Our essay for Andy has to be in on the second of December. That is 11 days away. It's a 2000 word essay on the question "what is education for?" I tried starting it today. I'm finding it very hard. I just can't seem to get my head into it. With all our other lecturers they've given us names of specialists to look at their books or they've included quotes from specialists so we can do more research into them. With Andy however, we've had none of that. His part of the course isn't really making sense to me. I know that I'm going to struggle with this assignment simply because I can't get my head around Andy's way of teaching. I'm going to be reluctant to get into the essay and end up panicking over it last minute.

I'd much rather just get into Mandy's assignment. I have loads of ideas about it and because it's based on something I'm very interested in I know I'm going to enjoy it.

I just really need to get this assignment out of the way as I'm starting to feel really stressed about it.

Project ideas

I have started to looking into the subject of tattoos for my project for Mandy. I started off by doing two different mindmaps. One was for what I would write about and research for the actual project and the other was about what I would put onto my visual aspect of it.

I've also decided that my visual aspect will be an A3 sized collage of pictures relating to how tattoos are done, the history of them and a lot of pictures of actual tattoos. Mine will also be included as I have 7, will have 8 by the time I'm doing the visual aspect and it would be a shame to not included them.

I have also put one of my mindmaps into bubbl.us so it is now on my blog to use as a reference. I will be doing the same thing with my other mind map soon.

I am actually quite excited to start this project properly as it's all about something I'm really interested in. Tattoos is a subject I want to learn more about and have always found interesting from an early age.

Project ideas

Our project

Today we've been told what we've got to do for our project. It's a very broad project. We can base it on what ever we want. Initially I am a bit confused as to what I need to do but I think I'm kind of getting it.
It's a 4000 word project but apparently not all of it has to be word count. I think a lot of mine will be on blogger to incorporate the ICT aspect of it. We also have to have a visual aspect of the project too.
I've decided I'm going to base mine on tattoos. Considering I'm covered in them and facinated by them, it seems the best option. I'll probably included pictures of my own tattoos too. It would be a shame not to show them off.

Reflective learning - what is Education?

In Andy's lectures on "What is Education" we have been doing a lot of work on SEN (Special Education Needs). These lessons involve a lot of talking, often about subjects that don't seem relevant to the subject. He seems to skim through the readings he gives us so that they don't often make a lot of sense until the 3rd or 4th time they've been read.
Personally, this type of learning isn't very good for me. I don't find learning through reading very easy. We currently have a reading on SEN and are expected to read up on the Salamanca Statement (An agreement between many countries about fair rights for children). I know I'm going to struggle with this.
We also have to read up of NASEN which is the National Association for Special Educational Needs.