Jessica's Journal Page:

 

 

 Day 1: 12/03/07

 

   Today we started by learning how to create a wiki. She also told us how we are going to be editting it for the next few days. Ms. Jansen went over how to add pages, edit, add links, and many other things for our wiki. She encouraged us to create games, pictures, or even videos to make learning about our bacteria Saccharomyces boulardii more interesting. Also, w.e needed to do much more than the stated requirements for a good grade

    Quickly Parker and I got together and began making our wiki, naming it after our chosen bacteria. then we created a home page, yet left it with minimal writing on it so we could fix it up later. We sent our URL to Ms. Jansen and Tucker, and agreed to set up our Journal's over the night. Then we decided to sperate the workload equaly so we could both work on it equally. We then decided to look later on for background information on our bacteria.

 

Day 2: 12/04/07

 

  After looking over our wiki and being critiqued by Ms. Tucker, Parker and I established what today's tasks would be. While using his own computer, he went to netTrekkers and Britannica Online to see what he could learn about Saccharomyces Boulardii. We learned that our bacteria isn't a bacteria after all, but a type of fungus known as yeast. It comes from Lynchee and Mangosteen. In the meantime I went back to my journal page and began fixing it up.

   Afterwards I went to continue setting up the Timeline and discussing with Parker what each day's objective should be. After agreeing to that I added that in, and saved it. We set up more pages to our wiki, such as vocabulary and notes for future research. At this point Parker found a good site with lots of information. We began picking out which owrds to add to our vocabulary list. Finally, I went to the wikipedia citation and added a few words to the vocabulary list and to our notes.

 

Day 3: 12/05/07

 

   Today Ms. Jansen came to teach us how to use our crap detectors on certain websites. She showed us a chart that helped us decide if a website is valid or not. She explained what qualities to look for to see if a website worked or not and also showed us examples of how to tell. I was able to learn where I should look when I'm searching for wesites to see if it is an excellent source of informaton or just a page of crap. For the future I will now be able to quickly glance at a few places before continueing on in recording the information of a certain site.

   Tonight for homework I got onto the wiki and looked at the timeline. It was decided that tonight I would revisit our old websites marked under ou bibliography. I went back to Wikipedia under Saccharomyces Boulardii. I began adding to the notes who discovered this yeast and how it was he came about it. I then went back and studied the words I did not understand, looked them up, wrote them down under Vocabulary, and explained the meaning. Examples of such words are Cholera and Efficacy. 

 

Day 4: 12/06/07

 

Today it was my duty to find anything out about the structure of S. Boulardii. And of course I had to beware of bad websites, so immediately pulled up the website evaluation page. Only problem is, there seriously is NOTHING on the structure of S. Boulardii! So I looked and I looked, I looked under 'structure of saccharomyces boulardii', under Google images of S. Boulardii, and even under diarrhea sites! And unfortunately all the databases located under the St. Andrew's website has barely anything on the yeast itself! So I will relinquish me search for now.

   Instead I began my search for ANYTHING on the subject of S. Boulardii! Luckily for me there were quite a few well made websites with bits and pieces about the yeast. The most interesting part was when a certain site said that this fungus could be potentially harmful! Hmm, I should look into that more deeply! I also found a few more places to add to our bibliography and notes. Our project is finally coming together!

 

Day 5: 12/07/07

 

   I am finally starting to understand how difficult this project really is. At first I was excited to hear that we WERE allowed to use the internet and any site as long as it was evaluated. But then I began looking for what Saccharomyces Boulardii was used in, and I have come to the concluson that really it is only used in medicine to help diarrhea Of course there are lots of different types of diarrhea it is used to treat, so I guess I will have to elaborate on that. I'm just unsure how I'm going to be finding information on this in the course of wo days!

    So today I started by making a catergory in my notes dedicated strictly for S. Boulardii uses! From there I reread what we had, and separated it into that section and one for general information. I documented such things as how it's used to maintain cholera and gut flora. I also mentioned examples of medication it's used in and for what it can be used with. i found another website to add to our bibliography, and also spent time getting an evaluation sheet for it!

 

 Day 6:12/08/07

 

   Well, I didn't have as much luck today. Mostly I went back to all our old sites only to realize we didn't have any evaluation forms filled out for them. So I spent a lot of my time doing that. Then I went back to all of those sites again just to look at information concerning uses of S. Boulardii. I also realized I could get a lot more valid sites if I used the reference part on the bottom of the webpages!

   Luckily I had more luck finding information then I did yesterday. Mostly I found different types of diarrhea it treats. Apparently you can get extreme cases of it from many different things! S. Boulardii can treat diarrhea caused from etiologies, tube feedings, acute chilhood, HIV, and antibiotic-association! I didn't know there were so many types of diarrhea to treat! I will make it my mission to discover all of these types as to make our project more interesting!

 

 

Day 7: 12/09/07

 

   Well, apparently there is only two places you can find S. Boulardii! And that's only using sites beside Wikipedia! It can be found in the exterior of the lynchee fruit, or in the tree of a mangosteen. But information was recorded back in day 1! So after a failed attempt, I spent most of the beginning of my time writing words for our vocabulary, and adding more evuation sheets for the project!

   My mom finally suggested I contact my stepfather to see if maybe he could point me where to look for such information on this yeast! It might take a few days for him to reply, and it might not be any help at all, but it's worth a shot! I also decided to just mark a few more sites down on our bibliography to use for future stuff. I know Parker is having about as much lck as me on finding all his informaton, especially when having to find sites BESIDE Wikipedia. but for uses of S. Boulardii, I feel we have a good paragraph on the subject! 

 

DaY 8: 12/10/07 

   As I have mentioned in the previous journal entries, S. Boulardii is really only found in the plants lynchee and mangosteen. And after my search for information, I have come to the conclusion that it's the only place it can be found! Unless, I guess, if an animal had bad diarrhea, and the vet agreed too prescribe medicine with Saccharomyces Boulardii in it! So I have quit my research find today, knowing Parker will have more success. Really I will look at tomorrow's task and start on it early!

   Since tomorrow's duty is to get every detail me might have missed on S. Boulardii, I thought it best to check all our websites we've cited!  Well, since we really didn't have on big website on S. Boulardii itself, but infact things like yeast and probiotics, I just started marking down that related information! I went to a site that had a lot on probiotics, health issues, and where it could be found. I made another section separate in the notes catagory and began recording the information there. There is a lot, and I only got about halfway before it was my bedtime. But in case I ever fall upon another failed search, I will go strictly back tot his as my fall back plan!

 

 

 Day 9: 12/11/07

 

   Good news! Today Paul emailed me back with many good sites he uses a work that contains plenty on Saccharomyces Boulardii! I shall add those to our bibliographies, and make evaluation pages for them. But this also means I have to go back to all our categories to add new information and reorginize them! I must suffer for a worthy grade on this project!

   I added some information to classification and found a lot more for the uses of S. Bouardii and on probiotics itself! Now that Wikipedia is available once more, I am having a lot more luck! I do realize we are running short on time and we barely have any pictures or quizzes or anything! I might have to ask assistance from other people who are more tech-savvy o help me with videos or something! And of course it might be helpful to sit down with Parker and discuss exactly what we want the project to look like when it's done! Mostly we are just busy recording data and finding citations!

 

Day 10: 12/12/07

 

Today I found a lot on more general information on S. Boulardii and it's uses. Such as that they give off polyamines. I then added polyamines to the vocabulary list. I then went back and deleted many of our bibliography pages because I realized they had repeated information on them that was unneeded.

   I added a picture of the fruit lychee because I'm sure it is unknown to many people. And then something hit me... What if we added a slideshow to our project? That way we could have interesting pictures and the basic important information. Plus we'd be able to add interest throuh colorful font, funny sounds, and vivid backgrounds! I shall give this more thought, and see what Parker thinks! I could have a lot of fun with this if it works!

 

Day 11: 12/13/07

 

   I truly think we are getting close to finally wrapping this project up. It will be a glorious day indeed. I checked over any loopholes we might have missed, but really I feel we have so much information already. We really just need to get to doing something with it! I know we are limited on time as Parker has made that known, but if we could I think a slide show would be nice!

   First I will need to complete one final evaluation sheet for good! And I made a sort of rough draft of what my idea for this slide show will look like if we have time. because it is for peers with short attention spans, I'm hoping to make it sort of comical and yet informative. Of course, that's not too hard when your yeast has to do with diarrhea! And as Parker knows I am very good at making things colorful and stand out! I hope to grip there attention with these skills, so that they leave class happy, and with plenty of knowledge on Saccharomyces Boulardii!

 

Day 12: 12/14/07

 

Parker and I have arranged to meet on Saturday to actually go over what we need to complete, and to practice presenting. I quickly checked the first few parts of the rubric. That's when I noticed that we had nothing on structure of the S. Bouardii! If we were going to get a good grade on this project, we would have to have somethign on the structure.

   Pulling out the handy dandy Wikipedia, I immediately looked up structure of Saccharomyces Boulardii... Nothing. But then I remembered that this yeast is a eukaryotic cell! So I looked up the eukaryotic cell, and went down to the section about structure... Aha! Not only did they have a long part about structure of a eukaryote, but even a bit on the fungal structure of a eukaryote! So I recorded this information to a new part in our notes!

 

Day 13: 12/15/07

 

   Well, went to Parker's to check up on the project.  We went through the rubric to see if we were missing anything. We went back, color coded some things, editted some text, and I added astricks to all the words under the vocabulary list. There were also a few words I needed to add to the vocabulary list also.

   But then I forgot I had to make an evaluation sheet for the eukaryotic cell structure. I then decorated the website so people would find it more entertaining to look at, and also so it was easy to tell what link you were looking at. I also deleted a few repeated information under notes so nobody would hear the same thing over again. Also Parker and I counted and checked the evaluation sheets, and chose a folder.

 

Day 14: 12/16/07

 

   First thing is first. I filled out the self evaluation sheet. After that I printed out our research and Timeline to fit into our portfolio. I even confirmed with Parker to see if there was anything left to do. We both agreed it was pretty much complete.

   I have nothing left to do. Sadly we ran out of time to make a slide show, but I think the overall outcome it is great! I'm guessing we will get a very good grade on this project! But I still have until five. For now I will leave it, but if somehing comes up and I need to adjust something, I will!