In the nicest posible tone....

For all modules there are different things you are asked to give us for assessment. BUT in each module what you hand-in is linked it is not a load of independent documents. In Module One you are making a portfolio telling one thing. In Module Two you are telling one thing: about a plan that is linked to your practice and will complete your BA. In Module Three you are telling us about one thing; a Research project. But because life is multi-layered you maybe handing different aspects or parts of the one idea but they are all linked in telling the same story of each module.

All the work we are doing on linking experiences, networks, reflection why would we then ask you to chop things up and not relate things to each other. In some cases – like Module Three you are asked for a document and then there is a brake down of each section but they are part of the same thing!!

The sections are like the way a book has chapters each chapter has a particular part of the story but they relate to each other to make a whole picture. The sections are like chapters of a book each section has its part but they are put to together to make the who report.

For everyone please remember that the assessment work is not a load of hoops we want you to jump through to get the prize of passing. We want to understand what you have been doing, we want you to be able to articulate it in away that anyone teaching at BA level will understand and also at a level where you can tell other people about your work in your professional world. Why would we want to read the same thing repeated again and again in different short documents that don’t relate to each other? I guess I would hope that you could see we are not trying to give you tasks like hero’s in a fairytale that get more and more difficult to see if you deserve a BA. All the work we do about web 2:0 in Module One shows that of course you can find the ‘knowledge’, ‘information’ but what is its value/ meaning. What makes it important is the unique view/ ideas/ experiences you have had and how you give it meaning. That is most important and then it is important that your special voice on the topics can be heard and there are standard ways for people to hear you; the guide-lines for how the work is to be submitted is just so you have experience in presenting your voice in away that will be heard in the establishment of a university setting because a BA is a university artefact.

Please try to make sense of what you are doing. At the beginning of each module we ask you to take a leap of faith into the ideas and activities but by the end do not be doing things because you think you have been told to, have a reason for doing them for yourself also. If you need to grab hold of that meaning and its slips away talk to your advisor that is what they are there for. There is no secret society holding the knowledge: we want you to do your best, do well this world needs all the brilliant, fulfilled people it can get.

Most people are doing this but just a reminder:

Put your name on your work – simply so we know who its from

Put page numbers on it – simply so we know the order of things

Put things together – so that you link your learning particularly to you and your practice.

Use words you know the meaning of

Check the meaning is what you think it is, not just how it is used in Metro or the Sun

Don’t rely on one word to give meaning to a whole sentence – write to illuminate ideas.

Feel you are a part of something: your interesting voice within the context of hundreds of others in books and journals too. 

Respect yourself and what you think by presenting it clearly and respect yourself by respecting the work others have done. If you thought it then probably someone else has too. Find your published soul-mates: what they brought to the ideas you are interested in too. Don’t reinvent the wheel find out about the wheel.

OK then

!!!!

Adesola

First tasks (Feedback on week two)

Here we are in week two. First modulers have been putting up their C.V.s, youtube films and flickr pictures. There is some great work, often people using the tools for the first time. It’s a great opportunity to get to know new ways to communicate BUT also to observe yourself: see how you learn new skills or build on ones you already knew. You can draw on the memory of this in a week or two when you start the reflection session of the first module. If you’re not on the 1^st module don’t forget the communication tools, still blog and share ideas, make ‘things’ about your thoughts and process, up-date your flickr and think about how the tools can be useful to you in general across the whole course.

Module two-ers and threes are working with questions (!). task 4a is thinking about questions relevant to your practice. The thing about questions is whether you can engage with them as questions or whether you are engaged with them in terms of answers. I don’t believe in answers per say. Rather than looking at questions in terms of what the answer will be or how you think they should be answered, look at them in terms of better understanding the question. So instead of a goal of an answer have a goal of better understanding the question, better understanding the question gives you an answer of a sort.

This is a fundamental issue about where you see ‘truth’ residing. Is it out there to be found. That is it’s fixed and needs to be discovered. This is a positivist view that things are there whether you are there or not, whether you understand them or not. Or do you think that truth is not fixed but depends on how you perceive things.

Dewey talks about a frightening sound on a window, on investigation it turns out to be a branch knocking against the window. His view is that it is not that a mistaken truth has given way to a real truth. It is that it is true there was a frightening sound and it is true that was a branch. As your perception changes so does the answer. This is more of a non-positivist view: things are changed by your perception of them. So you can see how looking for a fixed answer to a question would mean that you are assuming you totally understand the question and that there is some fixed answer out there to discover.

Of course some questions are easier to find a fixed answer to. These are usually ones that involve quantitative data; like “how many fingers does your grandmother have?”, questions that involve numbers. From the popular media we are most used to research being presented this way. But many of your questions are qualitative – about how people feel, or what they think, this is not something you can count it is about the quality not the quantity of something.  So can you see my point… that questions can be thought about outside of the context of what their answer will be and more about the inquiry into the question itself. What do you think??

Have a look at the funny video on my blog post:

THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2009: Why research analysis is so important; it's not all data collection! - http://adesolaa.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-research-analysis-is-so-important.html

Module three-ers have you thought about writing rough drafts of some of the parts of your critical reflection NOW!!!! For instance your ‘Introduction’ (section/chapter); it is about what you planned to do, the context of the work and the original idea. You could write that down now even if you know things are changing… the change is part of the process of inquiry. If you’ve got it down than when you come back to it in November you’ll have your starting point. It might also help you to have a clearer focus as you move forward into field work (data collection) your own notes and reflections are also data remember. You could also think about a draft of lit. review section too. Again it might help you consolidate your ideas as your thinking might be changing quite fast. It is also psychologically nice to feel you have something to work off of when you come to your final writing-up period.

What do you think?

Using interviews anyone?? Do you have / have you made your consent forms for the people you are interviewing?

A really good book to look at is

“Learning from Strangers: the art and method of qualitative interview studies’ – Robert S. Weiss

Anyone recommend any other good books on interviews?

What do you think about all this – please comment

Adesola

Why research analysis is so important; it's not all data collection!