Inquiry:

– an act of asking for information.
“the deluge of phone inquiries after a crash”

– an official investigation.

These are some of the definitions of what “inquiry” is. The students in my cohort (myself included) are pursuing answers to questions in a plethora of different subjects regarding technology education, and while I am having a pretty interesting time searching answers for my particular questions, I wanted to explore what inquiry really is, and how it can best benefit us right now.

If you look at the two definitions above, they’re actually two very different definitions. The first one is “an act of asking for information”; this particular definition is not particularly the definition that I am pursuing in my own inquiry. Yes, I may be looking on the internet for some information on my topic, but I feel that in order to have a good inquiry project, I need to actually investigate my topic, learn what it’s all about, and thrive for an answer, rather than just gathering up as information as possible and conglomerating a summary.

Although both definitions hold true, I feel that a good inquiry requires someone to ask a question regarding information, receive answers, and interpret those answers to form an opinion. If all you do in an inquiry project is ask for information, no new information will formulate off of that; rather, it would just be a “new” way of repeating the same information. So I encourage my peers to actually investigate, find new information, and form their own thoughts and opinions on their inquiry project. I look forward to seeing all of my peer’s inquiry projects in the near future.