Month: December 2009

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-12-14

  • Had a wonderful chat today with @joostrobben via #DimDim. How come that service did not work when we were shopping for webinar vendors? #
  • RT @cnnbrk: Phillies reach deal to get Roy Halladay. http://bit.ly/6XYwfg — THIS is Breaking News? Glad no war or recession to report. #
  • Waiting for take-out at #Benny's Burritos. #
  • MAXQDA is coming out with a new version – #MAXQDA 10 http://bit.ly/5ek9Nb #CAQDAS #
  • I think #Starbucks missed the third shot in my triple grande skim latte. #
  • Have to go and submit grades in person for my online class. Irony? #
  • How can the copier need toner this early in the morning? #
  • Just finished the initial very rough draft of my research design. Will sleep on it and then post it tomorrow for some feedback. #
  • 6 new comments on "Silence and Voice" and more http://bt.io/BWFu #

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(VERY) Rough Draft of My Research Design

Here is my (very rough) working (initial) research design. None of the elements are clear or tight enough yet; this is primarily shared here for proof of concept. I expect this to be refined and cleaned up / developed after initial feedback and my ongoing processing this week. Any feedback is appreciated.

Title (Working)
Public Transformations: Adult Learners Who Use Social Media to Express and Understand Their Experiences

Abstract
TBD

Introduction
With the rise of social media, more of what used to be learned, thought, and experienced in private is now engaged in publicly. As blogging and microblogging, to name only 2 of the countless forms of social media and social networking, increase, educators need to better understand how these are being used by learners, especially in regard to the more challenging content areas and concepts within the various social sciences.

Research Problem

  • There is a lot of research around threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, as well as Transformative Learning. While much of this exists within adult education and higher education, we do not know much about how this has been affected by the increase in social media, primarily within blogging and microblogging. With adult learners increasingly sharing their experiences and stories around their learning in a public space, educators need to know more about how threshold concepts or disorienting dilemmas lead to significant perspective or paradigmatic change.

Purpose

  • The purpose of this research is to understand how these troubling experiences are understood and processed in a public space, where identity development takes place in a more transparent manner than learning has done before. Furthermore, the more that is know about this area, the better instructors can encourage and promote significant, personal learning within their students.

Literature Review
Litertatures to be reviewed include threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (especially Meyer and Land), transformative learning (especially Mezirow, Brookfield, and Cranton), and how these may relate to blogging or social media.

Research Design

Philosophical Worldview

  • Critical Constructivism

Theoretical Lens

  • Threshold concepts and transformative learning

Research Questions

  1. Describe an experience you had while engaging in your academic studies where you experienced a transformed way of understanding, interpreting, or viewing something.
  2. How did you express or share this using social media?
  3. Describe your experience and what you learned during this process.
Strategy of Inquiry

  • The strategy of inquiry will be phenomenography

Research Method

  • 2-3 participants will be identified by posting this research design on my own blog, requesting my own network if they can spread the request for interviewees, and distributed to various email qualitative distribution lists. Phone interviews will be used and recorded.

Data Collection
Data will be collected via recorded phone interviews

Analysis and Interpretation
The interviews will be transcribed and coded to develop and categorize the experiences of the participants

Reliability, Validity, and Generalizability
  • TBD

Findings

  • TBD

Next steps

  • TBD

Conclusion / Learnings

  • TBD

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-12-13

  • 2 new comments on "researching the use of social media – by Britta Bohlinger" and more http://bt.io/BWEh #
  • Helped Michael Storrings at his ornament and book signings today at Bergdorf Goodman. Busy Christmas department. #
  • Horrible rain all day today. #
  • 2 new comments on "Silence and Voice" and more http://bt.io/BVUr #
  • OK, up working late enough on a Saturday night. A few hours of shut-eye now, and then repeat. #
  • I can't get that new Palm Pixi song out of my mind. its from the group Passion Pit, and the song is Sleepyhead http://bit.ly/5npjFw #
  • 3 new comments on "researching the use of social media – by Britta Bohlinger" and more http://bt.io/BVEq #

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Research Project Outline / Headings

As I am nearing a proposal for my research project (which I hope to have later today for feedback), I am now turning some attention to one of the more anxiety-causing elements of a research project — the outline / headings used in the paper.

This is the organizational structure which is used as an outline, and into which I feed the specs for the project itself, and I find that my understanding of this skafolding and how it is used is developing, so I know there is not a single framework that will work in all cases for all projects. Nevertheless, this is what I have in mind now:

Abstract

Introduction

1. Research Problem

2. Aim / Significance

3. Purpose

Literature Review

Research Design

1. Philosophical Worldview

2. Theoretical Lens

3. Strategy of Inquiry

4. Research Method

5. Research Questions

Data Collection

Analysis and Interpretation

1. Reliability, Validity, and Generalizability

Findings

1. Next steps

Conclusion / Learnings

Any feedback on this outline will be appreciated.