Shifts in the power structure of the conference. Who are the members expecting to have power? When do they take power? When do they have power passed to them? When is power forced upon them? How does this happen? Why does it happen?
I’m reading Ann and Kim’s article on affective issues in collaborative learning. They quote Crook extensively and say he uses an ecological metaphor which promtes an approach whereby the investigator pays particular attention to both the features of the interaction and to the ‘character of the resources that collaborators act around – much as ecologists […]
And these are my research questions as framed in my probationary report… This research will consider the affordances of asynchronous online communities in higher education, asking how they can be utilised to support rather than to impede learning. It will also examine ways in which learners participate in a virtual environment. The main research questions […]
So, my supervisors said that the last set of research questions were questions for an entire career, not for something as narrow as a thesis. Now I’m down to: How do virtual learning communities based in asynchronous online conferences support higher-education learners in the co-construction of knowledge? How are self-presentation, identity and community relations implicated in […]
I like to keep tabs on my research questions, so before I delete this week’s set, I’ll post them here. This what I proposed in the draft of my probationary report: What are the key characteristics of a virtual learning community? Which characteristics of a virtual learning community support learning? Which characteristics of a virtual […]
Right, I’ve pulled my data to pieces, word by word. Not sure how useful that was. Time wil tell. Now I’ve read through the majority of my notes for the last six months, and I’ve made a list of ways to come at this data. I’ve listed them below so I won’t lose them. Questions […]
I spoke to Robin Goodfellow the other day. He suggested: Investigating which identities are readily taken up in a FirstClass conference. Considering the role of the researcher in the co-construction of identity. Which stories are being rehearsed and which discourses are being reproduced?
I’m felling pleased with myself, as I’ve managed to knock together 5000 words, which looks like a first draft of half of my literature review. It’s full of holes, and it misses out the really difficult areas (learning theory and various discourse analysis views on identity) but I can see that it might all fit […]
Working on the draft of a draft of a literature review. It’s such a mound of material that it’s really hard to arrange sensibly. I’ve got three and a half thousand words, which I guess is about a third of a literature review, but I keep getting lost in it. I’ve done a fairly coherent […]
I’m tinkering with my research questions. I’ve mostly reverted to identity from subject position, partly because it’s more comprehensible, partly because it’s sexier, and patly because it fits in with the idea of learning as transformation of identity. I’ve got a tentative title and hypotheses as well. I’ve thrown in a short definition of a […]