Late last night (ok . . . before sunrise this morning), I submitted the final version of my paper that has been the focus of my life over the past 3 months, Public Transformations: Adult Learners Who Use Social Media to Express and Understand Their Identities as Developing Researchers.

I do not want to go into detail here about my findings (as I have already submitted an abstract of this for a conference paper review), suddenly everything in the analysis of my ethnographic study clicked with how the participants understand themselves as developing researchers. As I described it in the initial proposal, “I am especially interested in knowing how learners make sense of their experiences when they believe they learn something significant that helps them see things in a different way.”

I saw it, and am initially pleased with my findings. This makes for wonderful further study . . .

There is a Pre-Conference sessions that was just posted for the Networked Learning Conference 2010:

PhD course on ‘Networked Learning and the Net Generation’ 1-2 May, in Aalborg, Denmark

This looks like a wonderful event, and as I just emailed to one of the organizers, I wish this would have been communicated earlier, as those of us coming from a distance (I am in New York traveling to Denmark) have most likely already made travel plans. Wish I can attend this, but it was announced too near the conference to make flight changes.

Somewhat ironic, given the topic of the event.

The preliminary PDF program for the 6th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2010) is available on their website. If you take a look at it, you will see my 2 abstracts that were accepted:

The Design and Initial Development of an eLearning Course to Organize and Frame a Qualitative Research Design: The Learning Qualitative Project, Jeffrey M. Keefer, Lancaster University

Learning Goals and Personal Learning in Practitioner Autoethnographic Inquiry: A Case Study, Jeffrey M. Keefer, Lancaster University

 I am flying into Indianapolis and then driving the distance. Anybody want to split the ride?

Early registration for the Networked Learning Conference 2010, #NLC2010, in Aalborg, Denmark, in May is about to end (early-bird registration ends 26 February). As this conference is already a little pricy (and outright expensive from the US), every little savings helps.

As this conference is subtitled A research-based conference on networked learning in higher education and lifelong learning, I am really looking forward to learning together. It will be great to see some of my colleagues (again) there and getting feedback on my paper, Autoethnographer Communities of Practice, as well!

Yesterday, I submitted the draft of my Public Transformations paper. It will now be reviewed by 2 of my peers in my program, and briefly reviewed by the course tutor (faculty), after which I will revise it and resubmit.

Exhausted and drained are both understatements after pulling all this together over 6 weeks; this was the most ambitious research project I have attempted completed thus far. However, as the we were requested to add a final paragraph to our paper to discuss what we learned, I wanted to share it here. Please be mindful, I wrote this after 3 solid days of writing (with little sleep), and it was the last thing written before being submitted last night at 9:56pm.

I learned that using a different methodology for each of my module research projects makes for a tremendous amount of extra work, though it helps me to learn about the implications for how different problems in practice require different designs and methods. Furthermore, I realized that direct exposure with this variety will enable me to become more sensitive to the nuances in different academic traditions, while increasing the critical readings I am increasingly equipped to do when I consume and process other completed research. Finally, I am learning that there are so many generous people who are willing to share very personal stories in the name of research, and in the process, it was common for the participants to tell me how much they appreciated the opportunity to share and further process their experiences. I never understood that research could be beneficial for more than just the researcher; this is consistent with the topic of my project, and I now believe I am more informed and have the wider worldview that Mezirow focuses upon.

While I may clean this up a bit in my revision, the sentiments will remain the same.

I am nearly finished with the DRAFT of my Public Transformations paper, which is due tomorrow. I do feel confident that my Introduction (with the research problem, significance, and purpose statement) is clear and concise.This is among the more important parts of the paper, and I think I was finally able to articulate it in an interesting and inviting way.

I have been increasingly anxious about the due date, how long the paper is taking, and how a lot of loose ends will simply not get resolved by tomorrow. Nevertheless, I started telling myself over and over that this is a draft, and I will get feedback from two of my peers, after which I will revise for the faculty review and assessment (as well as for a conference abstract I am thinking about). So, while I must submit this by tomorrow, I will still be working on it over the next few weeks (with the FINAL version due on March 8).

So, exhausted and with achy (from typing) arms, I am about to submit the result of all my efforts. Wonder if this is what the thesis (UK) / dissertation (US) is like? Will see THAT one soon enough.

I have worked in educational practice for as long as I can remember (or, more precisely, ever since the second year after college), and have often heard about (and even taught the importance of) the elevator speech. This is the short (30 seconds or so) answer to the question, “So, what do you do?” It is a mechanism for networking and searching for work, activities I know are important though have not been especially skilled at (at least not in the F2F modality, that is).

I have never really considered this before for research projects, especially for the dissertation / thesis. This idea originated from Cristina Costa’s recent blog post, where she discussed her PhD in  minutes. What a healthy idea to help focus the idea, to try on the idea and feel how it fits, to help to make the process real by speaking it and bringing it into a dimension of reality.

I am sharing this as I want to try this when I work on articulating my doctoral thesis (dissertation back here in the US) later this year. I believe my current research project, Public Transformations: Adult Learners Who Use Social Media to Express and Understand Their Identities as Developing Researchers, will help me in the direction for my work. As I will want people to know about, offer suggestions for, and agree to participate in my research, I will need to be able to clearly articulate the ideas for my work, what I want to find, why I want to find it, and why you should care. Just can’t get away from the WIIFM!

Come to think of it, this process may be useful for every research project . . . .  If a research project cannot be simply and clearly stated, then how well can we really engage in it?

I am re-reading all of the transcripts of the 8 interviews I conducted for my research project, and am so overwhelmed with the stories that were shared. They are so personal, so strong, and seemingly so full of every element of human experience. In some ways, I feel I am peering into a slice of the lives of a group fascinating people who shared their stories with me for the sake of my research.

I hope I do their works justice in my findings. Perhaps the best justice would be giving somebody else an insight or idea that leads to some other action in service of research, self-knowledge, and advancing the benefits of a networked community?

I have completed the transcriptions for my research (a bit later than I hoped, but it is moving forward), and am beginning to analyze it. Some of the transcripts for the 8 interviews I conducted still need to be sent to the research participants for member checking, but all that is underway.

My initial review of the interviews is wonderful; I believe I have a lot of rich stories that may reveal some very interesting things about the experience of Public Transformations.

However, I have to fight against the anxiety of feeling I am very behind where I hoped to be (my paper is due in another week). In some ways, I wish I had the luxury of being able to research without any other work, but it is a fact of my life that there are a lot of things happening. Regardless, I still expect to have the draft of this paper submitted by February 8, when it is due. Hey, what else is there to focus on at this time of the winter?!