Jocene – cck08

The following is an abstract for the ERCM Conference next year. I need to put this in my blog so I can link to it in my electronic application, and therefore retain the formatting – yeiks!

(Secret and password protected) Diary of a Web 2.0 Novice – A Subtextual Phenomenon.

Web 2.0 social media tools, such as Twitter, Second Life, Delicious, Flickr, RSS feeds, Weblogs, Webcasts and more, are mutating on a daily basis and have already permeated the daily communication activities of our clients, our students and our loved ones. At (our university) we are currently doing research into encouraging and enabling the use of Web 2.0 technology in the form of personal learning environments (PLEs). Within the Action Research framework, we are using a creative, (and for this study a) blog-based methodology called Subtextual Phenomenology (*Vallack, 2006), to deal with the reflective data, and to thus identify the obstacles faced by recalcitrant users of this new technology. 

In this paper I set out the research design and some sample, autoethnographic-style, reflective data for the project. Surfacing from the thick and candid blog-data are themes about the learning experiences of an academic, middle-aged, Web 2.0 novice, as she struggles to master the social media that will enable her to build her web-based, Personal Learning Environment(PLE). The focus of this paper, however, will be on the reflective component of the Action Research paradigm, and the efficacy of Subtextual Phenomenology as a methodology for processing this (seemingly) random data.

The first part of the paper argues that systematic positivism should give way to more interpretive and comprehensive qualitative data, if the business of tackling new technologies is to be understood. The second part of the paper explains and demonstrates the phenomenological processes that reveal the essential elements of experience for the Web 2.0 novice as she embraces her Personal Learning Environment (PLE).

The general framework for our inquiry into the PLE phenomenon is Action Research. Within the reflective phase of the Action Research, Subtextual Phenomenology is used to critically manage the subjective Weblog data:

Our emergent Action Research has evolved alongside our research questions, to best support and validate the inquiry into PLEs. I demonstrate that the essentially reflective and subjective data can be rigorously processed through Subtextual Phenomenology, to inform the researchers as they confront this Web 2.0 communication phenomenon.

                                                    ……………………………………………………

 SAMPLE DATA ONLY – please do not include in word count:

@http://jocene.edublogs.org/

October 8th, 2008:

Gee you spend a lot of time for nothing in front of a computer screen. I have wasted hours this week trying every password I’ve ever used to get back into this weblog (for some reason I prefer the full name of the thing. The abbreviation sounds obscene.). Anyway, Edublog has been closed for renovations, but, of course, I just thought it was me. When it asked me if I had forgotten my password, I affirmed that this was the case and put in a request for a new one to be sent to my email. Unfortunately, when I set up this blog, I had to use my home email, and to get into that from work required me to send for another password from Bigpond. This line of obscurity is now prominently in my work diary, for there is no way I could remember it, and I am afraid to change it to something else that, clearly, is forgettable. I try    to use the same password, but then some machine trying every password I’ve ever used to get back into this weblog (for some reason I prefer the full name of the demands that I embellish it by adding a lot of B*##y! I style characters. So then, like it not, I have another password to contend with. Another password that will ensure that no-one can break in to see what I am about to publish on my PUBLIC WEBLOG!

I don’t know what all this security is about – it’s just a nuisance. Anyway, I work with a shop load of super-geeks (all gorgeous) who could break into anything I construct (if they really wanted to be bored out of their brains!). 

So the thought for the day is – just because you’ve hit another “invalid username“, doesn’t mean that it’s not because the system isn’t down! (Love all those triple negatives when I’m feeling like the martyr.

Which reminds me – I still haven’t been able to access my car radio since they took out the battery!

 

 

 

 

22^nd December, 2008.

Philosophers such as Whitehead have argued that life is a process. Nothing stands still – except sometimes in my mind when I recall, not the event, but a memory of it. Like some drag-queen  parody,  a distorted reality, that changes its disguise to suit my fancy. This is my subjective experience.

But sometimes in my dreams I sit gently with the essence of that experience and know it to be a shared and universal phenomenon – a Jungian, collective consciousness. This is the encounter with the eternal .  This is peaceful. Only in our minds can time stand still – only conceptually do we access reality, for its imitations slip daily through our grasp. And it worries us that we can’t pin down this elusive present.  And that makes us sad that we can’t put it in a jar and keep it forever, and watch it die.

We place a lot of importance on what others think. We win degrees, awards and self-esteem through the opinions (or whims, or prejudices) of our esteemed judges. But how do they know?

In an early blog,  David Jones http://davidtjones.wordpress.com/page/4/ referred to an article by Cronholm and Goldkuhl about strategies for information systems evaluation. They have conveniently created a matrix that reveals six types of strategies. These six types are contrived from research questions related to what to evaluate and how to go about that. I am particularly intrigued with what they call “Goal free” evaluation, which is emergent by nature, and perhaps aligns with what David would call “ateleological” in structure (if that is not a contradiciton in terms).

I am keen to explore the extent to which each of these designs might inform our research into PLEs, and then (as the authors suggest) triangulate the findings for a comprehensive, and perhaps integrated view of PLE potential.

Time to feed the kittens now.

I would just like to mention that I bought a hat last week, from one of those trendy surf shops, that I would never normally go in to. The hat was handed to me in a colourful bag, branded with Billabong’s slogan:

“Be who you want to be.”

Was it that marketing innovation that somehow, subliminally caused me to buy that product?  How clever! How familiar!