Last blog post for Digital Tools 8.6.13

 

Reading Reflections:

PLD – Chapter 9: Writing and Representing Findings

            This class, and especially this text has given me lots of new ideas to consider.  I use PowerPoint often, and have used it to think through an organizational project for a paper, but I’d never considered it the way the authors describe.  Love the example of the virtual prison.   I am looking forward to Doug’s presentation tonight to talk about Scrivener.  It looks really useful.  It sounded a lot like ATLAS, in terms of how you can house lots of data sources.  The difference to me seemed the ability to capture web data.  I am sure it will all become clearer after class tonight.

            I think it is interesting that the authors talk about researchers being hesitant to experiment with alternative or public forms of research.  I can most certainly understand that.  It reminds me of what you said about waiting until you had gotten tenure.

            I am wondering about the referenced “public performance” of Lester and Gabriel’s research.  What was that?

            I absolutely loved reading about the young adult novels that are written, crafted, and constructed using multi media.  I think so many more kids would come to text if there were a variety of ways to interact.  I think texting has done so much to bring kids into literacy. We, as educators, need to use the tools they value instead of trying to have them value the tools we value.

            P. 19 – What are “unperformed performative texts?”

            I looked at Wesch’s you tube videos on digital ethnography.  Very interesting.   I didn’t have a chance too, but I would like to look at the 1000 Voices project and Singapore Dreaming too.   I did look at Rebecca William’s Prezi.

            I like the sentence near the conclusion of the chapter – “Because paper-based journals are rarely read outside of academia, there is no need to re-examine how we invite the larger populace to make sense of and engage with our research findings.”

 

Woo – Engaging new audiences: translating research into popular media

            This article was very thought provoking, and made me consider how I might attend to crafting a presentation of findings to particular audiences.   I have thought about this, obviously, with papers – writing to professors, writing to friends, etc.  But, I haven’t thought about research findings and how to reach a wider audience.

            Woo makes some really good points in this article – on page 324 she says “ It was important to us not to scare away mainstream audiences, who might balk at any hint of intellectual heaviness in a medium that they normally associated with entertainment.”  I think there is this uncomfortable distance between theorists and practitioners.  Theorists don’t value the practitioners (and see their work as less worthy) and practitioners don’t see the relevance of the work theorists do.  We had this conversation in DP about teachers not reading research, and I think that is very true for a number of reasons. The most important reason, is due to all the tasks they are juggling. I know many, many, excellent and dedicated teachers who work from the crack of dawn until late in the evening (maybe slightly martyrish) planning lessons, writing I.E.P. plans, attending parent conferences, preparing for evaluations, buying heaters for kids homes (I could go on and on here) … they might have the best of intentions to be up on the research, but it is lower on the totem pole of responsibilities of many of their tasks.  I think teachers can come part ways, but so too, can researchers.   Perhaps if researchers considered their audiences more, and considered what they want to accomplish with the research (“if the aim of research was to effect social change”) we wouldn’t have a 50 year gap between educational “research” best practices and classroom practices (this is the gap Allington estimates).

            Clay bridged the gap with her work in Reading Recovery.  Her dissertation question asked how early it could be determined that students’ literacy learning was going astray.  When she determined, through hundreds of observations, that you could see students falling off after one year of instruction, she was encouraged to design an intervention to cope with that “going astray-ness”.  She once again observed lessons – only this time focusing on proficient readers.  What were they doing strategically that “poor” readers weren’t?  After those observations, and in concert with educational practitioners, she designed Reading Recovery.  Millions of kids across the world have benefitted from her ability to link theory and practice. 

            I appreciated this quote too … “I am always puzzled to read in the press how much more weight people seem to afford to corporate leaders’ opinions than to the opinions of educators when it comes to education policy”.  That is SO true!   People who haven’t set foot in a school since they attended, taught a child to read, or ridden a school bus are “experts” on education and know how to reform it.  I get so tired of all the talk from people who have no idea what schools are like now.

 

Class Reflections:

I enjoyed listening to Doug talk about Scrivener.  Seeing examples through his dissertation was more helpful than just reading about it in text.

I loved the 200 countries in 200 years and Ann’s documentary.  There is so much potential in using alternative methods of displaying and presenting information to reach wider audiences.  

I completed my evaluations and offered thoughts about class there. This was a great class; I learned a lot and am open to working with many new tools that I was introduced to.  Thank you for all your feedback on blog posts and projects and for designing a great course.