Team research

I often (half) jokingly say I was absent the day they taught us to share in Kindergarten. I tend not to work well in teams because I get frustrated when team members don't pull their weight, and I don't like relying on others to get work done. However, there are huge benefits conducting research in a team, not the least of which is sharing insights and engaging in collaborative reflexive practice.

Barry et al. stood out to me this week. We informally engage in reflexive conversations, sharing insights, assumptions, and thoughts, and these conversations are always informative and generally move the work forward. Making this a formal practice could be extremely beneficial, but the concern that Barry et al. raise about getting team members on board is a real one. We are all so busy already, and I'm not sure how I would engage my team without making it feel like extra work or like an assignment.

That stated, I wrote my first skill builder on using Pinterest for teacher reflections, but I focused my article on researcher reflexivity. That shift was an interesting one to explore, and while I'm not sure I could get my current team to do it, it is something I want to refine to use for a fresh team.

Collaborative Reflexivity in Research

Barry et al.'s (1999) experience in collaborative reflextivity made me think of the way knowledge is distributed in communities of practice. Both Barry et al. and Lee and Gregory (2008) discuss the value that is brought to a research effort when teams participate in collaborative reflexivity. As Barry et al. (1999) discuss, this can be an uncomfortable process at first, but the result of healthy collaboration and feedback in this regard seems to be a deeper understanding of both the phenomena witnessed and the group's ultimate characterization of it.

I ended up rereading Anderson and Kanuka (2003) and their discussion of the e-researcher and literature reviews before I realized that that was not one of the assigned readings this week. However, that chapter brought out some interesting points that highlight the importance of the work by Barry et al. (1999) and Lee and Gregory (2008). In their 2003 article, Anderson and Kanuka are quite skeptical of the "e-researcher" and the use of the Net, discussing the Internet in language that seems foreign or ill-at-ease. But what this highlighted for me was that knowledge and expertise is everywhere - it is distributed amongst the tools and people on the research team, and finding ways to take advantage of all of these perspectives is important in ensuring a robust research process. 

While Barry et al. (1999) do point out that multiple voices in a research article may hinder its purpose (p. 36), they also discuss collaborative reflexivity as another form of triangulation. In my first skill builder, I wrote about using Pinterest as a collaborative reflection tool, and cited many of the issues that both papers brought up. It is difficult to share one's impressions with others, as we are used to going through this process in a solitary manner, but doing so both gives individuals insights into one another and contributes to the groups understanding of the phenomena and their own (tacit) epistemological stances. In this way, collaborative reflexivity is indeed a way of triangulating the data - it allows the research team to conceptualize the different ways in which specific data or codes may be interpreted.

CAQDAS as a Data Management Tool

One of the really interesting points that was made on Tuesday was that a researcher can use ATLAS.ti as a data management tool, and that coding is only part of the analysis process. I think it is easy to get lost in the (sometimes overwhelming) task of coding, and I have found myself feeling bad that I am not coding as much as I probably should be. But a series of events over teh last two weeks has helped me realize that perhaps it hasn't been time to code yet. I've been conducting formal and informal interviews, taking notes, and writing memos as I think about and synthesize information.

I have all of these documents in different places. It is nice to know I can utilize a CAQDAS package to store it all. I wonder if NVivo has similar functionality in this regard to ATLAS? I'm going to need to make a decision soon about which package I am going to use so I can get organized.I'm still not sure which one I should use. My advisor can get NVivo fairly cheaply, and I wonder if I need the structure it provides. But (I think) I like the theoretical underpinnings and assumptions of ATLAS. I'm looking forward to next week when we dive in ourselves. In the meantime, I have downloaded trials and am beginning to test them out.

Staying Close to Data

Taylor, Lewins, and Gibbs (2005) discuss the debate over using CAQDAS packages for data analysis. In their article, they discuss the many concerns over using digital tools, one of which is the worry that using a digital tool may not allow the researcher to stay "close to the data." The authors define this as the physical handling of transcripts to make their discussion clear.

This discussion always interests me, and the way Taylor, Lewins, and Gibbs discuss the issue of closeness made me think about what digital tools generally and CAQDAS packages specifically afford in terms of allowing a researcher to get close to the data. The authors explain that one may move away from the data by not handing the transcripts and hand coding, but they also discuss that digital tools afford the opportunity to add new codes in an easy way. Tools also allow a researcher to look at their codes in the aggregate and make links between codes and excerpts in a fairly simple and streamlined way. This could be a very laborious task if one was hand coding, and there may be inaccuracies because it may be difficult to see all of the excerpts with the same code.

Furthermore, CAQDAS packages allow for the manipulation and refinements of codes. Because the researcher can see the codes and the excerpts to which they are attached at a glance, they can look for consistencies in language and make sure that their word choice connotes the meaning they intend. This may be particularly useful for revealing underlying biases and assumptions.

It seems to me that CAQDAS packages actually allow the researcher to be more intimate with their data because they allow the researcher to code in a non-linear fashion if they so choose, and then visualize the data in accessible ways that reveal consistency across coding and may focus analysis.

A comment on Alas.ti and representation of findings

I'm still digesting what we talked about in class, and I'm only just beginning to explore atlas.ti, so I'm not sure I have a lot of thoughts to share yet.

My initial reaction to atlas.ti is that I like its underlying assumptions. I like that you can work in a non-linear process (though, as I said in class, I need to remind myself that that's ok), and I like that you can work with a kind of messy space. But I wonder how I would do with it - I'm thinking I might get lost in the messiness...I might need the kind of structure that comes with some of the other tools, but I'm not sure. I need to play with it.

I also just want to touch on the point we started to discuss about bringing findings to the public without compromising participants. I don't know how to do this, and I've grappled with this problem a bit in previous posts. I really like the notion of making the data and the research process accessible, open to the public, and even commentable. But when we do that, we put our participants at risk because even if we use pseudonyms and change the genders, they at least will know their stories and feel vulnerable, whether they are or not from an IRB standpoint. This concerns me greatly as I write up this research. I'd really like to explore this more.

Types of Questions, Typs of Data

As I re-read my post from Wednesday, I was thinking about my inital reaction to NVivo'sassumption that one must have predetermined  categories. After letting the thoughts from class and from the blog settle, I thought that actually it is important to admit that we do come into research with assumptions and things we are looking for; NVivo allows the researcher to add and change categories (I think?), so it may not be as constraining as I initially thought. I also wondered if it would be wise to use different software packages for different purposes and questions. Woods and Dempster's (2011) article was nicely timed to help me think through this question.

I appreciated the authors' description of Transana, and while I don't fully understand its capabilities, the ability to look at multiple transcripts at once is intruiging. However, the big takeaway for me was the assertion that different questions call for different types of analysis, and that different data may call for different analysis software in the same way that one would use different methods for different data and questions.

Choosing and committing to a particular analytical software package is a daunting task that I don't want to make until I have a more grounded understanding of the differing affordances of each package. It seems that each has some basic functionality, but they exist because they answer different kinds of questions. Therefore, as usual, it is the context that matters; one isn't necessarily better than another - they are more or less well-suited for different purposes.

And this thought reminded me that, while I have a certain epistemologial frame that shapes the way I approach research and the methods I use, I need to keep looking for the right method for asking a specific question with X kind of data. So while Woods and Dempster focused on explaining how different questions can be answered within a particular tool, their discussion led me to think more broadly about choosing the right tool for the specified questions.

This post is kind of a ramble, but it is this way because I am at a place where I am beginning to really feel my grounding as a researcher, and I am having to make deliberate choices as I move away from my advisor's work and into my own. I think I'm going through an intellectual growth spurt, and this think-aloud post is part of that process. In any case, I really appreciated Woods and Dempster's article because, in addition to providing information about Transana and software packages in general, it got me thinking on a broader level. Apologies for the stream-of-conscioussness of this post.

Predetermined Categories and Linguistic Precision

We had a really interesting discussion about the importance of choosing the words we use for codes carefully. Words connote meaning we may or may not want to associate with our data, and being precise (and consistent) with our phrasing is important both for our own data analysis and others' interpretation and evaluation of it.

And because these choices are so important, it seems odd to me that NVivo works best when you come with predetermined categories. I recognize that I come into my research with assumptions and goals, but I think I would feel strange defining categories before I know what codes are going to emerge. When I started the research I am doing now, I thought it was going to be about a six-week professional development workshop, and at the end of those six weeks, I conducted what I thought were exit interviews and tried to start writing the paper. And it didn't work.

I have been writing and revising this paper since August 2013, and sometime in November I came to the realization that I needed to be patient and let things unfold and emerge. I sat back and watched the teachers teach and listened to their stories. I took notes and marked conversations, and only now as the courses ended, was I able to identify enlightening moments and begin to craft a more robust narrative.

This is just a knee-jerk reaction. I'm looking forward to playing with NVivo and exploring its features. Maybe it is the right tool; I certainly like to Word interface. But I don't know yet. I'll have to work with the tool I'm glad we're going to get the opportunity to explore many of them.

Quotations: Relevant and Linked Analytical Objects

I found Konopasek's discussion what CAQDAS afford generally, and what atlas.ti affords specifically intriguing and refreshing. I appreciated that the author celebrated the visible thinking a CAQDAS tool can provide, as many of our readings have focused on how the tools cannot "do the work" for the researcher. Konopasek also cautions that a researcher should not "believe in magic," but stresses that a tool like atlas.ti can provide the researcher with oppportunities to see their data in new ways.

I'd like to focus on the way a researcher chooses to pull out and mark quotations as new analytical objects, and how and whether the researcher chooses to link the quotes to other quotes and data.

Jesssica recently asked me a fairly straightforward question about how I chose certain quotes to be included in my paper. I thought it was a simple question with a fairly simple answer: I have kept track of relevant quotes as they emerge. I do an immediate annotation when I hear it, and then do a deeper analysis later, linking it to other quotes. I do this all in Microsoft Word, and Iseem to have a good memory for these particularly significant events. However, I realize that I am not going back through systematically and tagging or extracting other elements that may be relevant. Using a tool like atlas.ti would aid in the systematic nature of the process, and may bring out more insights than I am seeing when I am so immersed in the data. It seems that these tools could let me step back and visualize how different pieces of data connect (or do not) and an even clearer and more impactful story may emerge.

Konopasek does caution that pulling too man quotes may distance them from each other, but the separation and systemaic linking between quotations may allow a narrative emerge that is not visible when one is marking quotations as they hear and experience them.

The author begins and concludes with the notion that thinking is inseparable from doing. This is something I wholeheartedly believe, and I think it needs to be stressed that context is everything. The context in which a particular quotation or event occurs gives it meaning, and the reasearcher's understandings, biases, and positionality directly affect both what is extracted and how it is interpereted. Context is key, and while there may be a danger in losing that contextual factor in a CAQDAS, when used well, it may actually illuminate nuanced facets of an emerging narrative.

Maximizing App Potential

This class was really practical in nature. I really appreciated the opportunity to play with Transana. I have been using InqScribe, and for much of our exploration I didn't see too much difference. However two features may have convinced me to switch: time code links and the wave. More broadly, I think we should think more about how we can use the tools we already have or have access to to enhance our research processes and products.

I like the way Transana marks the time codes and links back to that place in the video. While this is important for knowing where in a file a particular statement lies, I'm thinking I could also use these markers to bookmark places I need to come back to for further analysis. For example, when I record meetings and interviews, I often write down time codes in my notes so that I know where a particular statement was made. I could use a special transcription file in Transana to mark these for easy access once the meeting or interview is done. This would be particularly useful in preparing presentations or short reports.

I'd also like to explore the possibilities of the wave form. It seems that this has the potential to reveal information or insights that may not have been gained by simply listening to the audio because you can see if there is a started utterance or breath. This may reveal some hesitation or anticipation that the researcher may not otherwise have noticed.

I don't have an iAnything, so many of the apps we discussed did not directly affect my research, but they got me thinking and helped me circle back to something I came into this program wanting to do. When I was teaching, I was the technology expert at the school (which says more about the faculty's lack of understanding for most things electronic or digital, and less about my technological skills).  The administration thought I was pretty innovative because I moved to a paperless classroom in my second semester. But I wasn't really that innovative; the English department ran out of paper and money in November, and I couldn't buy all of my own paper and ink with my starting teacher's salary, so I made lemonade. I took the tools I had around me (MS Office, Google Docs, Etherpad, Google Search, Edmodo, Adobe Reader and PDF maker, etc.) and learned how to maximize their use and potential.

Soon, I was being asked to show other teachers how I did such-and such, and I became very interested in teaching teachers to use the tools that exist (and are free) to enhance their classroom practice. I think we can do the same thing with the free and cheap apps and programs for research. The last three presenters all mentioned really interesting tools, and suggested we take advantage of our digital tools and spaces. I am going to explore that further, and see what potential lies in existing apps and features.

Choices in Transcription

As we have been talking in class, I have been bringing my attention to the wealth of audio data I possess. To be honest, I've kind of been purposely avoiding thinking of it because it seems overwhelming. Since June, I have collected 24 recordings of teacher meetings and 13 teacher interviews, each of which are at least an hour long. I've been keeping notes about important quotes and where generally to find them. The idea of transcribing any significant chunk of this data makes me panic a little inside.

So when I saw the title of Johnson's (2010) piece, I got a little excited. Then I read the paper and found out that, while dictation software can help change things up, ti might take even longer than the traditional method. (Incidentally, I found it amusing that he described the process of transcription "dull." For some reason, I thought that people who wrote about this topic ultimately found it stimulating in some way.)

Something else I found compelling was the way Hammersley (2010) described the choices and associated consequences of transcribing different parts of an audio file. I have taken a few courses that discussed transcription, but I didn't get a good sense of what kind of choices a researcher must make in transcription. Hammersley helped me think about the difference between transcribing a long pause or a breath, and I realized that (like many things) the answer is really contextual.

All of the quotes I have transcribed have been for the purpose of illuminating a point or highlighting a change in thinking. These have all been short quotes - small statements to prove that what I said about a teacher was confirmed by them. I've read a fair amount of papers on discourse analysis, and I haven't seen the point of transcribing the pauses, ums, and restarts in speech. Now I'm thinking about that choice and the consequences that go with it. On the one hand, if I "fix" someone's speech so that it is more fluid, the reader does not see the thinking process the speaker went through. On the other hand, leaving the speech in its original form may make the speaker feel vulnerable, and may even get in the way of the reader understanding the point, as typos have a tendency to do.

The choices a researcher makes regarding what to transcribe depend on the context of the argument. Why is this quote being used? What purpose does it serve? How does it move the argument forward? The answers to these questions will vary with every paper, so a researcher must reconsider them every time.

The framing of the move away from foudationalism really helped me think through these points. What kind of research am I doing? What is my broader purpose for conducting this research? We can move beyond the old "gold standard" and illuminate important points through the voices of our participants.

A Reflection on Connected Learning

This weekend I am attending the Digital Media and Learning conference in Boston. I am here because I am presenting the research I have been engaging in around digital badges. Digital badges are web-enabled microcredentials that contain a host of data about a learner's accomplishments. In 2012, DML launched the Badges for Lifelong Learning competition, and funded 30 projects from various fields to develop badge systems that foster some kind of learning. These systems ranged from informal to more formal learning envronments, and targeted learners as young as 13 as well as adult professionals. Our lab was charged with following these projects over two years as they developed and implemented their badge systems. We are not evaluating badges; we are drawing out appropriate practices for developing learning ecosystems using digital badges. My work focuses on projects' assessment practices, and how choices around assessment impact the broader ecosystem.

The theme of this conference is "Connecting Practices," and I am listening to a lot of talks about open learning environments and fostering what Mimi Ito calls connected learning: http://connectedlearning.tv/infographic

As I'm listening to these talks, I keep coming back to this idea of identity, and our power as researchers to shape those identities with the way we represent their quotes and actions. Certainly, as I stated in my last post, people craft the identity they want their audience to see. But those identites are also shaped by the environment in which they engage, and they go through another round of shaping when we write about them.

On the surface, the work I am doing around badges is focused on projects' assessment practices, and for a while now, I have been doing my best to synthesize the practices across the projects and draw conclusion. This has been a tough task, and as we near the end of this project, I have found myself having to really push to get it done. But on the plane to Boston I did a lot of thinking about my position as a researcher and an educator. One important function we as educators and as researchers can serve is to empower voices, and I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I have and how I might do that. I thought about my work with teachers, and I thought about my presentation this weekend, and I tried to think about what connected these projects. Initially, my personal research and the badges work seemed tightly connected, but as the work has gone on, that connection has become less and less apparent.

And sometime late last night I realized that the thread that runs through all of this work is this notion of connected learning. What I strive to teach in my professional development work and what I keep finding in my favorite badges projects is the way educators can balance the elements of connected learning. All of this work brings together a community of learners around a shared interest in an openly networked space to collaboratively make sense of complex concepts and ideas.  I also realized that my excitement around this kind of learning is not new; this is the kind of learning I worked to foster in my own classroom, and it was in these kinds of environments that I was able to shine as a learner. This is the kind of learning I have always been passionate about, even if I didn't always have this vocabulary.

The reason, it seems, that the badges work had become so laborious, is I had lost sight of my original goal in the badges project: to relay the narratives around projects' efforts to foster connected learning through the use of digital badges. We've been writing for a while that "it's not just about the badges," but I forgot to step back and look at the learning ecosystems as a whole. The ones who foster connected learning have found a way to balance the formative and summative functions of assessment, and have transformed their learning ecosystems into dynamic spaces where communities of learners can engage with one another in personally meaningful contexts to collaboratively solve problems.  And while the context of the professional development work is different, the goal is the same. I need to make sure this thread is clear in all my work. When I left the classroom, I told my students that they inspired me, and that I wanted to teach people to foster the kinds of learning evironments in which these students could shine. They help me keep things in perspective and remember that I have a responsibility to show educators a way to foster learning environments in which everyone can succeed and shine.

I have an excellent opportunity to highlight the way connected learning can give learners across ages and domains agency in and power over their own learning. I have the opportunity to make a case for fostering connected learning in broader and more formal contexts. And I have the opprotunity to craft my narratives in a way that highlights the important work the badging projects and the teachers with whom I work are doing. They have crafted identites around their work, and I can provide a forum where they can show their work. If I write carefully, I can let them tell their own stories and empower them with a voice. And the people who foster these kinds of environments allow learners to develop their own identities and have agency over their own learning. That is exciting.

Searching for a "true" identity or experience

This week we talked a fair amount about "true" identities and "real" experiences in online spaces. I'd like to use this post to explore those notions further.

We all craft our identities to some extent depending on the situation and circumstances in which we find ourselves. We reveal what we want people to see, and in every space there in conduct which is socially acceptable, and conduct that is not. This seems to be true in off- and online spaces. On Facebook, we share things we want other people to know; our photos and comments reveal a persona that may not tell the entire story of a person's "actual" profile. But what they reveal is still part of who they are. 

So when we conduct research online, I'm not sure the question of whether the participant's identity is "true" or "real" is the right question to ask. This question seems to imply that the researcher is searching for an empirical truth, and suggests that there is indeed one truth to find. At least in the work I do, and it seems in qualitative work more generally, this is not our question nor our task. We are not looking for one truth, but a story, a narrative, an account of an experience that we can explore, analyze, discuss, and share with our peers. Through this sharing process we invite discussion and further analysis.  And we give voice to stories, experiences, and people, which/who may have been silenced for some reason.

Perhaps our question should focus on the experience of a person or community, and our task should be to represent that experience in a way that tells their story and moves our thinking around that topic forward. The experience that is revealed in an online setting is a real experience. It happened. Discourse unfolded and people reacted. That is real. That is valid. And that should be brought to light. A researcher can simply give voice to the experience, or they can analyze it and compare it with other stories. But it remains that the experience that unfolded in that online space is true and real.

With the proliferation of networked access and discourse in online community spaces, it seems that people are becoming more and more comfortable engaging with others virtually. This is further reason to take people's identities and experiences as true. We may not see the whole person in an online experience, but then again, we may never see all of the facets of a person's life and personality no matter how much we interact with them on and offline.

The hard sciences have shaped much of our language around research and study, but we should be careful to use linguistic precision, as our language reveals a lot about our underlying understandings of science, research, and knowing. In more qualitative work, our research may well benefit from shifting our focus to experiences rather than truths and generalizability. Much can be learned from reading, comparing, and analyzing people's experiences.

Privacy, Lurking, and Deception/Identity Formation in Online Spaces

Garcia et al. (2009) bring up many important and interesting issues that arise when an ethnographer moves their practice to  online spaces. While the authors are specifically addressing ethnographic practice, it seems that most - if not all - of the issues they raise are applicable to research with subjects in online spaces generally. Three points stood out to me as ones I want to explore further: privacy, and lurking, and deception/identity formation.

Privacy
Depending on the site within which a researcher is conducting their study, information may seem inherently more public or private. However, this line is quite blurry, because most often people posting content to a site are writing to a specific audience, and while that audience may share this information outside of the site, the author may not have intended their content or discuorse to be analyzed. In this way, it would seem that a researcher should err on the side of privacy.

But what about sites where the subjects know there is a researcher, but become comfortable enough to interact as if the researcher were not there? I'm facing an interesting issue in my own research at the moment that makes this point particularly salient. The teachers I have been working with know that I am collecting their conversations and lessons for analysis, but they are working in a private and intimate space. They have revealed things about themselves as people and as teachers that, taken together show an array of experiences. However, I am concerned that when I write up their experiences, they may feel vulnerable, as I will have exposed their more and lelss successful moments to illustrate tthe journey each teacher took as they designed using new techniques. I have done all that the IRB asked me to do, but I'm wondering if it is enough. I am concerned that the things that they revealed in this semi-private space may seem too exposed when I write about them.

Part of my concern may stem from the way I have interacted with these teachers and their classes, which brings me to:

Lurking
While we have regular meetings via Google hangout, I am also looking in on their courses. However, while I am listed as a "teacher" in two of the three courses, I have no interaction with the students, and I can look through student work, forum conversations, gradebooks, and anything else on the site undetected. The teachers and the students have been informed that the student work and discourse will be collected, but it still feels very strange to lurk in these courses. I feel almost as creepy as the term sounds. Because of this, I've made a point to only check in periodically, and when I do, I try to engage the teachers in some kind of conversation before and after I go in, so it feels like I am having a productive discussion rather than sneaking into a classroom.

Garcia et al. Begin to address this point, but they largely leave it up to the researcher to decide how to handle the situation. When and how much lurking is acceptable? Jenkins (2009) encourages lurking in a participatory environment, but as I am not a part of these classroom communities, I am reluctant to lurk too much. This has led to a reliance on the teachers' questions and reflections on their classroom experience. Somehow I don't think I'll feel so intrusive once I am looking at the data after the courses have ended, but I'm not positive about that.

The researcher-as-lurker also brings up an interesting and important power issue. If a researcher just lurks, they know more about the participants than the participants know about them, and that puts the researcher in a powerful position of being able to analyze, characterize, and possibly manipulate the subjets. Even if they don't lurk the whole time, participants may balk at the once-hidden identity, as garcia et al. Describe in their examples.

This leads into the last point I want to explore, which is forming an online identity as a researcher.

Deception/Identity Formation
As a researcher, I have a responsibility to provide my subjects with as much information as possible to help them make an informed decision about whether or not to participate. And maybe this is where ethnography differs from other kinds of research, but it seems unethical to hide information and motives from my research subjects. Not only do I tell my research subjects about my professional experience, I also tell them bits and pieces of my personal interests so that they can relate to me a a researcher, teacher, and human being. I understood Garcia et al.'s point that we all craft our identities to a certain extent, whether we are working on or offline, but the way this point was presented made me wonder if they were implying that it is ethical to craft one's identity as a researcher. Their example of the female researcher using the username "Copperhead" made me stop and think because I can understand the motives for choosing a more aggressive and male-sounding name, but that name presents a deceptive identity that I am not sure is entirely ethical.

It seems that participants really want to know the person with whom they are working. One teacher asked me outright how old I was and how long I taught. Whe I told him these things, his reponse was that he has been teaching for 28 years and has seen a lot of fads in that time, implying that this work is one of those fad that will go away soon. At the time, I wondered if I should have asked my advisor - a 52 year old male - to be more present, but as I've thought about it, I've realized that my identity as a young innovative teacher and research have been important in shaping the kind of discourse our small community has engaged in.

These three points all intertwine, and have made me think hard about the ethics of my own research. Garcia et al., as well as others we have read, readily point out that online research is a budding practice, and the ethical implications of this kind of research are still being explored. Maybe the IRB hasn't thought about all of the implications; if that is the case, I feel it is my responsibility as a researcher to consider them.

Musings on Video Conferencing

I really appreciated Horan's (2011) piece on utilizing the digital tools we have with us to their maximum potential. Little things like using reminders to end a meeting and geotagging pictures are good ideas that I'll keep in my back pocket. This article, combined with the presentations in class, have really gotten me thinking about how I can harness the power of the tools I already have, and what other tools I might need in my arsenal. I hadn't thought to use my smartphone to do research, or use a tablet for anything other than reading and notes. But with transcription software and programs like Zotero, endnote, and Dropbox, my toolbox can be small, portable, and powerful.

I'm still putting together in my head how to use all of these technologies in harmony, but as I write these blogs, I am thinking through the ways in which these different tools can work together, and I'm getting very excited about my upcoming research. All of this coincides nicely with my writing of my early inquiry project and my preparations to extend that project this summer.

One tool that I found particularly useful this summer was Google Hangouts for video conferencing. Gratton and O'Donnell (2011) present the pros and cons of video conferencing, and I found myself nodding along with both the advantages and shortcomings of using this tool. While you do miss something not having everyone in the same room and reading their full body language, you can read a lot in a video conference. And after the first 30 minutes - and certainly after the first couple of meetings, the people meeting become a community, and they develop a rhythm, which helps address the issue they raise about turn taking.

Videoconferencing made the professional development work I did this summer possible. I didn't know it when I started the project, but the Hangouts held a major part in making these theoretically and geographically diverse group of teachers a community. Initially, I had planned to meet with the teachers three times during the first week of the intensive 6 week workshop, and once a week after that. But at the end of the first week, the teachers requested that we continue to meet frequently to check in on their designs and talk things out in a way they felt they could not or did not want to do in the discussion forums.

None of these teachers have ever met each other, but in addition to sharing lesson plans and feedback, they shared teaching stories, personal information, and they all participated in supporting one teacher whose son suddenly became paralyzed toward the end of the six weeks. In this latter incident, each member of the community offered to take up the work of the one so she could be with her son as the doctors figured out what caused the paralysis. They had a true community, and they worked and grew and breathed together.

At the end of the six weeks, one of the teachers shared that she was pregnant and that she would not be teaching in the upcoming semester.  I had a vague notion that the teachers had been communicating outside of our meetings and discussion forums, but when these two teachers revealed these personal stories, it became clear that the community of teachers had become friends who communicated outside the scope of the professional development. They reported updates about each other, and began sharing workloads when one got overwhelmed.

Now we are into the second semester of the courses the teachers designed over the summer. Since the end of last semester, we have taken a hiatus from the video conferences. The teachers have requested that we start those again. They feel distanced from the other teachers and isolated, which is something my research actively tries to combat.

A great thing about using Google Hanout or Skype is that I can do it from anywhere. Over teh summer I was working from California and went on many outings with my family. In addition to allowing the teachers to connect from different geographical locations, I could be anywhere - in California, at the zoo, on my way to see a student's new film - and check in with them. They even started conferencing with each other, unbeknownst to me.

My subjects meeting without my knowing is somewhat of a concern because I can't track their thinking and development when they do that, but I can see the results in both their growth and the strength of the community, so I decided the benefits were better than the downsides.

So the point of my musings this week is that I've already been thinking about how to use the tools I have to enhance my research process, but the presentations and these articles have helped me think of ways to use them that had not crossed my mind. I'm starting with looking into the features Horan and Drs Lubke and Varga mentioned. I'm going to bring up Mendely in our lab meeting tomorrow and see what everyone thinks (it helps when we all use the same system. Right now we're using Zotero.). Once I get my feet wet with these tools, I'll explore what else my smartphone and tablet can do.

Thoughts on Digital References

As I was finishing up the reading for this week, I was really put off by Kern's (2011) opening comment that today's researchers do not care about reference style, and are not intimately familiar with their citation handbook. Kern asserted that much of this was due to the wealth of information and articles available on the Internet that are easily searchable and found. This opening remark tainted the rest of the article and I had difficulty giving weight to the statements because this framing so blatantly casts of researchers who utilize the tools around them.

I'd argue that because I have a reference manager and can engage in a wider, more diverse search of the literature, I know my citation style more intimately than I would if I was only searching within the limits of the Learning Sciences. Because I have ready access to articles and information for the varying specialized fields in education and to education and learning-related materials in other fields, I am becoming familiar with many different citation styles, and learning the nuances of the one I use.

This statement, placed right in the beginning of the article, reminded me of people who start conversations with statements like "Kids these days don't understand ..." or "The youth today have it so easy..." I often think it is the people who make these statements that don't have a clear understanding of the kind of work that is being done with the advanced tools they are referencing.

This was of particular note as it stood in contrast with the two presenters' discussions in class on Tuesday. Both Dr, Lubke and Dr. Varga discussed ways in which one can leverage particular technological tools to deepen their research process and put together a richer literature review. By utilizing the many features of Zotero or Mendeley, a researcher can have an abundant list of references that are easily searched, annotated, saved, shared, and inserted into the written document. Specific quotes and ideas can be accessed instantaneously, enabling the researcher to support their claims with more and more-specific evidence. Collaboration is made easy; references and drafts of passages can be shared in (almost) real time, de-isolating (if I can make up that word) the research process and taking the researcher out of their dark office into a collaborative space.

When writing anything, I generally try to avoid absolutes and sweeping statements because, while I may feel passionately about a particular topic or opinion, there is likely someone who disagrees with me, and who has evidence to support their counter-claim. If instead Kern took an air of trepidation in their opening paragraphs and cautioned researchers to be careful not to become lackadaisical in their referencing, I may not have reacted so strongly. It is all about framing; making forward arguments is important, but slighting a whole group with a few statements does not help to make that argument. It seems to detract from it.

RE: Constraints and Affordances

 I am rereading an article right now that might add to our discussion on affordances. I posited in class and in my blog that we should consider affordances  and constraints in our conversation. Here is how Greeno (1998) defines them:

• In situation theory (Barwise, 1993; Barwise & Perry, 1983; Devlin, 1991), constraints are represented formally as if-then relations between types of situations. We use the term constraints to include if-then regularities of social practices and of interactions with material and informational systems that enable a person to anticipate outcomes and to participate in trajectories of interaction. Affordances (E. J. Gibson, 1988; J. J . Gibson, 1979/1986; Reed. 1996) are qualities of systems that can support interactions and therefore present possible interactions for an individual to participate in. Affordances can be represented, using situation-theory notation, as if-then relations between types of situations, in which the antecedent involves resources in the environment and enabling characteristics of a person or group and the consequent is a type of activity that is possible whenever those environmental and personal properties are present. Regular patterns of an individual's participation can be conceptualized as that person's attunements to constraints (Barwise & Perry, 1983) and to affordances. Attunements include well-coordinated panerns of participating in social practices. including the conversational and other interactional conventions of communities (Greeno, et al., p. 9).

These definitions have been very helpful for me, and the concept of learning as becoming attuned to the affordances and constraints of an activity system has been quite formative. 

Greeno, J. G., & Middle School Mathematics through Applications Project Group. (1998). The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American Psychologist, 53(1), 5–26.

Relavant Literature reviews

First, a summary:
It seemed from the readings this week that the way in which a literature review is defined depends on the purpose of the review, and that purpose can differ between the purpose of the review and the audience who will read it. Boote and Beile (2005) and Maxwell (2006) disagree fundamentally on the purpose of a dissertation, and therefore disagree on the purpose the literature review serves. For Boote and Beile, the purpose of the dissertation is to demonstrate one's knowledge of their field in order to show their expertise. Maxwell discusses the dissertation as another important research paper, and therefore the literature reviewed must be relevant to advance a specific argument in a specific part of the field. The difference between these two types of literature reviews highlight a movement within many doctoral programs, but the guidelines each present are useful in their own right.

As Anderson and Kanuka (2003) discuss how the Internet has impacted the researcher and research process, they discuss both the wealth of knowledge a researcher has access to and the importance of narrowing one's search to the relevant literature. They go so far as to state that a researcher can focus on the literature from their field, effectively ignoring research in other fields (p. 45). While this may be helpful in the initial search for relevant literature, but the researcher would do well to recognize the places outside their field where relevant literature may also reside.

The problems and techniques posed by these authors bring forth the need for a researcher to use some kind of reference management system both to collect resources and sort, tag, and annotate resources for easier access and synthesis.

And now, a reflection:
While Boote and Beile's guidelines and rubric are helpful for guiding the process of writing a broad literature review, it seems that in many fields using relevant literature to advance an argument may be more appropriate for the kinds of dissertations being required in many fields. Working from anecdotal evidence, it seems that many programs are moving toward dissertations that are comprised of a certain number of published/publishable articles around a theme, which would seem to necessitate a literature review more along the lines of what Maxwell proposes.

Personally, I have found Maxwell's suggestions to be quite productive, giving me focus in the broad task of reviewing the literature. I have written several focused literature reviews, using Zotero to organize and annotate appropriate articles. Now that I am writing up my early inquiry project, I am drawing from the text of those reviews and my notes in Zotero to synthesize what I know about the field of teacher professional development, and advance the argument that a situative perspective may elicit more meaningful, relevant, and productive teacher conversations and curricular designs.

I have been playing around with Pintrest since our class on Tuesday, and I have been using this focused approach to write small reflections on the writing I am doing. The phrasing of these reflections are finding their way into the literature review section of my early inquiry project, and because my articles are organized in Zotero, I can match up my musings and the claims within them to evidence-based arguments, giving more substance to my overall argument.

As a final comment, I'll note that some of the things I don't particularly like about Boote and Beile's rubric are (a) the inconsistencies in the ratings (see Methodology and the accompanying footnote that does not, in my opinion, sufficiently explain why the other categories are not rated on a four point scale), and (b) the weight implied in the ordering of the requirements. This last point is particularly bothersome, as even the phrasing of the different rating requirements indicate that Coverage, for example, holds more weight than Rhetoric. I'm not sure I agree with their ordering, and feel it might become problematic if a student-researcher were to follow this rubric to the T. However, I should qualify this paragraph with the note that I often find rubrics too constraining in that they encourage the learner to focus on small aspects asking "Is this what you want?" rather than focusing on the task of analysis and argument in the big picture. They are also very difficult to write, and language like "Well developed, coherent" or "Critiqued research methods" is subjective and vague, and encourages learners to interpret language and then be upset when they don't get all of their points. I know that this rubric is not meant to be used to actually "grade" a literature review, but it presents the information as if it could be (which can be problematic) and encourages people to do so (which can be even more problematic). A better and more productive focus for a reviewer would be to assess whether the researcher has sufficiently discussed and synthesized the relevant literature necessary to identify a gap, support claims, and advance an argument.

Reflexive Pins

I've tried to use Pintrest many times. My friends use it and post wonderful things, and I wanted to be a part of that, so I made an account. And while I'm usually good at picking up new things, for whatever reason I couldn't use Pintrest. I would click on a picture of some lovely-looking cookie and get a picture, not a link. I would find something interesting to pin to my dance board and not be able to figure out how to get the Pin It button on my toolbar, even though I thought I loaded it. And so I decided that I didn't need to use Pintrest. I'm not usually so visual (I prefer to write than draw, for instance), and this was one social network in which I didn't need to participate.

So I was skeptical last week when Jessica presented her reflexive Pintrest board.

I thought about it over the weekend and opened up my Pintrest account for the first time in a very long time and tried to think how this could possibly be useful for reflection. I came up with nothing and closed the window.

So when we were asked in class to just search for something to pin, I really didn't know what I was looking for, and I had no idea what I would write. Then, as I scrolled down, down, searching for something...anything to write about, I came across this book cover:



... and my brain started racing!I have no idea what this book is. I didn't look it up. I didn't have to. The cover flooded me with thoughts I've been trying to put into papers for a long time. It conveys so much about how people think about (a) professional development, (b) online learning, and (c) learning with technology.

The Title: The title alone - PD in your PJs... - gives the impression that one's professional development can and should be easy. No sweat! Don't even shower. You don't have to invest a lot of energy into your own growth as a professional. Get it done with minimal effort at home, at your leisure. I do understand why people might want PD to be this effortless; so much professional development for teachers involves day-long or half-day sessions (Corcoran, 1995) listening to someone drone on about test scores or inspirational technology your school can't afford, making few connections to a real classroom context. And it is so hard to sit through. But that's just the problem. It shouldn't be hard to sit through. One shouldn't passively sit through their own development process.

There have actually been many calls to reform professional development, and many have offered new approaches based on contemporary social learning theories and what we know about how teachers learn. But much of this research never gets past the small implementations (Borko, 2004), so the majority of classroom teachers never see it. These teachers are excited about getting their students interested in their own learning, and I believe many of them want to grow themselves, but they need professional development opportunities that are meaningful in their own classroom practice. This is what my research aims to do, and we are in the process of making it happen.

The Photo: This photo is not just an example of how a person can complete the professional development. Being on the floor, barefoot, in pajamas projects the notion that a teacher can whiz through an online course over their morning coffee or evening tea, and get it out of the way. It indicates that professional development is something one has to do, not something they strive to do regularly. More broadly, this photo conveys that online courses should be quick and easy - no pressure, no challenge.

I am aware that it is unlikely that I will change the way the world thinks about online learning with one dissertation, but the work I am doing now is the beginning of my goal to participate in the movement to show people that online learning can be interactive, meaningful, challenging, and relevant. My focus is on teacher learning, but I write carefully to show that new, meaningful teacher learning environments pave the way for teachers to change learning environments for their students, whether they teach online, face-to-face, or in a hybrid setting.

The pin only let me use 500 characters, so I couldn't say all of this there, but it got me thinking and, most importantly, it got me to put those thoughts in writing. A big part of the battle for getting this work out there has been finding the phrasing and the references to support my claims. This little pin and the inner dialogue that flooded from it made me realize just how much I have to say and why I am so passionate about teacher learning. It also made me realize that I've read other authors' reports on teachers' feelings about professional development and that I have more than anecdotal evidence with which I can frame my argument. 

And of course, all of these thoughts were coupled with our readings and discussion around the ethics of using online tools. I see another pin in the near future exploring the ethics of online professional development.

This little pin brought up so many thoughts. I'm looking forward to conducting more searches and getting all of these reflective ideas down in writing, even if it is not finessed. The process of putting these reflections into typed words and phrases helps me clarify my thoughts and aims both as a teacher and a researcher. I'm looking forward to using Pintrest in a reflexive way.

Issues Around Transparency ...

The combination of our "ubiquitous connectivity" (Hardey, 2011) and a move toward more open research techniques including blogging throughout different stages of research (Wakeford and Cohen, 2008) made me think hard about my own research process as I read this week. Generally, we seem to be moving toward an era of transparency; users want open resources that are editable by the community, and as a public we seem to want to know what is behind the curtain in many different facets of life. As we move toward more open and transparent techniques in research, it seems we walk a fine line between opening up for new insights and critique, and risking the protection of our research and research subjects (and all  of the data we gather from our experiences with and observations of them).

On the one hand, if we become co-participants (Hardey, 2011) in our research, we gain new insights and perspective on our observations and analysis, which can lead to a richer and more productive research process and product. Certainly in design-based implementation research (Penuel, et al., 2011) the focus is on working in teams with the stakeholders to iterate theory and implement designs. And I can say from experience that giving the research participants a powerful voice in the research process can be extremely informative, productive, and even inspiring. I am working with a teacher who, in the beginning, was highly skeptical of our approach to curricular design (based on situative theories of learning and cognition). She pushed back at every step and made me rethink how I present new theories, and how to approach the design process. As she implemented her designs, she began to understand why we used particular methods, and expressed her surprise at how much productive engagement they elicited. The finding here was not that the method worked, but that she was able to articulate what did not work for her in her design process, and her suggestions for the next iteration have been invaluable. We are continuing to collaborate, and are making plans for her to be an integral part of the next iteration of this work. Our openness has helped to foster this productive relationship, and the research (and the researcher) are better for it.

On the other hand, as I was reading I kept thinking about another teacher I am working with who was also resistant, but in a less productive way. This teacher stated plainly that these methods were antithetical to what he had been taught, and was less willing to try a new method. The reviews for that course reflected this resistance; the students felt that the course did not flow well, that their teacher was not present, and that they had to "learn everything on my own." I like the idea of being transparent in my research process, and the notion of using a semi-formal space like a blog to write up initial thoughts and get feedback and engage in discussion with a community is very appealing. However, even writing this I am hesitant because if either of these teachers see this post, they will see how I have characterized them in opposition to one another, and they will be able to identify themselves. I have pulled out information and am forming a broader narrative about teacher learning, using the teachers' experiences as examples of different types of learners, but I risk making them uncomfortable and construing characterizations as negative when they are meant only to be representative of the different experiences we have seen in the many teachers with whom we have worked.

(And I know they might look. One teacher did an extensive (an kind of intrusive) Google search of me when we started working together. This teacher dug far past my teaching career into my college activities and performance hobbies. All of this information is public knowledge, and in pieces it doesn't seem odd, but given the context of our work together it just seemed to overstep something.)

This leads to a host of privacy and ethical issues that both Hardey (2011) and Wakeford and Cohen (2008) discussed, but in my opinion did not address deeply enough. I don't want researchers to be frightened of the technology, as I have mentioned in other posts, but at the same time we need to understand the gravity of the potential consequences of being so open. When my advisor first wanted to write a blog post about our research to post to the community for feedback, I felt uncomfortable and exposed. I didn't want to show them our unfinished work. But the feedback and questions that emerged were so helpful, and I realized how important opening up can be. So as I read Wakeford and Cohen in particular, I found myself wanting to try fleshing out my observations in a public forum. I have been keeping a research diary, in which I write entries after a discussion or email or meeting, but I haven't taken the time to flesh those out. As I enter into the writing phase and am designing the next iteration, the idea that I could present initial thoughts to a community and to my research participants is appealing. But in addition to worrying about how my research participants would feel about my characterizations and analysis, I am concerned that these public and unrefined characterizations and analyses could actually put my participants at risk. What if their principals saw this? How would they react to these teachers' behavior?

So I guess I'm saying I'm kind of stuck. I want to be more open. I want the feedback from the community, including the participants. But are the risks too big? Should we only be "sort-of open," only sharing more mature-but-not-quite-finished analyses? I don't know.

A Brief Exploration from a Situative Perspective

This week there was an amazing amount of synergy between my courses, which resulted in a very productive opportunity to work through theory and synthesize arguments that emerged in both sets of readings.

Situativity is a sociocultural learning theory that views knowing as the ability to participate successfully in a community's practices and being attuned to the constraints and affordances of an activity system. Knowledge is distributed across people and tools, and learning is the strengthening of practices and participatory abilities in a community (Greeno, Collins, and Resnick, 1996). It positions all members of a community as participants in the learning process, thus redefining the role of the teacher as a perhaps more experienced but equal member of the community who can use their experience to act as a mentor to less experienced members. These core assumptions have shaped the way I taught (though I did not have the language at the time to articulate these definitions) and the way I conduct my research on learning and professional development. Situativity has served as a lens through which I can analyze learning and assessment ecosystems and their parts, so I read this week's readings with this lens as well. I'd like to extend the use of situativity beyond the classroom and into the research community, positioning researchers as members and learners who bring experiences and perspectives to any research study that work together to inform and enrich the community.

In class, I found myself wanting to have a deeper theoretical discussion about affordances & constraints and tools because it seemed that a theoretical grounding would have yielded an even more productive discussion. I was particularly interested in exploring three concepts further: (a) affordances and constraints of activity systems, (b) tools and tool use, and (c) the image of the "lone researcher." I shall do a bit of that here. I'm really just working out ideas here, so apologies if they're not fully formed.

affordances and constrains of activity systems: As I mentioned in class, I was struck by the way that all of the authors we read discussed the concept of affordances in such a broad manner, but I was particularly interested in the debate of the definition of affordances discussed by Conole and Dyke (2004) and Boyle and Cook. While I understand each of their definitions, I was surprised that they chose to work from Gibson's (1979) and Salomon's (1993) definitions, defining the term quite broadly and encompassing both what a thing affords and what it constrains. There have been some very productive and refined discussions of affordances and constraints in the Learning Sciences, specifically discussing the attunement to the the affordances and constraints of an environment as central to learning. Separating affordances from constraints seems to help tease apart and clarify the discussion of (a) what a particular environment or activity system allows or promotes, and (b) how it places boundaries, and whether those constraints and affordances add focus or hinder productivity.

Furthermore, this idea that becoming more aware of an environment's affordances and constraints is learning may be productive in discussing how one can engage with a new technology in the research process. It positions the learner (in this case, the researcher) as interacting more and more productively with the tool, implying that they can interact with it at different levels. Thinking about the levels I outlined last week, this puts less emphasis on the tool itself (therefore giving it less power over the research or the researcher) and more focus on the user and their increasingly productive and meaningful interactions with it.

Finally, by looking at a particular tool or set of tools as an activity system in which a user operates, one can attune themselves to different aspects of the tool, learning what they need to know as they need to know it. There is also likely a user community around any given tool, the members of which will have different levels understanding of the tool and can offer their experiences and insights to a less experienced member. In this way, the power is not in the tool, but in the learner/user; in this way, the tool can be manipulated by the user to do what the user needs.

tools/tool use: I was surprised that Osiurak et al. (2010) decided to narrow their discussion of tool use to physical entities that are"extensions of the upper limbs" (p. 518), providing several definitions of tools as physical things. While they close their section of What is a Tool? with the qualification that any definition of a tool and tool use is one of convenience (p. 519), the discussion frames the rest of the discussion, positioning tools as physical objects to be manipulated by a user. By leaving conceptual tools out of the conversation, it seems we are missing something. This comment needs more thought, but I wanted to mention it because, as we begin to explore technology, I think we should remember that we possess powerful conceptual tools that can be used to make sense of and manipulate physical tools. Tools, both physical and conceptual, mediate our engagement with and understanding of the activity system in which we operate; analyzing and understanding the nuances of those mediations may help us better understand how we can manipulate and use a tool to its maximum potential.

the lone researcher: This is a short comment. A situative perspective offers a different take on this image of the lone researcher, isolated in their lab analyzing their data. Even when we work alone, we bring with us all of the experiences and interactions with the members of our various communities, so we are not operating in isolation from our community. I just think this is important to remember as we explore new ways to conduct and present research, looking for transparency and interaction around the research process. An implication of taking a situative perspective is that the research process does not have to be - and arguably should not be - a solo activity.

Thinking about my own learning process in this way has helped make these abstract and difficult points salient, and I've found them useful in analyzing new information. This is the perspective I bring with me into our discussions, and I hope that we can engage in meaningful discussions enriched by a variety of perspectives as we explore technological tools.

 

Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. B. (1996). Cognition and learning. In Berliner, D. C. & Calfee, R. C. (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 15–46). New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA, Prentice Hall International.

 Greeno, J. G., & Middle School Mathematics through Applications Project Group. (1998). The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American Psychologist, 53(1), 5–26.

Also:

 Case, R. (1996). Changing views of knowledge and their impact on educational research and practice. In Olson, D. (Ed.), The handbook of education and human development: New models of learning, teaching and schooling (pp. 75–99). Cambridge: Blackwell.

On Affordances

I always enjoy reading published debates, as it is interesting to see what people draw out of a particular work and deem necessary for comment. Conole and Dyke (2004a) present and discuss the affordances of new technologies for educational practice. While the opening of the paper references a Gibsonian definition of affordances (p. 114), the second section references Salomon (1993, p. 51) and presents a clear definition of what is meant by "affordances." Because of this definition, I did not take issue with their characterization of affordances or their description of the kind of technological affordances they promote. Boyle and Cook (2004), however, take issue with the later definition, and therefore take a fundamental issue with the claims and projections Conole and Dyke make in their paper. As a response, Conole and Dyke (2004b) clarify their definition of affordance, pushing back against Boyle and Cook's insistence that they use a broader Gibsonian definition of affordance, and stating that their discussion of affordances is limited to "the intended, prescribed or designed function of technology" (p. 301).

While Boyle and Cook believe that a discussion on affordances could be productive, they take issue with the way in which Conole and Doyle unfold their taxonomy, stating that their broad claims are not theoretically sound. They also contend with Conole and Dyke's definition of affordances as "the percieved and actual properties of a thing ... that determine how the thing" is used (p. 115). Boyle and Cook define them as exiting "[independent] in the environment, and [they] are discovered rather that [sic] constructed by the human (or animal) actor. This fundamental difference in definition yields different ways in which affordances of technologies can be understood and a taxonomy can be drawn.

I appreciate  Boyle and Cook's argument, as I too was surprised when Conole and Dkye presented affordances as the central argument of the paper and presented a taxonomy with very little discussion of what affordances are, and why this would be a needed and productive discussion. In their response, Conole and Dyke state that space limitations prevented them from going into the discussion in detail, but it seems like the central argument in one's paper should be supported prior to laying out their taxonomy.

However, while reading the paper in question, I did not (after my initial surprise at jumping right in) take issue with their definition or conjectures about possible affordances, mainly because they end their discussion asking whether affordances are the right framing and invited critique. While some of their claims are broad or sweeping, as Boyle and Cook point out (p. 297), I generally liked that they addressed these particular affordances.

Three of the affordances stood out to me as ones to discuss further. The affordance of accessibility is really important, and I appreciate their statement that a consequence of increased accessibility is the need to build "learning information and analysing skills," but I think they need to expand on this. First of all, their assumption that one could teach something so broad and abstract as "learning skills" reveals their constructivist theoretical underpinning; I'd like to know how one goes about teaching such skills They begin to discuss the important subject of the shift from learning pieces of information to learning how to ask questions (Collins and Hanverson, 2010), but they leave it at one sentence, which is insufficient and minimizes the point they are trying to make.

When discussing the communication and collaboration affordance, the authors state that increased communication and collaboration, they state that this could lead to "individuals being 'spead too thinly'" and "lack of identity and peripheral engagement" (p. 117), with only a citation to a metaphor to explain why they think that might happen. On the contrary, much of the work I've read (e.g. Jenkins, 2009; Ito et al 2013) states that networked engagement brings opportunities to form identities, learn from others, and contribute meaningfully to a group when a person feels ready (but relieves the pressure of feeling like one must contribute if they do not want to). This paired with my own experience teaching, learning, and interacting in networked communities makes me want them to explain their claim.

Finally, their claim that technologies can afford opportunities for reflection is an important one, and I agree with much of what they stated. But they again provide few citations for claims that it supports reflection, and then go into ways it may halt reflection. The way they treat the affordances of technology - and that they refer to technology broadly - makes me think they are in the second or third phase of the continuum I posted on Wednesday. They are not as accepting - and may not be as knowledgeable - about new technologies as they are positioning themselves to be. There is a heavy air of caution, and "affordances" is used broadly, whereas literature in the Learning Sciences clarifies points by using "affordances and constraints" (Greeno, 1998).


As a side note, all of these papers had a lot of typos, and the typos became progressively worse in each paper. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the editor, but this kind of sloppiness in published work makes it difficult for me to focus on the arguments, and gives a sense that they were not careful in their work. I guess it is the English teacher in me (my sister complains about these effects often), but I expect published work by experts to be error-free.

Reflections on the HIstory of Qualitative Research with Technology

This week's class helped me synthesize the readings, and really brought forth two points that I want to elaborate on here and will take with me throughout the course. 

The first point is an obvious one, but one worth repeating. In qualitative research, we are not seeking a single truth, and while we may have goals in mind, we will discover things about our work and ourselves on the research journey. This has become a very salient point for me, due to a recent discussion with a friend in cognitive science. He very simply does not understand how any study without randomized controlled trials can be called science. The first time he accused me of "not doing science," I was extremely offended and didn't know how to respond. Then I spoke with my advisor and I realized that my friend just didn't have the grounding to understand a different kind of research and study. I know I won't convince him, but this fundamental difference of not looking for a single truth is what divides us. As friends we'll get over it, but as researchers we likely won't collaborate.



The second thought I want to extend is the images of history exercise we did. When we were asked to think of images of the history of technolgy in qualitative research, I immediately thought of my mother-in-law, who is quite cautious with technology. While she has the capability to use computers and use them well, she is often concerned that she will break the computer, and uses language like "the computer did X." This lead me to think of other images of people interacting with and talking about technology. I like the way I characterized the four phases of technology use in class, so I will expand them here and see where they go.

fear - of being replaced, of being out of control The first image - could I venture to say phase? - is of being afraid of what the technology will do to the research or to the researcher. There is an unknown in this phase, and perhaps a lack of understanding of the technology's inner workings. It seemed from the readings that researchers were afraid of being replaced - many statements were made to ensure the reader understood that technology CANNOT or cannot (emphasized either way) analyze data for the researcher. This statement was often positioned as a caution against thinking that the technology will automate a process that can be arduous, but I think it revealed an underlying fear that the technology perhaps could someday do that, or at least that the technology has the potential to shape research in ways that can go undetected by a not-so-cautious researcher. There was also discussion of underlying epistemologies, and whether they aligned with the theory behind the tools. Again, I think this reveals a fear of something alien or unknown. The language surrounding these statements were about what the technology does, as though it were alive.

cautious embrace - Next there are those who see the value in some uses of a technology, but still caution against allowing the technology to shape the research or understand the ways in which using even minimal digital technologies shape research and the research process. These statements seemed to acknowledge the burdens that can be lifted by using word processors and audio recordings, but cautioned using digital filing as it may take data out of context and make the full data difficult to access. Of course, this is all set up by the user, so if one wanted to make sure they had access to all data in context and pieces as well, they could arrange that, but these statements didn't acknowledge that. Again, the language was about what the computer does.
 
full embrace - Then there were a couple statements that embraced new technologies as capable of moving research and the field as a whole forward. These accounts made sure to state the importance of recognizing how (especially) digital tools shape research, but the tone was that this could be a good and useful thing.

manipulate and shape tool use - We didn't see too much of this, but I think it is the next step. Once a person is comfortable working with new technologies and understands the basics of how they work, they can begin to as what the tool can do for them and what they can do to and with the tool. The language changes here. The researcher is in control, and the technology is a tool, just as a hammer is a tool, and different tools can be used in different ways to perform many functions.

As I'm sure is clear by now, I stand in this last phase. I inherently look at a new technology and think, "now what can I do with that? How can I manipulate it to get the result I need?" I know that convincing someone in the first stance is really difficult, but I try anyway. People in the middle are more open to at least trying the new technology to see what happens. Of course there are timing and cost issues to consider with the adoption of any technology, but that aside, these phases may characterize the way in which people approach technology in research, particularly in qualitative research.

Understanding Tensions in Integrating Digital Tools Into Research

I grew up with computers and technology in my life, though I dislike the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant" because they imply that natives are somehow inherently better at using the technology than immigrants, which is not always the case. Whatever terms we use, I recognize that I am not only comfortable using and trying new and old technological tools, I expect them to be part of everything I do, and I expect them to enhance and streamline my work, including my research. I hadn't really thought about the fact that some people may feel that technology could get in the way of doing sound and ethical research, so this week's readings really helped me explore this tension and think about how I use digital tools and the role I want those tools to play in my research.

Paulus, Lester, and Dempster (2014) present a reflexive prompt and three questions that helped frame my thinking around these readings. When I consider whether I am an "early adopter" or not, I think about the way I choose to use digital tools, and I realize that, while I am open to trying new tools, I want to know about their affordances and constraints before I put them to use. of course there is always something to be learned by just "playing around" with a tool, but I do like to know how it will enhance and streamline my work and process before I determine if I will use it. Part of the reason I like to learn a lot about the tool before I use it is I really feel that there is a reciprocal relationship when it comes to tool use specifically and research in general; our work is shaped by the tools we use, but in working with them, we also shape the actual use of the tool as well. In that sense, it is important to have a general understanding of the consequences of picking up a particular tool. 

With that framing, I really appreciated the textual analysis conducted by Paulus, Lester, and Britt (2013). In this paper, the authors analyze 11 qualitative inquiry textbooks and the way they present the presence and use of technology in qualitative inquiry. I found it interesting that for each topic analyzed, there were essentially two camps: one that approached technology with caution and a fear of how it would change research, and one that embraced the technology and the shifts it brings. This latter camp, the more progressive camp, appeals to me partially for the reasons that the authors surmise (that technology is integrated in my daily life, and I therefore want to use it in my research), but also because I strongly believe that researchers must - albeit with care and thought - look forward to how they can use the most current and available resources to both impact their field and be impacted by it. As we conduct research, we grow and change, and (hopefully) move the field forward. It makes sense, then, to use all of the tools available to make both the research experience and the study itself richer and more well-rounded. Those tools can be a mix of traditional and new technologies and methods.

Coffey, Holbrook, and Atkinson (1996) take a bold - especially for the time in which this paper was written - and interesting stance on the integration of technology into research, falling resolutely in the embrace-technology-beacuse-it-is-changing-the-way-we-conduct-and-present-research camp. The authors begin by outlining the divide between science and rhetoric, and proceed to explain that as times have changed, research has evolved, and such a distinction can no longer be made appropriately. By removing these distinctions, we see that  "scientific accounts and texts have rhetorical qualities" (Coffey 3.1), and can conduct research that is richer in experience and substance for both the researcher and the subjects. This opening point leads into an important discussion of giving voice to the muted populations, and that researchers can foster this kind of empowerment by fundamentally changing the way they present their research. Rather than write in a linear fashion, present subjects, data, and conclusions in a more interactive way using hypertext and links that allow the reader to make sense of the information and draw their own conclusions.

With so many ways to present information in at least an interactive and possibly non-linear fashion via the Internet and its accompanying technologies, it is possible to empower voices and uplift stories in exciting and invigorating ways. This, of course, does not come without cost; we still value journal articles and linear papers to build esteem and achieve tenure, but the presence of new forms of data representation such as academic blogging, infographics, and Popplets provide researchers with an alternative to the traditional publishing route. This is more labor-intensive on the parts of both the researcher and the reader, but it may be well worth the effort. Coffey et al. drive this point home in their final sentence, projecting that the traditional way to present data "could well seem like a dreadful anachronism" (9.3). This is a particularly bold statement given the year that this was written, but if things progress as they have been, they may be right. Already we are moving toward more open-access journals, academic blogging, professional social networking, and visual representations of data through video, infographics, and the like. Certainly in my own doctoral journey I have had to learn to do all of these things, and it seems that the emerging generation of researchers will value the more interactive reports with links to data and multiple representations of information, giving the reader more power to make sense of the information contained in the study for themselves.


These readings particularly helped me think through the tensions that are inherent in integrating technology into research. I still think it is important to use the digital tools we have to enhance, extend, and streamline our work, but I have a better grasp of how those tools might also constrain research, and I glad to be more aware of this as I move forward in my own research.

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

While this blog was catalyzed by a course, I have been engaging in academic blogging with my advisor on his blog, and have been wanting to start my own, with my own musings, thoughts, and theories. This is a good opportunity to start that process, and to get into the habit of writing out my reflections on my work and studies.

On this blog I will voice my thoughts on readings and tools, and hopefully synthesize what I am learning and connect it to the work and research I do and read. I hope you'll engage in a discussion around these thoughts with me.

Rebecca