Multilitteratus Incognitus

It's a Boston thing... Alright, this blog post has been sitting in my drafts for a while, since I am procrastinating writing that paper on video game preservation (a story for another blog), why no blog?😂. Now that the dissertation is done, and the doctoral degree is completed, I've been spending a little more time observing the ID-sphere on Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter and I have seen a fair number of threads that solicit feedback and advice regarding doctoral studies in the field of instructional design or something like educational leadership.  These two things come up often and it's no surprise given that that advertising for PhDs in ID and Ed Leadership come up even for me (including in Instagram where I basically mostly post nature photos!!!). It's usually certain for-profit universities that are responsible for the bulk of this advertising - at least for me, but I see certain names come up in the Facebook and Reddit threads as well. It's never your local st...

Well, my proposal (basically half my dissertation) is off to the internal members of my committee. Many thanks go to the help of my doctoral supervisors who've asked a lot of questions of my previous drafts and helped me refine my writing :-) Now the next step (assuming the committee likes my submitted draft) is to both find an external reviewer for this, and also defend it so that I can move onto the next phase: data collection and analysis. Where do you come in? I need recommendations for an external member to my committee :-) If we've worked together in the past 5 years you would not be eligible to be on the committee, but if you know people who might be good, let me know :-) Requirements for external committee member Retrieved from:  http://fgs.athabascau.ca/handbook/doctoral/candidacy.ph p Also committee member criteria:  http://fgs.athabascau.ca/handbook/doctoral/supervisors_and_committee_members.php At least one of the new members must be at arm’s length f...

Many years ago, maybe around 16 years ago, I was sitting in the office of my computer science major advisor, getting my academic plan for next semester signed off on.  My computer science program was actually an offshoot of the mathematics department, and until recent years (2003?) they were one and the same.  My advisor, while looking at my transcript, noticed that (on average) I was doing better in language courses rather than my computer science courses; which was technically true, but many courses designated as CS courses (and ones that were required for my degree) were really math courses, so you need to do a deeper dive to see what I was doing better in. I never really forgot what he said next.  He said I should switch major; and it was odd that he didn't offer any suggestions as to how to improve†...  Being a bit stubborn (and relatively close to graduation) I doubled down and completed my major requirements (ha!).  During this chat I told him that...

With the summer here, and all of my doctoral coursework behind me, we are firmly in the self-determination area of the game-board.  No external pressures, no external timelines (although there is a statute of limitations on the degree), and interim assignments.  The dissertation proposal is it! That's the next target (which I am hoping to meet by December 2017). I already have a literature review done, but I was really eclectic in putting it together.  The lit-review (albeit incomplete and in need of some tightening) does present facets of what might be happening underneath it all when it comes to c ollaboration amongst self-formed groups in open educational experiences , but it doesn't work all that well when providing a grounding for collaboration amongst learners. In other words, I skipped to the chase even though I haven't formally collected data or spoken to other my study participants yet. I am just theorizing from past observations. In any case, that old li...

So, vacation has begun! I've gotten out my movies, video games, and comic books that I want to read, play, or view in the next 20 days until school starts again!  Before that though, I wanted to have a quick look back, a year end review if you will, at this past academic year.  Wow... Now that was a crazy year!  Yes, there was a lot going on in the global and political arenas, but (just to be a tad bit selfish), let's put those aside for now and focus on me (hahaha...typical  millennial , it's all about me, me, me... :p ) The year kicked off with EDDE 804, technically speaking my last course in the doctoral program I am in - but not really.  The course was a course in leadership in distance education (which reminded me a lot of my MBA days actually in terms of some of the discussions we had), and it was facilitated by Marti Cleveland-Innes (of CoI fame).  The course was interesting, challenging, and it definitely moved the doctoral ball forward. It ac...

Well, another crazy semester is now done! This semester was actually quite busy, despite the fact that I started preparing for it over the summer!  I had done most of the readings for my Psycholinguistics course, as well as starting to think about what I wanted to do with my Field Experience Practicum.  Despite all this planning, I ended up taking another route in my practicum, and preparations for my comprehensive exams (which were on my birthday this year) took up all of my available time. The practicum was an interesting experience. I got to teach the last two classes in a Classical Greek course on campus, in addition to observing the teaching methodology (as well as student reactions to this methodology) throughout the semester.  I did my final research project on putting forth a proposal to teach Classical Greek (and other classical languages for that matter) using communicative approaches that most modern classrooms use.  I also advocated different use of te...

In one week the new semester starts! The FINAL semester of graduate studies - woohoo! On the roster this (final) time around we've got the following: Psycholinguistics which deals with: Contemporary issues in the fields of first and second language development and bilingualism will be addressed within the framework of the psychological development of the individual, from early childhood through adolescence. Theories of learning will also be addressed, particularly as they have been used to explain language development, including behaviorism, cognitive psychology, Piagetian constructivist theory, Vygotsky’s Social Interactionism and Freirean critical consciousness and praxis. Having done most of the reading for this course over the summer, I think it will be rather interesting. It's all about how the mind (a child's and an adult's mind) picks up language and how we learn to learn a new language on top of our native language. And the Practicum (aka Field Experienc...

Well, exams are now done, I just finished my Sociolinguistics final last night and I am relieved to be done with all my academic obligations of the semester - now I can chill out for a few weeks and ruin my brain with wonderful television and video games :-) The funny thing about last night's exam was that we had the option of choosing which questions we wanted to answer, and from an informal exit-poll it seems like all of the class answered questions 4 and 5. Here's a comic strip dedicated to those who still need to grade exams and project :-) We

Yes indeed! The semester is almost over! I have two classes tomorrow night and I am done with Instructional Design :-) Next week I have a sociolinguistics class (on a different schedule than Instructional Design) and I am almost done for the semester! Funny thing, since I posted some of my assignments on Scribd (especially those linguistics papers), I've gotten emails from people looking for more resources on the subject. I don't really fancy myself an expert on some of these topics (after all I've only taken one or two classes on the subject), but I am happy to help people with their research :-) If you cite any of my papers, do send me an email - it will make my day! :-)

Well, that's it folks! The capstone is completely done! I've proof-read the thing at least 6 times, made edits, added stuff, removed stuff, and kept myself from going overboard with the appendices! I printed it out, bound it, and submitted it! Woohoo! Of course school isn't over for the semester, there are still projects for other classes that will keep me busy until May, but at least there is one thing off my plate :-) Since it is under CC licensing, as soon as I get a grade (and a diploma on hand), I will most likely post my fine work somewhere for people to use and add to it as they see fit :-) Now all I have is: 1. term paper for Sociolinguistics class 2. eLearning project for INSDSG 616 3. a journal entry for my communications class 4. a presentation for my Sociolinguistics class My Google starred items, things that I want to comment on is getting huge - I'll probably have to prune it before I can start commenting on it ;-)

Response to a colleague on sister campus, via our campus technology Google Group -- check out Carrie's original post here : Carrie, I was debating whether to leave a comment on your blog (as well as post on the Google group) or whether to post on my blog and the Google Group. Since this seemed like a rather lengthy topic I opted to post on my EdBlog :-) Speaking of Blackboard...all I can say about that LMS is "bleh". We use WebCT Vista (aka Blackboard Vista) on our campus. I'm sure that the ePortfolio trial we had at our campus was because we couldn't wait for WebCT to implement something in their LMS products. Of course looking at some of the social features of Vista all I can say is that it's good that we started a trial instead of waiting for the LMS vendors to do something (it would have probably been bad anyway ;-) ) I personally don't have an ePortfolio, opting instead to list my academic work in my online CV (under print and online). In a sense...

With spring break coming up next week (and taking half of it off from work), I am on final approach as far as the capstone is concerned. I've printed out two copies of the final draft and I and another edit will sit down over the week of Spring Break and edit this thing to a form that is good enough to hand in. I say "good enough" and not perfect because I don't believe that anything can reach perfection (well, maybe a good gateaux can, but I guess it's all relative). In my Sociolinguistics course we are a couple of weeks behind discussing the work we've handed in, so no additional work was assigned for spring break, and my other instructional design classes have given us some time off. I am tempted to contact my communications theory instructor to see what the topic of the paper is so I can get a leg up during spring break and get that started. Finally, I also finished the rough draft of my Communities of Practice article that I want to submit for publicati...

As we all know some expressions don't translate. From now until Spring Break I am, as the Greeks would say, στο τρέξιμο - meaning very very busy! If you've been following my twitter stream, you probably know that I just finished round 2 proof-reading of my capstone project for the Instructional Design degree. I still need to commit the changes to the electronic version, print it out once more, get another set of eyes on it, look at the proposed changes, commit any of those to the electronic version, and then send the file off to the printers for binding. Printing a color version is going to be expensive! Lulu says that even a soft cover perfect-bound printing will be about $30 per book or $40 for a hard cover (and I need at least 2 to give to my advisor, and 1 to keep) Eeek! Of course, I still need to finish the rough draft of the article that I want to publish (based on my Academic communities of practice presentation), I still need to work on the group project due on Marc...

OK, so Week 3 of 13 is upon us! This is quite a busy semester! I am working on furiously on proofreading and editing my 100+ page (single space) capstone project - I could trim about 7 pages or so of just pure theory at the beginning, and about 10 pages of justification of why I used certain things in my design document, but that's half the fun of the project ;-) In other areas, weekly article critiques for my sociolinguistics course and almost weekly journal entries from my communications class. I think I've gotten into the groove of these two courses so by Saturday afternoon I can have most work done and enjoy a few hours of TV watching on the weekend. My online class is an unknown at this point since we are a week off from my other classes (so it's actually week 2 of 13 as far as online is concerned), so I guess I have not yet found my rhythm. I have to say that I am enjoying my face to face classes (sociolinguistics and communications theory) MUCH more than I had antic...

This is it! The end of the semester! All papers are in, all projects are in, classes are no longer in session, and I have no finals! My obligations (academic ones anyway) are over for the semester! I have to say that this was one challenging semester, and I am quite happy it's done! Next semester I am finishing off my MEd in Instructional Design, and with a little luck (and possibly lots of studying) in one year's time I will be done with my MA in Applied Linguistics as well. I've started to slowly read my materials for next semester - yeah I know! The semester is barely over and I am already starting up again? Well, I learned long ago that in Grad School (this may apply to undergrads as well), that the old Greek proverb "Των φρονίμων τα παιδιά πριν πεινάσουν μαγειρεύουν" is very true. The proverb, loosely translated, says "Kids of proper parents cook before they are hungry" - I guess it's sort of like the boy-scout motto "always be prepared...

OK, this is it! All hands on deck (I guess that gives me a grand total of two hands) - projects are due on Tuesday! No commentary for the next week or so on Instructional Design, Linguistics or Academia because research papers are due - but thanks to Steve Kaufman, Cammy Bean and Karl Kapp (and many others!) I have a ton to write about once I am done with my school work. OK, no more messing around - now back to research...

Wow, this semester is really (REALLY) moving along quite fast. This month is just flying by, and December is going to be quite literally two class sessions. Lots of stuff is due, lots of papers, final projects, critical essays....wow... So what's on my plate? - Observation Analysis + Lesson plan for my ESL methods/materials class - Complete Thematic Unit Lesson Plan for my Foreign Language methods class (yes they are different) - Critical Analysis Essay for my Foreign Language methods class (plus an evaluation of a classmate's Essay) - Evaluation Plan for an eLearning class (see Kirkpatrick for details) - Put the finishing touches on the Academic Integrity Training that I am creating - Finish off the rough draft of my capstone. I guess I don't really have to do my capstone stuff given that I am actually supposed to do it next semester, but I am really into it, so it's hard to put something down when you've got a lot of inspiration for it. On top of all that I'...

This months started off with a "show me the money" theme, both for pre-college and college level kids. First we had a story on NRP, asking whether paying for grades cheapens education , and then we had a story from Indiana University's Pressroom on their "incentive grants" for students who do well in school. I fall somewhere in between the two positions of to pay and not to pay. When I was in school I did not get money from my parents for bringing home a good report card, however I did get certain allowances, like being able to play computer games (on my 68040 Performa - no FPU!) and being in a better bargaining position when it came to buying new video games. When I was in college it was expected that I was an adult and I was responsible enough to value the education that I was paying for. Of course what it comes down to is this: Whether in K-12 or in College, we end up paying for education. Nothing is free. If you want to reward kids for doing well in K-12...

Aaaaah, First week back to classes after a summer of classes (and lots of rain ) and the beloved fire drills are back Of course I won't be participating in te firedrills because we don't have any in the library building. I remember that as an undergraduate I loved fire drills because it got me out of class. As an employee I hated them because there was always a chance that something would go missing, and now that I haven't had a firedrills on five years I strangely find myself missing them. Odd. Very odd indeed -- Post From My iPhone

Wow, classes are over! I suppose I should pop the cork off some wine or something and celebrate - then again school starts again in a couple of weeks so it will be a short lived celebration :-) This summer went by quite fast. I don't know if it was the crazy weather (mostly gray and rainy), or the fact that I had homework in the summer. Oh well. I still have at least three weeks of homework-free (and Blackboard-free!!!) time to enjoy the rest of the summer :-) Hopefully this time next year I will be done with my Instructional Design degree!