free-write)

In Dr. Callison's book Key Words, Concepts and Methods for Information Age Instruction:A Guide to Teaching Information Inquiry, the I-Search model is described. One of the first activities recommended is a free write session on a topic. Basically this writing should include what you know about a topic, what you want to learn and possible research questions. The free write should last approximately 30-45 minutes. The topic I have chosen for my project is scrapbooking. Here is my free write on scrapbooking.

After my daughter was born in November 2002, I had tons of pictures everyone wanted to see. So I bought a scrapbook and began putting her pictures in it. Well after a while that got real boring. I wanted to add more to the pages. So I went to Michaels and checked out their stuff. I was so overwhelmed. There were shelves of stickers, alphabets, scissors, punches, die-cuts, die-cut machines, 8x11 papers, 12x12 papers, mesh, embossers, templates, stamps, pens, fibers and on and on! There were magzines, books and kits too. So I bought a book a couple of baby kits and went home and tried these out. But again after a while the pages were getting boring. I happened to catch QVC or HSN selling scrapbook stuff and found a nice tool to mat photos easily. I bought it and have used it for every page I have since created. It is called Perfect Layers. It is a set of two rulers and an utility knife. The rulers have edges that are of various widths. So I can make a small 1/16 in. border upto a 5/8 border. I can also do several borders on one photo. This tool only works with straight edges though. I want more tools like this that I can use often.

Now I know a lot more about scrapbboking than I did a year ago but I want to get better at them. I want to make creative, stimulating pages. Since I now have a new baby, I need to find ways to make these creative pages quickly as well. I want to find products/tools that will make the process easier. I also want to take my digital prints and put them into scrapbooks that I can send out to all my relatives that live out of state. I know there are scrapbooking software out there. I just need to buy a program and learn how to use it. This program may make creating pages easier and once I learn it, pages may be done more quickly. Although I still want physical pages, I think part of my project will include computerized scrapbooking. I have also had a great deal of trouble deciding on what to journal, how to journal etc; I want to learn or find sayings, quotes that will enrich my pages.

Reseach Questions:

How can I make creative/unique pages?

What type of tools/products can I buy to make page creation faster and easier?

What can I do to make journaling of my pages more special and meaningful?

What all do I need to learn in order to complete creative scrapbook pages using digital photos that can be sent out through the Internet?

How can I use scrapbooking techniques in the classroom so that it meets Indiana State Standards?

So I will now complete the graphic organizers and then move on to Webbing!