fourth post

        At first I was not looking forward to doing the blog posts, but to my surprise I actually kind of enjoyed it. I was able to write down information I had found and then build my research off of that. It is also cool to visit other students blogs and see what they are finding on their topics. We are all doing this together in a way, so its nice to see how they tackle this assignment.
        By doing this blog I have learned that it is easier to write down the things you have found so far, so that you know what to search for next in your research. It helps me to collect my ideas so I can focus on what exactly I want my topic to be on. I have learned that it takes lots of time and many searches to find different types of researched material. You're not going to find lots of informational sources in your first google search. It takes patience to find good information that is worthy of using. I have come to find that I am not that patient when it comes to researching. I get tired of reading all these different sites and articles and then I tend to take frequent breaks from my research. I always expect to have lots of different useable sources on my first search try and that is not the case.

third blog post

      The audience will be people who are thinking about buying exercise video games in order to stay in shape or lose weight and people who already play the games. My topic is timely because these exercise videogames are fairly new and we see commercials for them all the time. There are new game consoles like the x-box 360 kinect that just came out that make sure that you are actively moving. I'm invested in this topic because I have played some of these games before and they are pretty fun and some of them can really make you work a sweat if you play them long enough. I think high school teachers instruct us to write objectively so that we kind of learn how to research topics and see how other people feel about the topics. I think college teachers suddenly care because they want us to have our own voice and to feel confident in our papers.
      I am starting to see a few different view points. Some researchers say that doing these videogames aren't the same as physically working out, or doing the physical activities. Some say that they are a step in the right direction for the future. Studies have shown that they can help boost postitive attitudes as well as a healthy lifestyle.
       One new thing that I have learned is that the games can help kids have a postive attitude. I kind of expected that people had fun while playing the videogames but when I saw that a research study found about the attitude boost I thought it was interesting. One thing that I have learned about research process is that it takes patience. You have to be patient and not expect to have a bunch of sources pop up after one quick search.

second blog post

The most interesting source I have found so far is an article on a website. The article is titled: What's the best workout? Video games vs. the gym. and is written by Lindsay Dunsmuir. I think it's interesting because it talks about how the wii fit can save a lot of money from doing workouts from your living room instead of spending it on an expensive gym membership. It talks about how the game can be helpful to burn calories if it is set on intermediate and higher levels. The article also has an example of a user that says how the game is good  for the yoga and upper body workouts but she still goes to the gym a coupe times a week for the lower body workouts. This kind of makes it seem like the exercise games aren't as great as workout as regular gym workouts, which I found quite interesting. As I've been researching my topic hasn't changed. Some challenges that I'm facing is that most of the sources I keep comming across are reviews for the exercise games and not a lot of research based articles.

First blog post

My inquiry question is: are workout video games like the wii, really healthy for us? I settled on this topic because I thought it would be interesting. There are a lot of commercials now-a-days for the wii and the x-box kinect that involve physical activity. The wii fit and the dance games seem to be very popular and the commercials tell us that they help get us moving and off of our butts. Some people buy these games to work out and lose some weight so I thought I would be interesting to see if they are actually as great as they are hyped up to be. I expect to find information that supports the fact that they improve our health. Through my research I have found articles that do say that they help burn calories and that they are healthier than playing regular videogames. I also think I will find information that suggest that they aren't as healthy as we think. I have come across some articles that say that they may help you burn calories, it's not as beneficial than working out in the gym. I think these viewpoints are helpful to my topic because it will give me kind of two different sides to the subject. On the issue, I think that the workout videogamess may help us in becoming healthy but I don't think it is as affective as we think they are and I don't think my mind will change that much during the course of the semester.