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...

So. It is finally upon me!  The time to put pen to paper (or in my case tap some keys on the keyboard to throw some stuff called text into a Google Doc) in order to start putting together my dissertation proposal.  In some respects I am doing this backwards.  I am taking a Research Methods course this summer as a way of getting re-acquainted with some things, and to get better acquainted with others.  I think that the more you practice something the better you become at it. And, heck, one of the assignments in this course really lends itself to (1) getting at least part of the research methods section done, and (2) getting some feedback on it before I go into my actual dissertation prep seminar in the fall (EDDE 805). So, what am I doing "backward".  Well, typically (as I am told) you are meant to start with an intro chapter which talks a bit about your setup.  This is generally something like 15-20 pages.  Then you have a chapter on the review o...

In my quest to finally catch up with everything that I've saved in Pocket for the last month, I came across a post written by Rebecca (luckily not that long ago) where she asks: Should those who study social media communities be required to  inform the community of the research results? I think that this is both an easy, yet a very complicated question!  I believe that the ethical  thing to do is to post to that community once your research is done (if not earlier) to let them know.  If it's on twitter for example I would expect the researcher(s) to post something on that community hashtag to indicate what the research was about and what the results were.  It's fairly easy (and free) to setup a Google Site or a Wikispace, or even a Weebly site to post a few pages about the research, you as researcher, and the findings.   Personally I think that it would be good, for research purposes, to invite  commentary from that community so that they cou...

I am starting to feel like Jack Bauer in 24 as EDDE 802 progresses. 60 days down in the semester, and 25 left to go.  I can hear the clock ticking down... Assignment 3 was completed this weekend, a few days before it was actually due ( thank you to Lisa for the peer review!).  It's a small assignment describing the conceptual frameworks that we are going to use for researching a specific research question.  My question comes back to Learner Motivation in MOOCs - something that I think I started thinking about in 2011 after MobiMOOC.  With the proliferation of MOOC "types", xMOOC, cMOOC, pMOOC, rMOOC, and whatever else exists these days it makes sense to focus on learner motivation in cMOOCs specifically.  It seems that the smaller volumes of learners in cMOOCs, and the seemingly higher proportion of spontaneous "original" contributions make it an interesting environment to study motivation in. When I approached this topic for Assignment 1 it was one of s...

It's hard to believe, but this week we are commencing unit 4 (of 5) in EDDE 802 - which is all about data collection, thus leaving behind the research methodology unit.   This past week has been particularly difficult due to the amount of reading.  Now, I should say that my MA in Applied Linguistics has prepared me for a lot for the amount of reading an MA and a PhD student should be doing each week.  In Linguistics we normally had anywhere from 60 to 80 pages per week to read and be able to discuss.  What's particularly difficult about this particular week was that most cohort-mates opted to present Assignment 2 this coming week which means preparatory readings for six different research methods in advance of the presentations (comparatively we had 3 presentations two weeks ago). On the plus side some methods (case studies, ethnography, DBR, and action research) I have read about before.  I am the only weirdo I know who read about research methods aft...

Week 1 of 15, of semester 2 of 8, of doctoral work is about to end!  The course that my cohort is focusing on this semester is a research methods course . Luckily neither I, nor it seems many of my classmates, are that new to research methods.  It's nice to have the group (or at least quite a few members of the group) exposed to the basics so that we can spend some time in critiquing and going deeper (and that's something we did on our cohort's facebook group this week anyway).  I also appreciate the fact the course isn't setup to only allow for one path through the course.  There are certainly foundational materials that we are expected to read and know, but for presentations it seems like we have a ton of choices in terms of what research methods we choose to present. I've been thinking about the assignments and I think I will spend some time exploring research methods that I haven't had a ton of exposure in, or methods that I've been meaning to go muc...

Last week I was somewhere between work, teaching, the NERCOMP symposium I co-facilitated and the annual Sloan Consortium Emerging Tech for Online conference. It was nice to see some familiar MOOC faces on both twitter and on the live stream presentations. I think it was in Jen Ross's presentation (of EDCMOOC fame) that a Rhizo14 participant was quoted anonymously.  I really didn't think much about it at the time. It was more of an "wow, I didn't think rhizo was really that well known outside of some crazy circles."  In any case, it turns out that the quote was from the autoethnography that we are working on (slowly but surely I guess), and that no permission was sought to use the quote.  Before I knew the specifics the prompt on the rhizo14 facebook group was: I have to admit that my gut reaction was "someone's watching? Who's reading our stuff?" But, I should point out, that this isn't indicative of a  negative reaction, but rather a ...

Well, it's the end of the week (or the beginning if you are following Western conventions with the odd behavior of calling "Sunday" the beginning of the week), grading for my course, for this week, is done, and it's time to see what I missed on Rhizo14 while I was tending to other things.  One of the things that we are putting together (in addition to the long autoethnography for #rhizo14) is this other research, which I would call Delphi based in its methodology, on why we take MOOCs, why we participate in them, and why we stick, or not stick, to them. I thought that this would be something interesting to participate in since I am not sure I've recorded why I've been participating in MOOCs (as you will note, the MOOC tag is the biggest one on this blog). The other epithets used online, thus far, for those who keep engaging in MOOCs is MOOCaholic .  I don't know if I like that epithet because it doesn't necessarily describe me right at this momen...

I read this study on the Journal of Online Teaching and Learning recently and it brought back memories of my two online classes last summer, and of the courses that friends of mine had to take online at other colleges and universities. Based on this input, I know what my preferences are for online learning: 1. The class needs to be asynchronous. If I have to be in Wimba (or other teleconferencing tool) every Monday from 8 to 10pm, then I would prefer to be in class. Even though our tools are better, regular synchronous classes are not for me. Having an asynchronous class allows me to look at discussion boards during my lunch hour, or while waiting for the train (on my N800 internet tablet). You just can't emulate the classroom experience in Wimba and I find that I would prefer to be in a physical location if I have to do this anyway. 2. Podcasts all the way! Instructors will often write an introduction to a topic before they let you do the readings and respond to the discussion ...