Multilitteratus Incognitus

It's been a crazy few days!  If it weren't for my brother coming down to hangout for a while I probably would have more in common with Nosferatu than a regular human being😹 (having been stuck indoors for most of the weekend).  When I started off this summer I gave myself a deadline to be done with my methods chapter by August 30th (chapter 3 of my proposal).  After reading...and reading...and reading...and re-reading (select articles form EDDE 802), I reached a point of saturation when it comes to methods.  I really wanted to read all of Lincoln & Guba's 1985 book called  Naturalistic Inquiry during this round, but it seems like I will just need to focus on specific aspects of the book. So, in this whirlwind of activity, I went through the preamble to my methods section, my target participant descriptions, my data collection, my data analysis techniques, and any limitations.  I added to these sections, explicated, went more in-depth in each sec...

These past couple of weeks, along with some projects I am working on with colleagues, I am also trying to make some headway for my fall class, EDDE 805, which is the first of two doctoral seminars. From what I can see from the abbreviated syllabus (love that it's just posted on the web!) one of the assignments is an analysis of dissertations of people who are already doctors  in our field.  The assignment is as follows: Short presentations in two-weekly synchronous sessions facilitated by the instructor (schedule to be determined in week 1). In each synchronous session between weeks 3 - 11, two students will present a review and respond to questions on these reviews of two outstanding dissertations relevant to their field of research, for 20 minutes each. Reviews should include consideration of specific points of quality or lack thereof, the good/bad aspects, and what information, research processes, ideas, theoretical approaches or organizational structures could...

A couple of weeks after the last session of 806 for this spring aired  I had an opportunity to observe the proceedings from across time and space (aren't recordings grand?).  Looking at the (small) crowd that attended the live session maybe I should have attended!  Anyway! It does should like next fall, or perhaps next spring once I am formally in 806, there might be a ton of people attending, so the check-ins might only be for people who are done with 805.  I like the check-ins as it provides me with a sense of what others are going through (the whole "suffering together" bit), but I also don't want an 806 session that goes on for 2 hours (or more).  I would almost prefer to have more sessions but  have them seriously capped at 90 minutes rather than have marathon sessions.  Something for pedagogical planning I guess :-)  I plan on attending 806 sessions (at least some of them) while I am in 805, so we'll see how that goes. In any case, this s...

Well, after a couple of month of not paying the Ning bill UMassID.com is dead!  Well, the domain is still fine, @cdetorres got that one for 10 years, but the Ning community that it pointed to is pretty much dead. So what is was UMassID.com? Well, back in 2008, when I started my MEd in instructional design, the outgoing class was looking for a new president for the student association (GIDA - Graduate Instructional Design Association).  This association - I later found out, started at some point in the early 90's (the program began in 1984). Since I didn't want to see the hard work of previous officers go to waste, I thought I would step up and take over the presidency.  At the time, someone's final project for a course was to look into communities of practice, and as part of it they created a Ning community , which at the time provided freemium service, so for the student the community was free. Within a few months of taking over I discovered that the network...

The other day I came across a post on someone's blog on group work, and I saw this funny (but true, at least to most of my experiences) graphic on group work.  One of the soft skills required to graduate in the MEd program I teach in is to be able to demonstrate the ability to work with others on projects and joint efforts.  This is quite broad as it doesn't specify whether someone is cooperating all the time, collaborating all the time, or choosing the situation and working accordingly. So, given my experiences working with others, in school, at work, and through extracurricular activities like Rhizo, I thought that it would be good to have a mix of individual activities and group activities in the course I just finished teaching.  This seemed to have worked out well enough.  As with any team project no one seems to come out of the activity without some minor bruising; working with others is a contact sport, at least as far as the ego is concerned†.  So,...

Pondering like it's 1999 It seems like forever ago that Sarah H. posted a link to an article on Times Higher Education titled The worst piece of peer review I’ve ever received .The article doesn't seem to be behind a paywall so it's worth going and having a read either before or after you read this blog post.  As I was reading this article my own thoughts about peer review, and now being a journal editor, sort of surfaced anew. I wish I had taken some notes while I was reading so that this blog post could be more rich, but  I'll just have to go from memory. One of the things that stood out to me was this: if your peer reviewers are not happy with your submission you are doing something right. OK, this is quite paraphrased, but I hope I retained the original meaning.  I am not so sure I agree with this.  I've done peer review for articles and when I am not happy (well, "convinced" would be a better word) is when there are methodological issues, or l...

In my continuous quest to go to Pocket-Zero (may be a losing battle since I keep adding interesting stuff to read), I came across a post from a friend and colleague, Rebecca, who was discussing and brainstorming a bit about the ethics of research in twitter communities . As a quick synopsis, of the  hot button issue (at least from what I interpreted), was that in one instance (mature) researchers were researching a more general hashtag on twitter and this seemed to be OK, while in another instance a younger researcher (high school student) was researching a hashtag specific to breast cancer and social media, where a level of trust seemed to have been breached.  So, the question is: what is fair game in social media research? Specifically Rebecca asks What are the ethical obligations of anyone wishing to conduct research/analysis on a twitter community of care? Are the obligations different if the community is not care based? (e.g. #lrnchat) . My initial thinking is tha...

I am finally catching up with my Pocket reading list, again!  This seems to be a fool's errand since it just keeps filling up again with interesting things to read and ponder ;-).  In any case, Rebecca recently was pondering on her blog if Collaborative Autoethnography (CAE) is an appropriate method for a dissertation.   Rebecca, as far as I know, is currently ABD and looking at wrapping up her degree - I have no doubt that soon she will be Dr. Rebecca :-). I think that there are many reasons why CAE is a good approach to researching certain things. I am introducing my own bias here when I say that I prefer working with others on research projects and on publishing.  I've written some things myself, and there is a benefit to the lone researcher with his readings, literature reviews, data crunching, and data analysis.  It's sort of like going to the gym on your own and working out on your own.  It has its place.  That said, despite the fact that ...

Drumroll please!  This is it!  The final Latour conversation (at least as far as his book Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory goes.  It's been fun, Latour, but I have a pile of MOOC articles that aren't going to read themselves (note to voice technology people. I need a computer to read things to me like Majel Barrett does in Star Trek - voice of the computer.  The mechanical voice on my Android keeps mispronouncing things...)  So, the theme of this final write up is Connecting sites ... With ANT, we push theory one step further into abstraction: it is a negative, empty, relativistic grid that allows us not to synthesize the ingredients of the social in the actor’s place. Since it’s never substantive, it never possesses the power of the other types of accounts. But that’s just the point. Social explanations have of late become too cheap, too automatic; they have outlived their expiration dates—and critical explanations ev...

Alright!  Just as #clmooc is starting, I am finishing off Latour!  Here is part 2, of a 3 part wrap-up on Latour's Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.  Once he discussed 5 uncertainties, now we're looking at re-assembling the social. Just as before, I've pulled one some quotes that made me go "huh!" when I was reading  the book (finished it a few weeks ago), and I am reacting to them more fully now - that is if I can remember why something made me go "huh!" This section started with the term  glocalization.  I just wanted to start off this post by saying that I hate the term glocalization. It is meaningless, and this comes from someone with an MBA background. It's just one of those buzz words thrown around - but anyway, don't let my cranky-pants attitude spoil this post ;-) How is the local itself being generated? This time it is not the global that is going to be localized, it is the local that has to be re...

Alright! This is the final countdown for Latour!  I've reached Part II of his book, which discusses the points of rendering associations traceable again.  This continuing exploration of Latour deals with and Actor-Network Theory (in case you didn't remember). I've selected quotes that got me thinking when I first read the book, and now I am providing some current reactions (2 weeks later) to those quotes ... The adjective ‘social’ designates two entirely different phenomena: it’s at once a substance, a kind of stuff, and also a movement between non-social elements. In both cases, the social vanishes. When it is taken as a solid, it loses its ability to associate; when it’s taken as a fluid, the social again disappears because it flashes only briefly, just at the fleeting moment when new associations are sticking the collective together. So...I guess according to Latour, the Social is both solid and fluid at the same time?  Maybe some sort of slushy substance that...

Continuing on the (one sided) conversation of ANT with Latour we have the 4th source of uncertainty which is Matters of Fact vs Matters of Concern.  I guess, starting off here, that one cannot debate matters of "fact" because they are facts and therefore immutable, whereas "concerns" are broad categories and the "answers" will most likely be in a state of flux. ANT is the story of an experiment so carelessly started that it took a quarter of century to rectify it and catch up with what its exact meaning was. It all started quite badly with the unfortunate use of the expression ‘social construction of scientific facts’. (p. 88) I am wondering what is so unfortunate about 'social construction of scientific facts'.  Is it that the word "fact" was used? or is it the "social" in 'social construction'?  Or is it both? I know that Latour seems to have an issue with how 'social' has been defined (wonder what he t...