Explorations of educational technology

H807-9. Thoughts on privacy

2010-05-03T18:49:00.005+03:00

This post is a sort of modification of the privacy diary we have been asked to keep. I just wanted to reflect on an incident that happened on my most recent visit to London.

Date and time
8th April 2010 in the afternoon

Location
Maplin's, Tottenham Court Road, London

Details of privacy threat
I was returning an item and had to supply my name and postcode so that they could use their database to look up and confirm my address.

Type of privacy threat
Informational

Control
The information was requested from me, and presumably I would not have been allowed to return the item had I refused to provide it.

Privacy tradeoff
None at all! Unless you consider being 'allowed' to return something a benefit, but isn't this already guaranteed by the shop's return policy?

Additional notes
This sort of situation infuriates me, and I always curse myself for not having a 'fake identity' readily available for such occasions. I can think of no legitimate reason whatsoever for the shop to hold that information about me. I do not believe they even have a legal right to do so, though I have not researched the evidence to support this view. I guess they're building up a sinister 'list of frequent returners'. I resent the implications of this. Will there come a point at which they shake their heads and say, "Sorry, madam, but you've returned too many things"? This is gratuitous information collection. My best friend was growling about this and grumbling not-quite-under-his-breath, but there is no point shouting at the clerk as he is just following company policy.

Is there anything that can be done about this?!

H807-8. The affordances of email and blogs

2010-03-27T15:41:00.006+02:00

Screenshot of my class blog

The concept of 'affordances' is new to me, and though I've come across it in the literature before, I've never taken the time to examine its definition, and I'm not sure even after doing so that I've grasped the meaning in its entirety. Kreijns et al. (2002) define social affordances thus:

"properties of computer-supported collaborative learning environments that act as social-contextual facilitators relevant for the learner's social interactions. When they are perceptible, they invite the learner to act in accordance with the perceived affordances, i.e. start a task or a non-task related interaction or communication."

Wow, that's a mouthful. An example or twelve would surely help. I turned to Conole and Dyke's (2004) taxonomy of affordances for something more concrete, and I will use these to inform my rough (rough) sketches of the affordances of email and blogs.

Email
I think the most striking affordance of email is immediacy. One thing I really liked about the Conole and Dyke (2004) paper was that in addition to enumerating advantages of each affordance, they also described factors that mitigate against these benefits. The immediacy of email is a case in point. On the one hand, email enables users to exchange news and information instantly, and this can facilitate work, study and personal relationships. However, this potential for immediacy comes with a pitfall, as expectations of response time can be greatly increased. I know this from my own experience; I use email constantly and I tend to reply instantly or at least soon after receiving correspondence, but not all my recipients follow this practice, with the result that I sometimes feel anxious when I do not receive a reply within a time frame which is, to my mind at least, reasonable. With the advent of Blackberries, expectations are certainly raised still further, as workers are expected to answer on the go.

Although email can enhance communication and collaboration, as indicated above, floods of email in users' inboxes can cause them to 'shut down' and ignore or simply forget about individual emails.

Blogs
Assuming that a blogger has managed to build up an audience, I think one of the main affordances of this technology is diversity, i.e. the exposure of the blog to the critical gaze of the 'other'. I know from observing and interviewing my blogger students that if no one comments on your blog, it is difficult to maintain the motivation to keep writing, and actually I feel the same about my own blogs. Well-known technological researchers from the OU have commented on this blog, and that pushes me to investigate concepts further and to strive to achieve a more professional standard of writing.

Of course, blogs also promote reflection, and when reflection and diversity converge, I think the blog is an excellent tool for personal development and learning.

H807-7. Considering disabilities

2010-03-14T20:41:00.006+02:00

I'm so pleased this topic is included in our course materials. In all the teacher training courses I've completed up to now, disabilities have never even merited so much as a mention - why is that? I've sometimes wondered over the years how many of our language students are dyslexic (and loads of them seem to have ADD, though I must admit I'm quite sceptical of this particular condition and tend to just think of it as a lack of willingness to concentrate) yet I have absolutely no idea how to recognise dyslexia, and certainly even less idea of any strategies that could help a student to overcome it.

So I've already learned loads just by reading the course notes. In particular, I became aware of these categories of disability:

Personal care: e.g. my cousin who has ALS and a full-time carer
Cognitive: may be able to process text and not images, or vice versa
Unseen: e.g. lupus and anorexia
Dyslexia: manifests itself mainly in reading and spelling difficulties but can also be related to mathematics

It's ironic that I have three people in my family who would qualify as having 'learning disabilities', yet I had never thought of their conditions in these terms before.

I was impressed by the OU's statistics, which show that they attract and support a disproportionately high number of disabled students in comparison with UK higher education as a whole. I'm looking forward to finding out more about how such learners are supported!

H807-6. CASE STUDY #4: Use of e-portfolios and blogging in teacher education

2010-02-21T14:12:00.008+02:00

This is another case study from the University of Wolverhampton involving e-portfolios, this time with PGCE and Foundation Degree students. The author had previously experienced success with paper journals and wanted to see if the success was transferable to an online environment, which she sees as "inherently more dialogic and intuitive". She also expresses concern about the "accumulation of paper" in a traditional e-portfolio, which seems to be a simple but effective rationale for this innovation. PebblePad was once again used.

The interesting point of this case study was the degree of resistance on the part of some teaching staff. The dominance of the VLE within this particular institution created a perception of the e-portfolio as somewhat redundant. Some staff also appeared to be threatened by the ownership and control afforded to the learner through the use of an e-portfolio. On top of this, the researcher was made to bear the weight of the technology and all its attendant problems, with the result that she ended up feeling quite isolated within her institution.

Perhaps this demonstrates a point about innovation: resistance may need to be overcome by persistence. The innovator's belief in the technology, and particularly in the inseparability of the pedagogy and the technology, needs to be strong. Where resistance is an issue within an institution, we could reasonably conjecture that it will take a teacher with a certain kind of personality to lead the charge.

H807-5. Blogging as innovation

2010-02-20T19:07:00.023+02:00

After reading about Rogers' innovation framework, I would like to explore how my recent blogging project fits into the various categories.

In the Autumn 2009 semester, I asked my 51 students to set up their own blogs. They were to post once a week for 14 weeks about our course. They could analyse our readings, comment on what was taking place in lessons, discuss our course themes more broadly, make connections between Freshman English and their other courses and so on. I deliberately kept the requirement quite vague in order not to stifle their creativity, but I was always ready to offer suggestions to anyone who was feeling stuck, and I modelled what was expected by keeping my own course blog. All my students' blogs were linked to mine, so I was able to provide almost instant feedback on nearly every post throughout the semester.

So here is a retrospective analysis of my rationale for introducing the project.

Relative advantage:
Blogging is advantageous because it allows us to extend our very limited classroom hours and keeps students engaged with the material. We meet our Freshman English students for just 3 50-minute class periods per week. Since all of their other courses (History, Turkish Literature, Social and Political Science, Natural Science and Maths) are lecture and exam-based, the students are used to being passive in the classroom and have little inkling of process learning. All students are given laptops and have wireless access on campus, and part of the university's mission statement is to promote technological innovation. It enables greater contact between student and instructor as well as frequent and personalised feedback, and encourages student responsibility. The amount of writing practice provided to students at this university is very limited indeed; blogging allows them to practise their writing skills, but in a more relaxed, less structured manner than in an essay. Although we have a lot of class discussions, these are inevitably dominated by the most fluent students; blogging gives every student a chance to participate, and at their own pace.

Compatibility:
This project fits in completely with my teaching values: constructivism, dialogic learning, formative assessment, the importance of affective factors, reflection, writing as thought...

Complexity:
In technological terms, complexity was very low; Blogger is probably the easiest blogging application. I wrote a detailed blogging guide and uploaded it to our VLE; I introduced the project during class time and helped students set up their blogs and understand how they worked; I also provided ongoing IT support via email, or when students dropped by my office.

The complexity lay in knowing how exactly to use a blog: the required register for blog posts; the awareness and understanding of audience; the degree of personalisation expected and/or allowed; how to move beyond mere summary of class material; how to add depth to posts with hyperlinks and so forth. And time management seems to have been the main hindrance for many students.

Trialability:
I must confess, I skipped this stage in the sense that I simply dove in and introduced blogging as an assessed course component. It probably would have been best to do it with just one section first, either as an extra credit option or using volunteers, and I did consider this, but in all honesty I could not see how I would be able to maintain enough motivation that way, given the students' insane class schedule, their grinding round of endless exams and their disgust for any type of 'homework'. So I 'forced' them. But I'm glad I did; preliminary analysis of the feedback I collected suggests that the project was more than a fair success. I suppose I could be viewed as somewhat of a renegade by both colleagues and students...frankly, I don't care: I believed in the project enough to take the risk of failure. (I recognise that I am in the fortunate position of having enough freedom to become a renegade in the first place...) I was very flexible with the marking criteria so as not to disadvantage students, and I combined the blog itself (10% of final mark) with an 'I-Blog paper' or deep reflection on the experience of blogging (10% of final mark); nearly all students achieved 100% on this paper since they needed only openly and honestly answer the questions set and achieve the minimum word count of 750 words.

Observability:
Now this is an interesting one. The students' blogs are all open to the public, but I wonder exactly what is perceived by outside readers. Certainly the students made enough statements about how much they were benefitting from keeping their blogs, but as with all educational technology, the 'benefits' greatly depend on what one understands by learning. I think the I-Blog papers provide much more obvious evidence of the advantages to students.

+ my 75-word summary:

The relative advantage of asking students to keep their own blogs is the extension of classroom hours it affords. It is entirely compatible with my constructivist teaching values. The technology is not complex at all and ongoing support can be provided by a single teacher. The project was trialled by balancing blogging and reflection and using flexible marking criteria, and any Internet user can observe the students' effort and enthusiasm in posting to their blogs.

H807-4. CASE STUDY #3: Use of e-portfolios to support nursing and midwifery

2010-02-19T19:24:00.008+02:00

The University of Wolverhampton has introduced e-portfolios for their non-traditional undergraduate students in nursing and midwifery. The average age of these students is 30, and they tend to enter without traditional qualifications. An important rationale for the introduction of this technology was the desire to overcome the 'minority complex' such students often feel by creating a supportive community of practice. The other consideration was fulfilling the requirement, set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, to provide evidence of Managed Off-Site Study Time. PebblePad was once again used.

This project met with some difficulties in terms of student access to IT facilities, but student enthusiasm compensated in part. There was also some resistance on the part of faculty; some faculty did not wish to provide detailed written feedback.

H807-3. CASE STUDY #2: Use of e-portfolios to develop a reflective approach in medicine

2010-02-16T18:21:00.009+02:00

Newcastle University has also introduced e-portfolios for medical students who are required to keep reflective log books. I find their rationale far more convincing than Sheffield Hallam's on these points:

-the paper-based A4 version was complex and difficult to carry around
-the students are dispersed geographically for much of their studies

One thing tripped me up though: "The [paper-based] log books were mandatory but not formally graded for assessment" - how does that work? Did students actually keep them? What stake would they have in them? Why should they care? This was not explained.

I also thought that the manner of introducing e-portfolios probably contributed in no small part to their eventual success:
-they were embedded in the existing VLE
-they were initially introduced on a trial basis: students could choose the paper-based or the e-version
-their effectiveness was qualitatively evaluated
-following successful evaluations, e-portfolios are now mandatory - and assessed

However, this part made me laugh: in the trial phase, 1/3 chose the paper-based version, 1/3 chose the e-version...and 1/3 chose neither - the authors found this shocking! But how could this possibly come as a surprise?! This relates back to my point above about the portfolios not being assessed; the students simply did not see the value of doing them. I think this type of thing only appeals at the outset to a certain type of learner; other students can require quite a lot of steady convincing of their worth.

The 'innovation' here seems to lie in the response to student needs and their particular study circumstances. However, no mention was made of how the technology was introduced to these (presumably very busy) students, nor how it was supported.

H807-2. CASE STUDY #1: Use of e-portfolios in the social sciences

2010-02-15T17:44:00.015+02:00

This case study reports on a decision taken by Sheffield Hallam University to move from a traditional paper-based portfolio to an e-portfolio for the purposes of personal/academic development planning (PDP) in social science classes. The change was made following much negative student feedback on the former: students were unable to see the value of this reflective tool, and they typically completed it just before the deadline in order to fulfil the assessment, thereby negating any potential it may have had to contribute to the learning process.

However, I'm a bit uneasy about this case study as it's written. The rationale for introducing yet another portfolio is not explained. Why should an e-portfolio be any different? The methodology they claim to be following, the Integrated Learning Design Framework (ILDF), does not seem to differ significantly to what they were following for the paper-based version. They show examples of both the paper and the e-based assignments; I'm afraid I do not see an essential pedagogical difference between them, nor why it is presumed that e-portfolios will be so much more attractive to students, why they will not simply leave them as well until the last minute. Is the 'innovation' here merely the ability to provide hyperlinks to pieces of work, etc. within the e-portfolio? This can also be done on paper! Perhaps I'm just confused...?

I also don't quite understand the authors' complaint about "the predominance of seemingly mundane concerns about time and personal organisation" - why mundane? These are legitimate concerns on the part of students, I think. In my teaching experience, students' greatest weakness - and the greatest obstacle to their learning - is a lack of time management skills. Particularly if students are not used to a process-based approach, they can be easily overwhelmed by an ongoing series of small tasks. This may be ironic, but nevertheless, it is the perception.

I must say, on another note, that PebblePad looks mighty cool...a much slicker look than Wikispaces, which is what I'm currently using for my (work in progress) professional e-portfolio.

H807-1. Initial thoughts on innovation

2010-02-12T18:15:00.014+02:00

Technological innovation is certainly a relative concept; local context must always be taken into consideration. Availability and accessibility of technology vary widely, as do student needs and their willingness to try something new, as well as the overall climate of the educational organisation (to mention only a few of the contributing factors). My general impression at the moment is that 'true' innovation comes about as a result of the initiative of individual educators, or perhaps small groups - that is, it is essentially a bottom-up process. I think this is also in accord with the democratic nature of technology, particularly Web 2.0 social networking tools.

Some points from the readings worth noting:

1) Lück and Laurence (accessed 12 February 2010): Innovative teaching: sharing expertise through videoconferencing

This paper reports on the selective use of videoconferencing on a university tourism course to enable interaction between students and guest lecturers from around the world.

The success of the 'innovation' seems to be due to the following:
-videoconferencing took place once per semester, making it a 'special event' and a memorable occasion, and thereby creating expectation and motivation on the part of the students
-it was carefully integrated into the syllabus
-it supplemented face-to-face contact
-it was carefully planned and supported by IT experts
-careful attention was paid to student feedback, and improvements were made accordingly
-this use of technology represented a significant reduction in travel expenses for guest lecturers, and mitigated the loss of productivity that results when lecturers temporarily leave their posts

Random vocabulary item
packet loss: occurs when the picture freezes but the sound remains stable

2) Rich and Holtham (2005): New technology in learning: a decade's experience in a business school

There were a few quotes that resonated with me here:

-"The new approaches remained the preserve of a small group of faculty" (p. 677)
This seems to hint at the bottom-up approach I mentioned earlier, and reflects my own experience of using technology in the classroom; most teachers are unwilling to get involved, whether because of the workload or lack of confidence in their own skills.

-"They [the technological efforts] were not universally appreciated by students" (p. 677)
I just love the understatement here; I would have put it much differently. Just mention technology in the classroom and some students practically retch in front of you - even 19-year-olds, who are often presumed to be so tech-savvy.

-"there may be benefits with persevering with innovative approaches even in the face of initial resistance from students" (p. 679)
Yes, yes and yes. Just imagine if I had given up on blogging after my first two attempts; I never would have had the rich experience of last semester. I firmly believe that students have to at least try something, make a sincere effort, before they decide they 'hate' it.

H809-29. Course result

2009-09-26T21:15:00.002+03:00

I got a Distinction! I'm so very relieved...

H809-28. ECA first draft

2009-06-09T16:41:00.005+03:00

I spent long hours Saturday, Sunday and yesterday to knock out a 4000-word draft. I followed an 'expanded version' of a research proposal outline I found on the Internet, which was an enormous timesaver. I realise that the tutors do not want to impose a certain format on us, but I do think that, contrary to the feedback given, there is a standard format for writing research proposals. I always spend the greatest part of my planning time figuring out how to organise the dozens of articles I've read, so for me, a model is essential, even if I later modify it to suit my own purposes.

Well, I'm of course relieved to have a draft I can show to my tutor and (hopefully) get (timely) feedback on, but I'm not entirely happy with it and will work on it for a few more days before asking for comments. I think I need more transitions between the two parts of the literature review, 'Blogging in higher education' and 'An outline of activity theory', as well as from the literature review to the methodology section. As always, the word limit was confining; I needed more space to do the literature review justice. As it was, I just concentrated on a few crucial themes and what I see as lacking in the literature. I get really annoyed with the 'cut-and-paste' technique used in the background sections of so many research papers. They give the impression that the studies they cite really back up what they say, but when you track them down and read them, they actually provide very little empirical support. I guess I am at the point in my development as a researcher when I just don't find a bit of 'positive feedback from students' good enough anymore. A few extracts (most likely chosen to support the researcher's agenda) from the data no longer easily convince me. That is why I loved Krause's article ('When blogging goes bad: A cautionary tale about blogs, email lists, discussion and interaction') so much: it was so practical, so honest. Sometimes these research studies are a bit over-dressed.

I am happy with what I have learned from reading further papers on blogging in preparation for this assignment, and I am also confident about the blog design I am going to use next semester - the design on which my proposed study is based. I feel more confident that students are going to engage with it, and I also feel confident that activity theory will help me to identify the reasons for anything that may go wrong. For the first time, I am giving my students more autonomy to blog. I wasn't ready to let go before and clung to the idea of the central class blog. I am really curious to see if they will be inspired to use their blogs creatively.

H809-27. Activity theory rules the day

2009-06-06T15:43:00.006+03:00

How interesting - and how typical of me - that the theory of which I was the most sceptical/dismissive of at the outset is the theory I have now chosen as the analytical framework for my ECA! I blogged before about my initial thoughts on activity theory. At that time, I found Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy's massively long list of questions mind-boggling and absurd. Now I am seeing them as potential questions to guide me through an analysis of my data...

I have decided to apply AT to student blogs. For the first time next semester, I will ask students to keep their own blogs rather than contribute to a class blog. I will also keep a blog, à la Jo Iacovides - I will summarise and comment on what is happening on students' blogs. Thanks for that idea, Jo and H809!

I predict that I will find serious contradictions in the various relationships between the components of the activity system, which will account for why (some) students don't use their blogs or 'hate' blogging (read 'hate homework' and 'hate expectation'). I think this sort of overall evaluation will enable me to make a decision as to whether it is really worthwhile to continue to try to integrate blogging into my particular educational context. If I do have to abandon it, I reckon it will be time to change jobs, as I wish to work in a university where the system encourages and the students value formative learning opportunities. Trying to take a social constructivist approach in an exam-based culture is like trying to walk across a ceiling.

H809-26. Unexpected relief

2009-06-04T09:54:00.002+03:00

I got answers to my questions! I can proceed with my research and writing. I just needed that little bit of confirmation.

H809-25. Struggling on

2009-06-03T20:44:00.006+03:00

I eventually finished TMA 03, but getting answers to my queries just days before the due date did not improve my mood, and the 'answers' I got must remain in quotation marks because for the most part, they were simply reformulations of my questions! But somehow, miraculously, I got the paper done on the Tuesday and submitted it on the Friday before the due date, as planned. I say miraculous because it turned out that I did indeed need to do extra reading. Thankfully, Jo stepped in to give me some advice about not overdoing it for the number of points on offer, and so I didn't. I have to say that I could not have done this TMA without Rhona's and Vic's comments - the early ones I mean, because the later ones were posted too late for me to make use of them. How fortunate that I visit all three discussion forums, right?!

So on to the ECA and more frustration. After a prompt response to my initial questions, my tutor is now 'off the boards' for a few days to mark TMA o3! I already feel like 4 weeks is not enough time to do this proposal justice - as I actually intend to carry out the study next semester and need/want to do a good job. We were advised to 'answer each others' questions.' I'm sorry, but especially at this point, I need to rely on the expertise of - well, the experts. No offence is intended by that. But I think we pay a lot of money to learn from people who have published extensively within their fields. Of course morally supporting each other is important, and we can exchange ideas, but there is a limit to what we can gain from that method. At some point, the tutors have to acknowledge their directional role. I mean, if I saw that my students were struggling, having made a sincere effort to work things out for themselves, I would try to guide them! And not with more of the same questions - at times, input is actually required.

If this sounds harsh, it is but a pale reflection of what I want to say, but I am ever mindful of my (unknown) audience. I have seen now at firsthand that feedback takes on a far more crucial role in a completely online environment. I have mentioned before that I am doing another postgraduate degree by distance at the same time as this one. I cannot say enough good things about that course. Even the librarians read our posts and contribute where appropriate! No flabby thinking goes uncommented on; not only are our thoughts about translation being shaped, but also our use of vocabulary to talk about the field. This is done in a firm but supportive manner, and it is simply fantastic. The tutor is so involved in the course and is keen to share her experience and expertise. I have never had to wait for more than a day for an answer to a question. Students are not left to flounder; contributions are acknowledged, and guess what! In a single course, we have posted 1200 comments, and more keep coming even though it's the end of the semester when students are busy writing their essays! (I got mine done early, what a relief!)

Now, I'm not saying I hold the Open University to the same standard, since it operates in a different context and I have learned to be conscious of such things on this course, but -

- but - I think that through frustration, I am increasing my expectations rather than lowering them.

Anyway, I will not give up easily, and I will not let anything defeat my goals. I am undertaking these two degrees in preparation for my PhD and nothing is going to dissuade me from following this path.

I just hope the Open University will be 'open' to the (constructive) criticism I am planning to send at the end of the course.

H809-24. Getting the hump

2009-05-24T18:10:00.004+03:00

Has everyone on H809 disappeared into a cyberhole?

I emailed my tutor for clarification of TMA03, I believe over a week ago now. I simply cannot be sure what is meant by 'summarising the contexts of the research, with appropriate references to previous research.' About 2 or 3 days later I got a reply saying she would need to consult with the rest of the team on my queries. I am still waiting, and in the meantime I have posted my pleas in all three tutor groups. I have now lost a good 8 or 9 days of work for lack of reply. I fail to see what is difficult to answer? In any case, I expect a prompter comeback. I did not take on this course lightly. It is a huge time and financial commitment for me and I would not have started if I hadn't intended to do my very best. I don't expect others to be at my beck and call, but from the beginning I have completed every activity and I have posted regularly in all three tutor forums. I had high hopes, but slowly and reluctantly I am starting to lower my expectations and to doubt whether I am willing to continue with the Diploma, even though it is extremely important to my personal development, if the communication is going to be this lacking.

And this has nothing to do with distance learning; I am doing an MA by distance learning through another UK university, and the communication and response have been stellar. Since the Open University are known for their pioneering work into this form of learning, this would seem a decided irony.

Obviously I do not wish to offend my audience, but neither do I wish to continue bottling up what I have been experiencing these past couple of weeks. This is as diplomatic as I can possibly be at this point in time.

H809-23. I must, I must

2009-05-21T20:18:00.003+03:00

stop obsessing over these forums. I am clicking on them endlessly. It's like I have nothing else in my life! I feel so bloody bored without a big pile of work to do. It's nearly 18.30 in England, so somehow I don't think I'm going to find the magical key to the TMA tonight. Just close down the windows!

H809-22. Back to frustration

2009-05-21T08:58:00.004+03:00

Well, I see I haven't posted anything here for awhile. That's probably down to my frustration with various aspects of the course and not wanting to seem as if I'm laying blame all around. This is the problem with blogging, at least with Blogger; I need some posts to be private.

In any case, I only need to write about 250 more words to finish TMA03, but I cannot finish it because I cannot understand exactly what is meant by "describe the context of the research with appropriate references to previous research." It seems to me like this is asking us to simply re-cite studies which were mentioned in the literature reviews of the two papers, which doesn't make much sense. Alternatively, if we are expected to do further research, I need to know this quite soon in order to schedule time for it!

I started this paper 3 weeks in advance because I have other papers to write, not to mention a heap o' marking coming up with the end of my teaching semester AND two wedding parties to plan. Tuesday was a holiday in Turkey and I had high hopes of finishing it, but I remain stuck. Communication has become more and more sporadic on this course...I have kept up with every single thing from the very beginning and I'm trying not to deflate.

H809-21. 2009 words

2009-04-17T16:46:00.003+03:00

+ a lot of dissatisfaction with my section on Activity Theory = the current state of TMA 02.

H809-20. Nightmare

2009-04-17T12:47:00.004+03:00

I have cut down my original ambitious outline to just two theories, and still I am running into trouble with the word count. I have just started discussing the second theory and the paper is almost 1500 words long! This was after I ruthlessly chopped up the already tiny bit of background of sociocultural theories I felt able to get away with.

It is really difficult to write a good paper while panicking about the word count. It makes you second guess every single word you put on the page and seriously interrupts the flow of ideas. I am spending most of my time trying to pare down previously written paragraphs to free up space.

H809-19. Days of stress come to a sudden halt

2009-04-16T17:54:00.005+03:00

I have had a rotten, throbbing headache for the past three days. Every time I thought about the assignment, it got worse.

What a relief then to read the clarification of the assignment posted by our course chair...

Now I can focus on writing a good paper rather than a stretched-thin, superficial and unconvincing one.

I might even get to enjoy next week's Turkish holiday and extended weekend.

WAY-HEY!!!

H809-18. 2000 words: no way, my son

2009-04-14T16:26:00.003+03:00

I have written merely the introduction, described the wiki task and very briefly introduced sociocultural theories, and this is already more than 500 words!

I am confused by the contradictions between Daisy's and Vic's advice: Vic gives a suggested outline to deal with all three theories, and Daisy says to deal with a, b OR c. While following Daisy's advice would result in a paper that does not fulfil the criteria of showing how different positions change the research design, following Vic's would result in an extremely long or extremely superficial paper, both of which would be penalised for different reasons.

Well, I guess the university is closed for Easter. I really want to get this paper done, but I have been stopping and starting because I cannot get a definitive answer as to how to write it. This timetable practically encourages us to leave work until the last week when I prefer to work in advance...

H809-17. Very tentative research questions

2009-04-12T13:47:00.012+03:00

I stand corrected: the most challenging part of this assignment is not the ludicrous word limit, but rather the generation of appropriate research questions. Here are some fairly feeble attempts, which came about only after days and days of reading and brainstorming. All feedback is most welcome, the more critical the better!

Sociocultural theories

-How did the wiki participants collectively solve the problem of initially setting up the wiki task?

(I'm not sure if this really qualifies as a sociocultural question; I suppose I was trying to focus on the situated nature of learning. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning of the task when some pages were overwritten. We sorted this out together through communication on the wiki and in the course forum.)

Later note: I have just read Nardi's description of situated action, and I now think this is an entirely appropriate research question. She mentions that the focus of study is the situated activity of practice, and that intricately detailed, temporal accounts of how activity unfolds in response to contingency should be given.

-How does screen-based composition re-mediate what gets done?

(This is from Crook & Dymott but it is not context-specific enough in its present formulation, and I have no idea how I would investigate it.)

COPs

-How can this wiki community be characterized and described in terms of people, purpose and policies?

(Here I could apply Jones & Preece's sociability framework, but I think this question is far too general, and I cannot really see why we would want to know this. It needs something further.)

-How successful was this wiki community?

(How do we define 'success'? Only 10 students have contributed so far, although there is no real deadline. Again, I'm not sure how much answering this question is going to tell us.)

Activity Theory

-What are the contradictions between subjects, objects and tools in the activity system which could help to account for the low rate of participation in the course wiki task?

(This was the approach taken by Scanlon and Issroff, which seems relevant here. This is the only question I am halfway satisfied with.)

H809-16. TMA 02 shaping up

2009-04-11T14:47:00.005+03:00

After re-reading all the papers for this block and adding to my notes, and with useful input from other students' forum and blog posts, I think I more or less have a handle on this assignment.

-I want to start with sociocultural theories, since they seem to overarch both COPs and AT. I want to first use the Oliver et al. paper to contrast positivist and constructionist approaches. Then I will go on to describe situated, distributed and mediated learning, and contrast Tolmie and Crook & Dymott to show the different ways in which context can be conceptualised (Tolmie takes a more positivist approach). I haven't come up with any research questions for this section yet. I have also located the paper by Brown et al. on situated learning, which I haven't read yet, and perhaps I can incorporate this somehow. I could also use something from the learning theory databases which we used when contributing to the wiki in Week 7. It would be much better if I had time to properly research and read Vygotsky and other primary sources, but never mind.

-I will next deal with COPs. Jones & Preece mention a continuum between COIs and COPs; it seems to me our wiki is nearer the COP end. I found a useful paper by Johnson (2001) which reviews all COP studies up to that point, the majority of which were case studies. This will be a within group study as opposed to comparing two groups to see which is more successful. I have drafted some research questions, but they are still too general to apply to our course wiki. The main weakness of any proposed study would be that it does not examine the development of the community over time. Jones & Preece, by contrast, conducted a 2.5 year study into Bob's Bulletin Board.

-Finally, I will tackle Activity Theory. Actually, Crook & Dymott refer to writing as an activity system, so AT will have already been prefaced to some extent. A paper by Scanlon and Issroff (2005) shows how AT allows us to explore underlying contradictions in learning environments, which helps us to account for relative learning successes or failures. I found this paper very interesting and see how it could be applied to my blogging projects with my students. I am even considering designing something along these lines for my ECA. I cannot really come up with any research questions for AT, though, beyond describing the activity system itself.

Vic suggested picking out key similarities and differences in the three approaches, and this will lead towards the conclusion.

The biggest challenge, as ever, will be condensing these down into a paper of just 2000 words. I feel this essay needs at least 3000 words to do it any justice. In all my postgraduate education, I have never had to write such short essays.

At this point I have to praise the foresight of the designer of the course schedule - we have Easter week and an additional week to focus on this. I started working on it two weeks ago and still have a long way to go.

H809-15. Initial thoughts on Activity Theory

2009-04-09T18:43:00.004+03:00

I was doing quite well with this paper until I reached the 6 steps, and from then on my eyes just kept crossing. I found some of the steps to be virtually indistinguishable (e.g. 2. Analyze the activity system and 3. Analyze the activity structure). The list of questions did not seem to end. And when I thought about asking some of those questions about our course wiki, I just had to suppress a hysterical laugh...

A couple of other points I found puzzling:

1) Data collection methods: historical materials - no examples were given and this means nothing to me.

2) Points of view: tools - call me stupid, but how the hell can you analyse the point of view of a tool?! Here's my chance to learn a new skill!

I am now musing on the question from our course notes:

How might you use activity theory to evaluate the effectiveness of a CLE in a learning context?

Clearly that is leading us toward the TMA, but I'm like the proverbial horse at the water trough just now.

H809-14. Antsy

2009-04-06T23:17:00.003+03:00

No access to the student web site all day, it just refused to load...

:(

H809-13. Flummoxed

2009-04-05T20:40:00.006+03:00

The more I read about learning theories, the more confused I get...NONE of these papers seems to draw the boundaries clearly. Here is but a wee example of how my thinking is made flabby: Conole et al. (2004) say that most learning theories can be mapped to three broad approaches: behaviourism, sociocultural and constructivism (18); Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy (1999) lump together CLEs, sociocultural theories and Activity Theory. It was suggested by the course notes for Week 7 that the main outlines were behaviourism, cognitive and sociocultural (and this was the only explanation that made sense to me). I am just at sea.

H809-12. Meditations on the social

2009-04-02T13:36:00.010+03:00

I finished the Crook and Dymott paper the other day. I found myself getting strangely excited the further I got into their argument. The course web site is down at the moment so I cannot access the questions we are supposed to answer, so I will just jot down a few things that were meaningful to me here.

I think there were two main reasons I was attracted to this paper:

I found the Tolmie paper practically unreadable. Although his comments on context were valuable and his writing style fluid, I just could not understand how his research design enabled him to prove his conclusions. In particular, I was completely unconvinced by his assertion that gender had had a marked effect on dialogue.
I found many things in the Crook and Dymott paper which relate to my teaching practice.

Vocabulary items which I found myself repeatedly underlining:

site
system
forms of the word 'distribute'
re-mediation

"Guns are not artefacts with some singular nature. They derive whatever properties are ascribed to them from how they enter into cultural practices" (98).

This week as part of our gender theme, I showed my classes the MEF documentary "Tough Guise", which is about the construction of violent masculinity as a norm in American culture. I could therefore rewrite the above sentence as "Men are not artefacts with some singular nature. They derive whatever properties are ascribed to them from how they enter into cultural practices." Interesting cross-over!

"The undergraduate coursework essay writer is embedded in rich contexts" (100-101).

This is something I need to reflect further on as a Freshman English instructor. I think we do tend to view our students as individuals in this respect rather than as 'individuals-acting-with-mediational-means'(and our marking criteria most likely reflect this). My students have a research paper draft due on Monday, so this is a good time to develop more awareness of this point.

"the dialogue cultivated by a piece of written work is an interesting but neglected dimension of a student's developing literacy practice" (109).

Apart from educational technology, my other main research interest is feedback practices, and I firmly believe in the above statement. I am currently doing some case study research with one student in which I examine some of the aspects of the interpersonal in understanding and acting upon feedback. I am also preparing a response to the feedback I received on TMA 01. This is of course made much lengthier and more difficult by the completely online nature of this course.

I also really liked the idea that technology does not just influence practices, but that it actually shapes those practices - I think this is a nice way of breaking out of this maddening behaviouralist stimulus-response cage.

H809-11. Unexpected feedback

2009-03-31T19:37:00.004+03:00

I was stunned to receive some wonderful feedback about my blog from a student in one of the other tutor groups to which I occasionally contribute. To be honest, I am slightly uneasy about this particular blogging endeavour, the reason being that I am writing for an unknown audience. Normally I blog for myself, for a few selected readers, or with my students on our class blog. On the one hand, I want to be myself and express my views as freely as I am ordinarily accustomed to doing, and on the other hand, I am sensitive about causing offence or being misunderstood, or even seeming less than certain (I am a teacher, so I am not used to this role).

This tension is actually very interesting, now that I think about it. I am seeing it more from my students' point of view now (especially from the point of view of the 'complainers'.) I think it is actually very difficult to be 'reflective' on a blog. First of all, reflections are private. Secondly, at least to my mind, they come in fragmentary form. I often note down points on paper that I am having difficulty articulating, and so it certainly doesn't make sense to type them up in a blog post for unknown persons to read. I'm not sure I will make reflection a learning goal the next time I use the blog. And blog posts seem to demand their own internal coherence and structure, a sense of completion, whereas I like to draft and revise and leave things in fragmentary form until I feel ready to return to them. So I think these processes and the expected product are quite contradictory. Reflections involve a serious temporal aspect, whereas one is expected to type in the here and now into the little white box.

Sometimes, though, the ideas just flow, and then I can open up the box and just type away. I think this is when the blog comes into its own. But there is no way to predict when this will happpen...

H809-10. And the learning theory is...

2009-03-25T22:13:00.007+02:00

I have just discovered that my instructional methods are firmly constructivist. It seems so silly that I did not know this before, but on second thought, English language teachers are not, to my knowledge, explicitly taught learning theories - why not, I wonder?

CONSTRUCTIVISM IN MY CLASSROOM
-active involvement of learners
-democratic classroom environment this is of course what I strive for, but what does it actually mean in a Turkish university? The usual interpretations do not apply...
-interactive, student-centred activities
-teacher as facilitator
-students encouraged to be responsible and autonomous
-collaboration and exchange of ideas in groups
-emphasis on social and communication skills
-research projects, films, class discussions
-modelling/coaching/scaffolding
-process and product of learning equally important

(from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_teaching_methods)
Some assessment strategies include:

Oral discussions. The teacher presents students with a “focus” question and allows an open discussion on the topic.
KWL(H) Chart (What we know, What we want to know, What we have learned, How we know it). This technique can be used throughout the course of study for a particular topic, but is also a good assessment technique as it shows the teacher the progress of the student throughout the course of study.
Mind Mapping. In this activity, students list and categorize the concepts and ideas relating to a topic.
Hands-on activities. These encourage students to manipulate their environments or a particular learning tool. Teachers can use a checklist and observation to assess student success with the particular material.
Pre-testing. This allows a teacher to determine what knowledge students bring to a new topic and thus will be helpful in directing the course of study.

H809-9. Mapping papers onto learning theories...

2009-03-23T18:20:00.013+02:00

I have read the introduction to the Conole et al. (2004) paper "Mapping pedagogy and tools for effective learning design" and am now trying to fit (force?) the papers we have read so far on H809 into the table of learning theories presented in this paper. But first, a couple of background notes:

Their main audience is non-expert e-learning practitioners.
Their main aim is to demystify the learning theories which underpin research designs to enable practitioners to map relevant tools/resources onto a sound understanding of learning theories. (well, I for one did not feel that they were particularly successful in achieving this aim)

Hiltz and Meinke (1989)
I suppose the design of this study reflects an essentially behaviourist orientation, with its strong focus on observable outcomes, but isn't there evidence of cognitive/constructivist theories as well? In my Week 1 notes under the heading 'Views of education and learning', I wrote the following:

"Education is the structuring of a situation in ways that help SS change, through learning, in intentional (and sometimes unintentional) ways" (432).
learners as active participants
collaboration as fundamental to learning; knowledge as subjective, not objective
SS learn at own pace - SS do not learn what Ts teach
motivation integral to learning
social interactionist
seems at odds with the heavy reliance on quantitative methods

Most of the above notes would, to my mind, suggest social constructivist assumptions, despite the very positivistic design (but am I confounding behaviourism and positivism? perhaps...) As others have pointed out in the forums, the design of this particular study seems more than a little muddled. And Oliver et al. mention that studies may subconsciously promote assumptions that contradict the research design - perhaps this study is a good example of that.

Wegerif and Mercer (1992)

Laurillard (1994)
Emphasising the context of learning so strongly, as she does, suggests a constructivist approach to my mind. But Table 1's descriptions are not really helpful, so this is a provisional answer. Later addition: I have just read some Wikipedia entries on this; I will now go for social constructivism.

Oliver et al. (2007)

Roschelle (1992)
Constructivist? Socially situated? I guess I'm not clearly seeing the difference between the two based on Table 1. The two young girls in the study are engaged in a hands on discovery task and the focus is on the sort of 'interlanguage' the two develop in trying to describe the scientific concepts, which suggests constructivism. In addition, the interaction between the two is vitally important and language is used as a tool to jointly develop knowledge, which would indicate socially situated learning.

* and here I must post my first rant. this was absolutely, positively the most poorly written and presented academic paper I have ever read. recently i came across a writer bemoaning the fact that team researchers, due to time pressure, do not always find time to revise their papers - this would seem to be a case in point. beyond that, it seems the journal editor was either drunk or blind. okay, i am anal to start with, but beyond the annoying visual errors, there were plenty of errors that actually affected the meaning of the sentences. i honestly found about 10 errors per page. this is really unacceptable in a peer-reviewed journal. i can mark students' writing all day and not feel this frustrated...

H809-8. I dig Diigo!

2009-03-17T20:56:00.006+02:00

I was quite miffed to open up my Furled bookmarks this morning only to see a message that Furl was being "absorbed" by Diigo. It takes a lot of time to experiment with all the features of web applications and I was just starting to get familiar with Furl.

But my bookmarks were imported into Diigo in about half an hour, so no problems there. I installed the Diigo toolbar and...I'm hooked! I just love the idea of highlighting and commenting on web pages and having easy access to the notes afterwards. I can send web pages directly to Facebook. I have even invited a friend to join - I wasn't much interested in the 'social' aspect of social bookmarking before.

The only drawback I can see at this point is that the Diigo toolbar is not (yet) available for Safari, so as with Zotero, I am forced to use Firefox only.

H809-7. Know your audience

2009-03-16T15:32:00.007+02:00

Not so long ago I participated in an 8-week Research INSET led by my director, during which time I worked with a small group of colleagues to design and administer an online survey to students studying in the School of Languages where we teach. Two colleagues subsequently used this data in a workshop which was presented to interested teachers who freely chose to attend. I remember being struck by the way our data were presented - just in simple, colourful graphs the likes of which you can create easily from templates in Powerpoint - but how impressive it looked and the sort of importance it seemed to take on in the context of the topic we were discussing. Suddenly it wasn't just numbers and comments anymore, but the actual thoughts and reactions of our students, and I saw the real value of the research we had carried out. I suppose an affective dimension was added. I felt fortunate to have been able to see that from the perspective of an audience member; I know that standing on the other side, I might have been thinking more about any perceived flaws in my data analysis. Certainly while conducting the research, doubts were already creeping into my mind as to what we would do with the data once it was collected. But even such a simple dissemination of our results to a roomful of our peers seemed to justify the effort we had put into the survey. And I could suddenly think of more uses to which the data could be put, whereas previously I had tended to think of data as sort of static, practically dead by the time it is collected.

So I did in fact try to envision possible audiences when preparing TMA 01. I thought first of my fellow practitioners and the potential for a workshop along the lines of the one mentioned above, as well as further workshops to be proposed to institutions such as The British Council. I thought of a possible conference presentation, and I also thought of writing up the results in publishable form, to be submitted to both peer-reviewed journals and to IATEFL special interest group newsletters. I think the same research question suffices for each audience, since my research into blogging behaviours is exploratory, and systematic investigation of learners' experiences of blogging is fairly sparse, so any data generated are likely to attract the interest of a wide range of researchers and practitioners.

And last but not least, on the INSET my director emphasized the value of sharing our classroom data with our learners. I found last semester that my students were very enthusiastic at the prospect of taking part in my research, so it only seems fair to share it with them. Their reactions to the key findings will likely provide much food for further thought.

H809-6. Cloudworks

2009-03-12T11:39:00.001+02:00

I have just registered for this site (www.cloudworks.ac.uk) and am going to have a play around. (Geeky note to self: I figured out how to insert a screenshot into a blog post...)

H809-5. Technorati is soooo passé

2009-03-10T20:10:00.001+02:00

So says my best friend, who shall be referred to hereafter as the

My Skype window shook with the force of the link he vehemently batted my way:

Technorati - now completely useless

Whew! Now I won't have to face judgement...

H809-4. 3 roads converged in a dusty wood

2009-03-10T19:56:00.001+02:00

I was sitting on the shuttle on the way home as it wormed through the murderous traffic leading to the Bosphorus Bridge, reading Genre in the Classroom: Multiple Perspectives. I grabbed this book off the library shelf the other day because I am studying genre theories in my Translation Studies course and I am teaching a research paper this semester to my non-native speaker Freshmen and need to develop some lesson plans that focus on genre and text type. I wanted to see what kind of overlap I would find between the two understandings of genre. I came across these points in an article by Ann M. Johns entitled 'Destabilizing and enriching novice students' genre theories' (2002, p. 239):

Genres evolve and change to meet the growing and changing sociocognitive needs of discourse communities;
Genres evolve and develop to meet the needs of changing technology;
Genres evolve to adapt to changes in ideology and worldview in discourse communities;
Genres change as individuals take liberties with textual conventions.

(Ramanathan and Kaplan, 2000, pp. 180-83)

It would seem that all four points are relevant to the debate going on Grainne Conole's blog about the possibility of 'academic blogging' gaining formal recognition.

And thus genre analysis has neatly encircled my two courses as well as my teaching practice...more later.

H809-3. I ain't no fly by night

2009-03-09T19:31:00.001+02:00

That's just the title of the song I'm listening to by Seasick Steve as I down a bottle of Chilean red, having cooked a soul-warming chicken tikka masala. I was thinking earlier that a bottle of wine makes studying go down a treat, but as my eyes fog over I'm starting to revise that observation.

First thing when I got to work this morning I set about ruthlessly chopping and changing TMA 01. I rewrote most of the section on methodology and feel it's much more honest now, true to what I want to do rather than what I think might 'sound good' to others.

It's nice to have created a space in which to study/explore for the sake of it, rather than panting through the week to keep up with tasks and readings. I have been playing around a bit more with Zotero and RefWorks. I don't have enough evidence at this point to form my final opinion, but I like the intuitive nature of Zotero, which blends nicely with my intuitive - and beloved - Mac. I have also been experimenting more with Furl - it's certainly an improvement on storing bookmarks on different laptops, and in different browsers, which is what I was doing before.

In working through Week 6 materials in an 'iterative fashion', hahaa, I have come across Grainne Conole's blog entry on whether blogging will become an academic activity which will count as evidence of the blogger's research engagement. This intrigues me a great deal...I am working on genre analysis in my Translation Studies course and wonder if academic blogging will emerge as a new genre...(okay, this is an example of where I revisit a post and add something I found later: Blogging impacts on formal academic output.) I also learned what technorati authority is - honestly, at first I thought this was the latest goofy widget, or even a bad linguistic joke, but academics who blog are displaying their statistics on their sites. This is a rating which shows the number of blogs linking to a web site in the last six months. Are we going to start worrying about our technorati authority now? It's like the newest incarnation of the high school popularity contest - how cool am I? How many people like me? I find it fascinating (perhaps disproportionately so at this point given the red liquid at my elbow...)

In my class today I found myself lecturing my Freshmen about considering all the 'stakeholders in research', so clearly this course is worming its way into my teaching life as well. They clearly had no idea what I was talking about, but I keep chipping away...

H809-2. TMA 01

2009-03-08T20:05:00.002+02:00

I worked on this from 11.00 to 22.30 yesterday and knocked out 1992 words, which means I can actually partially enjoy Sunday. Not entirely, though, because a) I am also doing an online MA in Translation Studies through University of Portsmouth and b) without intense studying I feel bored and strangely empty.

I'm quite happy with the paper. I do not call it a first draft because I don't do first drafts - I draft and redraft and edit and re-edit as I go. All that remains after that long process is final minute polishing.

Research question

What challenges do students face when they blog?

Justification

-Kerawalla et al. (2008): the first phase of their iterative research into blogging behaviours, carried out in an OU course (one of the ones I will be taking as part of the Diploma), stresses the need for further research in other contexts. My context differs significantly from theirs, so it will be interesting to compare the differences.

-Beetham (2005): discusses emerging issues in e-learning research. Of particular interest to me are the JISC strands which investigate learning from the students' perspective. Since Beetham acknowledges that many important issues are likely to fall outside the remit of JISC, it is up to action researchers such as myself to take up the slack.

-Laurillard (2008): goes into detail about the value of reflective practice and disseminating the results to a wider community of practitioners. I need to check on the LAMS sharing project she mentions.

-Oliver and Conole (2003): critique "evidence-based practice" as resting on unsuitable epistemological grounds and stress the empowerment of practitioners.

-Williams and Jacobs (2004): offer some questionnaire data on students' responses to blogging, some of which coincides with Kerawalla et al. (2008) and some with my own preliminary questionnaire data from last semester. A picture of blogging behaviours is emerging, but is not yet complete.

Methodology

-A broad discussion of quantitive versus qualitative approaches, bringing in Pring (2000) and his insistence that there is a "false dualism" between the two; some criticisms of the Hiltz and Meinke (1989) study; a dash of Oliver et al. (2007) and Wegerif and Mercer (1997) for good measure in the discussion on data analysis considerations. My data collection tools: Likert scale questionnaires, interviews and artefact analysis of my class blog.

H809-1. The reluctant blogger

2009-03-08T19:44:00.003+02:00

Okay, I do blog. But privately, to amuse myself.

I tend to use my blogs for cathartic rants, so they are not necessarily suitable for public consumption. But I will try to rein myself in for the duration of this course.

I also have an old-fashioned streak; I keep lots of notebooks, full of both careful notes and random lists, brainstorms and other scribblings. I like things I can carry around and leaf through. I like to study on public transport. I like the smell of paper and using different coloured pens, especially my Muji set of felt-tips in their cylindrical plastic holder. I like the measured boxes of graph paper and notebooks with divided sections. This is why I cannot guarantee I will blog each and every day.

I also like to go back and revise my previous posts in a different colour. Thus I find the reverse chronological order of the blog most confining.

Since I am investigating my students' blogging behaviours, it will undoubtedly be most instructive to simultaneously investigate my own...I may not be readily generalisable to other contexts!