Digital Tools Blog 7.31.13

Reading Reflections:

Chapter 7: Analyzing Textual Data

 

This chapter was right-on-time for me, as I am working on my second skill builder, a Lit Review in Atlas ti.  This is a new process for me, to work paperless, to construct my argument, to organize my thoughts – all digitally.  Because it is new, I am aware of my focus in two directions – on the content of my lit review (Discursive Psychology), and on writing in/through a new medium, Atlas ti.    It does not feel natural to me to work in this way, yet, but I do see benefits (affordances) and am committed to (in the words of my New Zealand friends) “have a go”. 

 

On page 7, I highlighted the sentence “The initial investment of time and effort required to learn the tools will pay off handsomely over the course of your research career”.  I feel like I have invested considerable time in Atlas – class last semester and all the related projects, attendance in workshops that Ann conducted, individual sessions with Ann, and now expanding my learning with the Lit Review.  Many aspects of Atlas have moved from conscious attention to unconscious attention and do not intimidate me.  I love the organizational features of Atlas – I have all my articles and annotations, blog posts, and other documents housed in an HU on my computer.  I have a “textual laboratory” within Atlas, and I love it (p. 12).  This would amount to files and files of folders and notebooks and scribbled marginal notes if I were working from print – and, who knows how/if all of that information would be effectively managed.   With Atlas, I know where things are, they are readily accessible, and they are NEAT.  When I came to campus this morning, I had to haul my computer…not backpacks full of information.    I can already see the payoff of taking on the new learning.

 

That sentence summarizes what I was talking about with Ann and my small group members last night.  I have invested time, effort, and energy in working with Atlas. I am pleased with what it can do for me, so why would I want to change?  I did go to the NVivo workshop that Ann had this summer.  I did respond positively to the visual display format and the functionality, but I didn’t see anything more it could do for me than Atlas (don’t need to capture social media info).  If I land at a University that uses NVivo, I feel confident that my background in Atlas ti will be useful in helping me learn that tool if and when I need to use it, as there is so much similarity.

 

I downloaded the Atlas ipad app when it first came out.  I wasn’t able to figure out how to move documents into it, so I ended up deleting it from my ipad.  Ann shared last night in class that it is not able to be connected to Atlas on the desktop, so that just validated my decision to delete it and safe my space for something more meaningful.

 

One of the things that is bothering me about Atlas (constraint) is that I can’t look at everything I want to look at, at the same time.  I used to take over the kitchen table too (like Matt), but now I am confined to a laptop screen.  This is a constraint for me, as I find myself clicking all around when what I want to do is see it all at the same time.  I think purchasing an additional monitor (this tax free weekend) will help me very much, as I can move from space to space and have the “kitchen table effect” digitally.

 

On page 18, the authors talk about using the memoing feature to keep a research journal.  In my future research, I think this will be important for me.  I do hope by then the Ipad app is more functional, as I think being able to keep the journal on a smaller device would be helpful for me. It feels somewhat awkward to keep a journal on my laptop – just because of its size.   They also talk about actually beginning to write the lit review using the memoing tool and then moving it over to a word processing program.  I am hoping to practice this with my mini-lit review project in Atlas.

Another affordance in Atlas is the ability to represent the research process (p. 20).  I will be able to keep up with a sequence of events (of PD sessions, teacher visits, and email conversations) as well as show the steps I took (via my reflective journal on Atlas) as a researcher.

ON page 21, the authors talk about software packages affording the following abilities – create and assign codes, retrieve coding data, review coded data in context, rename or delete or merge codes.  I see and have experienced that in my own work.  Even last night in class, I did all of those things with my codes while we were in class.    I do miss the tactile aspect of interacting with pen and paper and highlighter.  I miss not spreading things out on the floor or table.  Thinking is messy work (for me) and working in Atlas does tidy things up (which I like and need) but I also miss the “being in it” feel that all those spread out pieces of paper and tools brings.

 

 

 

Konopaske- Making Thinking Visible with Atlas.ti: Computer Assisted Qualitative Analysis as Textual Practices

 

I do think working with Atlas makes my decisions more visible and transparent.  Working on the skill builder and the lit review simultaneously has forced me to be more “metacognitive” about the whole process.  I find myself thinking about what I am doing because I know I will need to write about it in my skill builder.  And, I am thinking this is a good habit to get into, as when I do research, I will want my readers to get a sense of my process. Just the act of inserting time stamps helps with transparency – when certain decisions were made can be tracked.  I am doing a better job this time around with adding comments as I am working.  I am labeling my codes and memoing along the way.  It doesn’t feel so forced to me – last semester, I really had to “work” to remember to do these things.  Right now, it is taking consider able effort to work in Atlas, as the process is not entirely natural to me, but I think in time it will feel more natural to me and won’t take as much effort – allowing me more resources for analyzing and interpreting the data.

 

I liked this quote – “Once reality is narrated, recorded, and transcribed we can better manipulate it – store, transport, compress, mark, juxtapose to other realities, but into pieces, recompose, reorder, etc.  Only thanks to these manipulations can we see (and show) differences and similarities, emerging patterns, new contexts” (p. 4). I am hoping to get to this place in my use of Atlas.  I remember how much it took for me to make the leap from writing by hand to writing on a computer.  That seems really silly now when I think about it, but I recall it being difficult.  The computer changed how I wrote and what I wrote (I wrote more remotely, distantly, and carefully) as opposed to my hand writing – which was closer to “me”, I felt.   I see a similar thing happening with reading and annotating now, as I am trying to go paperless.  My comprehension is not as good as I am learning the process of interacting with text digitally.

 

I also liked this quote about the textual laboratory – “Because data are also everything that we strive to put on one place, on one table. Or, more exactly, into a single textual laboratory – which has the power to shrink time and space distances between observable phenomena so that everything important is present and under control” (p. 8).   I like how he talked about the aspect of “time travel” thorough information over time with simple “clicks”.  It is true, and I suppose I never thought of it that way.

Another quote about an affordance – p11 – “In memos we integrate partial observations.  The integration is not just an abstract mental operation.  It corresponds with the ability of memos to be attached to several codes, quotations and other memos at once.  We can therefore imagine memos as embryo-paragraphs or pages of a future research report, already well-founded in empirical data and embedded in a broader argument (in the structure of other memos).

 

“Atlas.ti provides an interface in which and through which we do thinking” (p.16).

 

Class reflections:

I wove some of my reflections into my comments about the readings.  But, I will say, for me as a learner, it is much better for me to be IN class (instead of Skype).  I like the face to face interaction (even with skype some of the nonverbal stuff is lost) and side conversations that happen spontaneously, and are important.  With walking through something as complex as Atlas, I think I would have been really lost had I skyped last night.  It was overwhelming, even being there live, but I think it would have been more problematic virtually.