Latest Posts
Research Questions
1.
How can we better prepare students for academic and professional
writing? (eportfolios, service learning, online learning, ezines)
2. How can we engage faculty across disciplines to work with us to better prepare students?
3. What empirical support can we provide to help the academic and
professional community better understand our methods?
4. How are writing spaces and composing research processes changing as a result of new technologies? (ETDs, tech com)
5. How have tools and software redefined literacy, and, as a result, how must our reaching and disciplinary practices evolve?
6. Mediation and Hypnosis--on being creative.
Brainstorming About NDLTD 2005
I am
very excited about NDLTD in Australia. I do wish it were at the usual
time, but I thank Ed Fox for keeping me focused on what
matters--Graduate Education.
I need to develop a proposal for the Conference, something that will
be interesting and Maybe I could work on developing my resources for
writers to help doctoral students....http://www.writersatwork.us/default.aspx or http://researchblog.org/
http://www.qinfo.org/people/nielsen/blog/archive/000120.html
Here's an inspiring piece on conducting research:
Principles of Effective Research by M. Nielson, http://www.qinfo.org/people/nielsen/blog/archive/000120.html
I need to move to this blog from my other blog at writingblog....We
haven't seen any growth here and I need to work to make this a more
focused, helpful place.
Blogs as Academic Research, Only More Rigorous
Exploring the Use of Blogs as Learning Spaces
in the Higher Education Sector
The authors write that "the chief
purpose of this paper is to comment, critically, on the potential for
blogs as 'learning spaces' for students within the higher education
sector," which it does with an examination of how blogs have been used
at Harvard Law School and Queensland University of Technology. There are some
interesting bits, including some reflection on the dearth of refereed
literature about blogging (the edu-bloggers tending to put the work in
their blogs instead, where it is subject to a rather more vigorous
screening). "The fact of the matter is that blogging, for all intents
and purposes, is a grassroots phenomenon. For this reason, academic
bloggers, if they are true to their ideals, may be more concerned about
spreading their message in the blogosphere than in the 'Journal of
Obscure Facts'! ... blogging seems to be working in practice, but does
it work in theory?" Some empirical research, which may as well be
published in an academic journal, where standards are lower, since a
sample of 51 self-selected people wouldn't stand a moment's scrutiny in
the blogging community. By Jeremy B Williams and Joanne Jacobs,
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, Summer, 2004 From
Stephen Downes - OLDaily
Nicole's Aggregate Email
I've compiled the
other emails and responded to particular areas.
Deborah: I hesitate to have stuff due Saturday. If we have any
religious Jews who don't use power on the Sabbath, we're sending out a
clear message to them (and yes, I might be a little sensitive about
this because I happen to be Jewish, albeit not Sabbath-observant).
Up in my oblivious cloud, I didn't even think about that. But isn't 7th
day Adventists not allowed to work after dusk on Fridays, so that rules
that out as well. That the 4th of July holiday is on a Sunday is making
our lives difficult. How ironic! Matt: "if the student has any obligations, he/she can always submit" early. Greg: I think that an initial statement that
the due dates are only "the last minute" will resolve some of the
problems.
And there we have it. We do give them multiple days to finish their
work and technically they signed up for a Saturday online course.
Matt: I am a bit frustrated about our lack of unity, but that
could be because we have a bad habit of leaving so many fundamental
issues unresolved at meetings.
I agree! Every time we leave the meetings I think, 'but I thought
we'd go over the projects together one by one and see what we all think
about each and what we'd done so far.' and fretting about due dates
being settled. and wondering why we didn't cover this or that...and why
are we leaving already?
Now on another matter, Patty: I think it is important to keep
in mind that what we are looking for is a way to create LESS work, not
more. Use of multiple tools helps that. Use of open source software
helps. I don't see how we can tie our hands with Blackboard when there
may be other, more beneficial, tools out there.
I'm worried, at this point, about getting things in on time. However, is our work on building this course limited to this single
teaching experience, or are we looking to create a template for the
future? If it is the latter, then couldn't we continue to build this
course while we're in the midst of teaching it in order to create an
online experience for future teaching? Even if our current students
will not benefit from the complete experience, future classes can. Then
we can work on Matt's idea with the video and audio experience plus any
others we can think of...and even, perhaps, if it's ready by
mid-semester, ask students to test it out, get their written feedback,
and offer a bit of extra credit for their work. We could throw
Greg's idea about the list serve into that as well.
Now regarding an older email of Deborah's, do we want a diagnostic on
grammar and a second diagnostic on working with blackboard? The second
would have to be created later once we get everything completely set up
and know, ourselves, where everything is. Did anyone volunteer to
create a grammar diagnostic? I could work out something using an old
copy of the Simon & Schuster handbook and compiling some of the
exercises listed therein.
Amazing Growth
1.9 million Americans enrolled in at least one online course in 2003.
I met w/ the Amazing Dr. B. yesterday to come up with a work flow
strategy for our online pilot. Sometimes it is hard to move forward when
there are so many tool choices.
Coalescence of Trends
While at ETD 2004, I became aware of an important and intriguing trend. Three
formerly isolated initiatives are becoming viewed as three essential
puzzle pieces to a new vision for higher education:
-
eportfolios
-
ETDs
-
erepositories
Obviously, eportfolios and ETDs are not
"new." Innovative universities started requiring eportfolios in
the middle 1990s and ETDs by around 2000. Requiring eportfolios
and requiring lap tops of undergrads is no longer an innovation; it's
just good pedagogy. Erepositories are
fairly new to me, though....
But what is really new, which I find clever and interesting, is
bringing these three pieces together--viewing eportfolios as an
undergrad initiative; ETDs as a grad initiative, and erepositories
as a faculty initiative.
My understanding is that the innovators are brainstorming on developing DSpace (MIT's searchable, open-source, electronic archive of digital research) to
integrate these initiatives.
For someone like me, who is interested in how literacy is evolving,
these are really interesting changes. Maybe it should have been obvious
all along. The common thread to these initiatives, beyond increasing
access or creating a new writing space, seems to be our innate effort
to organize and communicate.
Join Us @ ResearchBlogs.Org
Writing an Electronic Thesis or Dissertation? Chairing or sitting on an ETD committee?
We invite you to join our community of scholars at http://researchblogs.org.
Established
for graduate students, faculty, and librarians involved in the
electronic thesis or dissertation process, Researchblogs.org provides a
free writing space for the development of ideas and research, linking
all in an international dialogue.
Unlike other weblogs where individuals search the web for bloggers
with similar interests, Researchblogs.org hopes to bring the community
to the individual. On the homepage of Researchblogs.org the
twenty most recent blog entries are posted
allowing for the development of conversations among those with similar
interests, and allowing for communication across disciplines.
Researchblogs.org also groups the twenty most recent blog
entries in one research area, allowing for the growth of more in depth
conversations within a single discipline.
Blogging at researchblog.org helps you:
· Develop the discipline of writing.
· Network with other researchers and scholars internationally.
· Maintain research links.
· Develop research ideas.
· Connect to other disciplines.
· Receive responses to ideas and writings.
· Create a dialog over texts.
Maricopa - Freshman Comp
You
all probably know about this - but it came up in this online conference
I'm doing this week... If I wake up early enough tomorrow
morning, I'll do their chat session.
Maricopa Stories Around the Digital Campfire (Chat Room): Alisa Cooper
The Paperless Classroom
Alisa Cooper, English Faculty, South Mountain Community College
"A
freshman composition course was taught using technology to eliminate
the endless stacks of papers that get exchanged between faculty and
students. The course utilizes Blackboard for course management, Blogger
for writing journals, CourseForum for portfolios, and electronic
grading using Microsoft Word."
- Afroza Ahmed (example student weblog)
http://smc-afroza.blogspot.com/
- Freshman Composition @ South Mountain CC (course weblog)
http://homepage.mac.com/professorcooper/ENG102/Menu19.html
QuickTopic - A Way to Allow Others to Comment on Your Work
http://www.quicktopic.com/docreview
I'm doing an online conference right now and the “speaker” just
presented this: You can put up a document on the web and let anyone
comment on your document paragraph by paragraph. The original document
is unchanged.
RE: Blogging in the Schools
Will R. certainly plays the gloom and doom game. Maybe weblogging isn't
for high schoolers, especially when one has to deal with censorship
rearing its ugly head. And, although he makes a valid point, I couldn't
help but be drawn to this link,
in which a student is praised for her excellent blogging work. This was
what the student had to say in response to the teacher's praise:
"This weblogging group has showed me many opportunities. I have taught
some other kids with my writing, which has been one of my dreams for a
while. I have also learned from other webloggers. One main point I have
learned from others is to always copy your writing before you post. Writing has shown me a career I am now
considering. I can become a journalist! Now I
know that journalism can be fun, exciting, and even exhilarating, not
just boring.
All you people out there who say that elementary students
can't blog......You Are SO Wrong!!! Look what it's done for me. It has
taught me so much, while letting me have my voice shown across the web.
I have been blogging for 2 years now and I haven't had a problem yet.
Each time I post a blog entry, I feel like I'm on Cloud 9. It feels
like I just got elected for the first women president! It feels like I
just gained a million really close friends! Get what I'm saying? It's
like your favorite thing, times 1000!!! Without blogging, I don't know
what I would do. Again, elementary students CAN BLOG!!!!!
Emily (the effervescent student) is why students should blog. That
joyous feeling is why students should blog. Will R. seems to be mired
in that Eeyore attitude that blogging is useless because SOME students
drop it when they find that there is no way to manipulate a good grade
out of the teacher by doing the assignment. I think that goes along
with the same mindset that took competition out of kids' sports and
made everybody "winners" rather than praising the achievers and saying
"better luck next time" to the underachievers. In other words, the
student is not blogging for the joy of it; she is blogging because she is being tasked (see the threads on Rhet Tech for THAT thorny
issue).
With that said, how does one pass judgment (grade) on a blog when it
is required? The answer is this: grade them on output. Do like we do
now: you write so many blogs, you get this grade.
That will satisfy those who want the playing field level. On the other
hand, if we remove blogs as an option for writing there will be some
students -- for whom blogging might be personally fulfilling -- who
will be lost in the daily drudgery of the 5-paragraph suppository
essay. I would be willing to bet that these are students who are
marginalized, who do not fit into larger social groups, and who are
brilliant kids, bored with school and tending to wind up doing drugs or
hanging out with the wrong crowd because they feel like outcasts.
Sure, not every student will be a blogger. But there are many kids out
there who are loners and blogging is something that is individual and
personal, yet public at a time when they want to make their personal,
inner angst -- that wounded ego -- heard "out there". That is what
makes the Internet great. (btw: I come by this information from
experience as a marginalized student and mother of a brilliant kid with
ADHD).
I suppose that would go for college also. Granted, we do not censor
(except for certain epithets), but we do require students to blog at
some level. I look at it as offering an alternative to what they were
probably expecting as first-year students. We may catch a few more
brilliant people in the net by encouraging blogging and I do know, from
dealing with my own students and blogging, that they definitely prefer
it over doing other activities. Their reader responses in the blogs and
wikis seemed to be a bit freer once I took off the constraints of the
"Three D's" template.
Re: An Idea About Using Chat
I
used chat last semester. Students were not showing up for
Friday's classes so I made a deal with them. If they signed in to
Blackboard by the time class ended they would get credit for attending
class without having to physically show up (I mean, why waste MY
time?). They were to get their assignment off Blackboard as well
as check the ongoing conversations. I was available in the
chat during class hours as well as my office hours. Only one
or two students availed themselves of the chat, but I think in an
online setting this is a tool they may have to deal with if they
want some real-time interaction. What I also found
interesting was that I could always account for my time spent as well
as my students'. This way no one could say someone was slacking.
An Idea About Using Chat
Hi!
I found this on DEOS-L yesterday - and the person posting the message
said it was ok to share - but I left her name off of this just in
case.
Live Chats in Online Classes
While I use the discussion boards very heavily, I have been using the chat
once a week at the same time as the first orientation session (I require a
three hour class on campus the first evening of the semester). Chat has not
been required and becomes very informal. I use the whiteboard to outline the
topics or students enter and ask question like an office hour.
One chat which draws a crowd is an assignment I have for setting a list
which all the students will be using to write an essay. We draw up a list
of criteria for the assignment which is an evaluation of two items. The
students use five of the 7 or 8 criteria we list. THAT chat draws the most
students, but I include a discussion board too, so every student can
participate. I would love to come up with some other chats which work as
well. I teach English Comp for college freshman.
BlackBoard Content System vs. SPS
USF is considering purchasing BlackBoard's Content Management System
The Blackboard Content System provides functionality in these areas:
- Learning Content Management
- e-Portfolio Management
- Virtual Hard Drive Management
- Library Digital Asset Management
I went to the session today on BlackBoard's Content
Management System. The tools remind me of SharePoint Services,
yet it doesn't seem as flexible. I mean, w/ SPS the user creates the
views and web parts and handle management. SPS has a much more
attractive interface and choice of templates, and it's building on
users' preferred tools.
But I should still buy stock in BB. BB's CMS has a nice portfolio
wizard and they are enabling users to export the portfolio in html.
Movement from course to course and co teaching is now supported, it
seems.
My sense is that USF Academic Computing is committed to buying
the tool because it builds to all of the work they have already done;
it sits on top of the courseware in which they have invested so much money.
We need to think more about this.
It basically takes MSFT's Web Folder idea and puts it between the classes and the portal. I was impressed.
Now I could fight for SPS but the problem here is the lack of USF
support. I'm told Vanderbilt Law is using SPS for 700 law students.
Wow, I wish I could work there. I once visited Vandy and they were
interested in online writing. Well, I digress...
Anyway, I think USF will get the new CMS and I think this will be a
good thing, even if it requires students to rethink their
relationships with writing tools.
Thesis Abstract
_People ask what my thesis is about. Well, SOME people ask. Most don't care._
SHORT ABSTRACT:
Tolkien's Sacred Marriage: Coupling in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion
I intend to discuss how Tolkien represents his female characters as
archetypal wives and mothers. By including classical feminine types in
his stories, he honors the two women with whom he had the most contact:
his mother and his wife.
Although he knew his mother only briefly, she was, nonetheless, his
mother; a relationship which is special to any boy, no matter how
brief the interaction. Tolkien's courtship of his wife was also met
with difficulty and separation.
As a result of this, Tolkien's works were not just "boys' books,"
which is an argument that has revived itself with the most recent spate
of popularity of his works. The release of the motion pictures brought
that argument to the Internet and into the entertainment media where it
was debated until as recently as the past few months.
Therefore, I would like to illuminate, by using classical and Celtic
sources, why Tolkien's books appeal to female readers. I contend
that Tolkien's portrayal of women, -- using archetypal Norse and Celtic
themes -- is not only his homage to the women in his life, but also a meaningful way of making his works endearing to both genders.
I will look at psychology and psychological approaches to literary criticism (Freud, Jung, etc) for my research.
Research
Personal Author: Kim, Loel
Peer Reviewed Journal: Y
Journal Name: Research in the Teaching of English
Source: Research in the Teaching of English v. 38 no.
3 (February 2004) p. 304-37 Publication Year: 2004 Physical
Description: Bibliography (p 331-4); Diagram; Table
ISSN: 0034-527X
Language of Document: English
Abstract: English departments are increasingly under
pressure to offer writing courses online, but research that informs
effective pedagogies--including effective ways to respond to students'
drafts--is still limited. By investigating students' perceptions of
online teacher response to student writing, this study suggests that in
order to develop sound online writing courses, instructional designers
will need to understand better the hybridized nature of online
modalities. Early studies promised that voice modality would enhance
feedback to in-process drafts, not only because of a lower cost of
production, but because this modality offers nonverbal as well as
verbal information. However, as this study points out, students do not
necessarily regard more information as better. In addition, the process
of interpreting social information online may differ from the way we
read information in a face-to-face setting. In this study, 39
first-year college students, working with texts that had previously
been seeded with ten writing problems (five low- and five high-level
problems), reacted to online responses to these texts from one of four
teachers, both in voice and written modality. Based on prior studies,
students were expected to prefer voice over written comments; however,
they exhibited split preferences due to a significant teacher effect.
This finding for teacher impact was complicated by the finding that
80{percent} of students did not recognize the same teacher in the two
modalities, suggesting that modality plays a role in the ways students
construct the teacher behind the response. This study points to the
need for further situation-specific research to guide the development
of online instruction. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Subject(s): English language/Composition/Colleges and
universities; Internet/Distance education use/Colleges and
universities; English language/Composition/Evaluation; Teachers and
students/Colleges and universities Document Type: Feature Update Code:
20040330
Database: Education
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