Our agenda was to:
- answer any questions about IRB applications + projects
- make sure the blogs are linked up
- discuss how we want to use Computers and Writing and if anyone wants to go besides me
- talk through Lankshear + Knobel's piece on new literacies research
- discuss what how we would like to use the new media features of our ebook
For those of you who received provisional approval, my understanding is that you can begin collecting data, but that you must submit the requested changes by the data mentioned in the approval.
Use the provisional approval form to make your changes. Email a hard copy to the IRB addres (+ whatever additional materials were requested) and turn in a hard copy to the IRB office (I think I have to sign it).
- Under section B in the form : Copy and paste each provision from your notification letter then address each issue as numbered in your notification letter.
- Then => In your application identify the changes by italicizing and underlining to show where the changes from the original submission address the issues/concerns of the IRB. (also mark them so that the reader can correlate the changes with the list posted under B on the provisional approval form).
BLOGS
We are getting there. We will keep working on the privacy issues. My blog is set as not searchable = but open to anyone who has a link. If you want to make SURE no one reads your blog, you will want to set it to invitation only. We can finalize links/invitations at the next meeting.
COMPUTERS & WRITING
I will go to the e-publishing workshop, the GRN + selected talks. If you look through the program and see anything you'd like notes on- let me know. It should be exciting. I am assuming I am the only one going - but if anyone changes his/her mind, I can turn in paperwork to travel this week.
L&K: FRAMING NEW LITERACIES RESEARCH
Defining terms. We used the Lankshear and Knobel piece as a starting place for defining terms: new literacies, literacy practices, discourse, Discourse, discursive, "ethos" (identity) stuff associated with literacy practices and discourses surrounding new literacy practices. Hopefully you have some notes on these terms - since I seem to have deleted all mine.
Changing technologies = changing culture.
We also had a discussion that extended the chart for differences between Web 1.0 & 2.0 to include the ways new media use has changed since this essay was written. The progress from Ofoto=>Flickr=>Instagram embodies a lot of the kinds of changes emerging technologies and practices have brought about. As L&K point out in the changes from 1=>2, there is continuing movement from text-like organizations (static configurations, authorized by centralized expertise=artifacts produced for consumption) to configurations that are participatory, collaborative, and distributed. That is, they are created and accessed through de-centralized authority structures, that content is vetted through user participation, with increasing networks of connection. We also noted the increasing accessiblility made possible through cheaper technology, more powerful + specialized and easy to use applications, and ubiquitous use (if you don't know how to use it - you can ask almost anyone). In some sense, new media practices are being "assimilated" and so that they are becoming "commonplace" as opposed to "new". In some cases and in some social circles (particularly in adolescence) new media connetions have been socially integrated into "everyday" expectaions for living in the 21st century. This information is "out there" = everyone knows this.
Elements of new literacies studies from a socio-cultural perspective =>RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In the section beginning on 292, L&K identify constructs (features and consequences of the features) of new literacies that will be of interest in studies that look at new literacies as social, culturally significant phenomena. They suggest that studies that connect new literacies to social contexts, underlying power dynamics, dominant (and nondominant) discourses, and so on, will look at:
1. recognized ways of being, doing, and saying (discourses) = what are the meanings associated with "correct" ways of being, doing, and saying (where meanings include the assumptions, values, & beliefs that generate those meanings) characteristic of my community?
2. meaningful content = what constitutes meaningful content in my community? what distinguishes what is significant from what is not?
3. encodifcation = what are the practices for "encoding" meaningful content within my community? In what ways is encodification context dependent? How does encoder identity (ethos stuff) affect encodification?
4. discourse membership = what constitutes discourse membership? How is status negotiated within my discourse community? What is the interaction between ethos stuff & technical stuff for discourse community membership? And so on.
I have listed their four poits -along with some of the questions that might arise when you look at your community in light of those constructs.
As a writing exercise, each of your wrote some questions you might ask about your community. These are not the questions you will ask when you interview your participants => rather they are questions you will ask of your data. You will look at your data with these questions in mind. Neither should they (necessarily) be questions that will generate direct answers to what you (think you) are studying. THEY ARE QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU CHARACTERIZE YOUR DISCOURSE COMMUNITY. For a rich answer to any question you might ask about your community, you have to have a broad, complex understanding of how your community works.
Spend some time with these questions. It is a good idea not to rush to answering questions associated with your focus until you have spent LOTS of time with these questions.
Finding a (relevant) focus.
L&K suggested 4"purposes" that can serve as frames for new literacy studies. Seeing what is there, trying out (or suggesting new) theory, applying findings to educational agendas, participating in a larger research agenda.
I suggested that we all start out in the "seeing what is there" perspective. A fundamental feature of ethnographic study is seeing the data "new" => in so far as possible, the idea is to "step out" of our predispositions (carried forward from the culture we belong to) and describe what we see.
Because many of the mediated communities we are looking a have been studied before (one way or another) = part of our claim to importance will be an intentional exploration of the social practices, discourse, etc that does not (prematurely) lapse into theoretical "summing up" or an educational agenda. As stated in our proposal for C's, one central purpose of our work is to identify underlying ideologies that characterize these communities = so that educators might see them more from the perspective of participants in those communities (see L&K's discussion on 296 about teachers stepping into minefields).
So let's start there = with deep descriptions of discourse, contexts, participants' assumptions, values & beliefs, social practices through characterizing the data. Then we can see what we have to say.
So for Mark's project = characterizations of the documents, moves he decribes is exactly what we are looking for - and he will certainly end up with material to answer the questions he is interested in (and that may be the focus of his piece). At the same time, for the focus for the book => which is contrasting ideologies within particular mediated communities with educational ideologies, there needs to be sufficiently rich material for a complex representation of the ideology of each community.
Trust me, we will be talking about this some more.
DIGITAL FEATURES OF THE eBOOK
I ran out of time and am now off to Helen's farm. I will post the rest of this later today = maybe as a new post. This is LONG.
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