Digital Tools Blog Post 8.2.13

Reading Reflections:

PLD: Chapter 8: Analyzing Image, Audio, and Video Data

             Whether I choose to look at RR TL Professional Development or teaching interactions between a Reading Recovery teacher and student, audio data will be important to me.  Last night in our DP class, J. Johnston discussed his choice to use audio instead of video and said, in essence, video was more intrusive than audio and could potential change the nature of the interactions between participants, and that using video comes with the assumption that you can capture it all.   Hearing his rationale and thinking through my potential studies in relation to his comments has made me think audio is probably the way to go for me.

            Also in DP, we’ve talked about how the data is actually the recording and NOT the transcript.  Joshua talked about listening to the recordings over and over so that he could make decisions about what to transcribe.  This will be very important for me in either study I decide to undertake.  On page 4 of the chapter, the authors say, “Analysis of recordings has typically, though not always, involved converting the media files into some form of textual representation (through transcription), and rarely, if ever, includes going back to the audio or video sources throughout the analysis process.”  Going back to the source will be part of my plan when I conduct my research.

            I don’t think I will use video as part of my study.  If focusing on RR teaching and lessons, the child would be a big part of the study, and I think it would be difficult to get permission to do a study with an already vulnerable ‘struggling’ reader. Also, I think the camera would be intrusive.  I have video-taped many lessons through the years (in an effort to improve my teaching) and kids have always been fascinated by the camera, often attending to it throughout the lesson instead of the books and writing they were meant to do.  Also, as Joshua mentioned last night, looking at the talk is interesting in and of itself.  Much can be learned from examining language interactions. Pictures might be interesting.  Pictures of the kid reading, writing, or working at the white board might be interesting.  Also, pics of kids and teachers working together – I am not sure though.  Parents and districts are pretty cautious when it comes to those things.

            On page 15, the authors talk about waveforms.  I have never even considered such a thing!  I can certainly see how that might be helpful in either of my studies – as it would capture nuances of sound – when there is laughter, or high/low volume of speech, etc.   In our behind the glass conversations, there are many moments of laughter, some silences when we are trying to figure out what is going on with a student, some excited talk etc.  These would be interesting to attend to, particularly if I use discourse analysis or discursive psychology.

            I don’t think that coding directly from media files would be appropriate for what I am interested in doing.  I want to think about the talk and what it is doing in the interactions.  I could make notes of what I am thinking as I am listening, but to really focus in on the interactions, I would need a careful transcript.

 Cidell – Content clouds as exploratory qualitative data analysis

            I have NEVER considered content clouds as part of an analysis, but it sounds really interesting. If I look at RR TL training, I could look at it at various regional training centers and use content clouds to compare language interactions across the 3 locations (we are back to the comparison thing again – leftover from DP class).  It is interesting to me to think about the differences in emphasis across the regions.  Different training centers, though all affiliated with RR, and bound by the same standards and guidelines, have slightly different emphasis in content.  I know our group at GSU tends to talk a great deal about language structure and how that impacts an emergent reader’s process.  In my experience in interacting with other TLs across the county, this is not an area of focus for them.   It is even possible to look at content in conversation from different parts of the world, as RR is implemented in NZ, Australia, England, Canada etc.   Including content clouds as part of the data might be a possibility!  This quote seems relevant, “… place matters: the same issue or topic is discussed and understood in different ways across the country and even across a region.”  In the article, they are talking about transportation, and green buildings, but the idea that talk changes from place to place certainly connects with RR training across the world.

Class Reflections:

            I enjoyed seeing Nalani’s demonstration of Dragon Dictate.  As I was watching this I was thinking of all the students I worked with who had reading and writing difficulties.  Had I had something like this in my classroom, I could have made writing much easier for them.  They could have dictated a story in writing that could have been transcribed and then they could have used that writing as reading material.  Considering the funds special education has, this would have been a rather inexpensive option.  I do think I would like to look into this for transcription – just to have another option. It would relieve me a bit with typing.

            Karen, digital Samantha, and I had good conversation and exploration of the content clouds, the meaning of the visual data around teaching on pinterest and listening and discussing the various soundscapes.  When we talked about how cloud contents could be used, Samantha thought about preliminary coding and Karen thought the actual image might be good to use in presentations or as part of a cover sheet for a project.

            I also appreciated the information on the audio/video data within Atlas.  I went to Ann’s workshop this summer, but having another pass with it was helpful.   It is pretty incredible that Atlas has the ability to allow for that much data storage and manipulation. I am becoming more and more comfortable with Atlas.