On Deadlines and Wrapping Things Up

I've been reading Harry Wolcott's Transforming Qualitative Data: Desription, Analysis, and Interpretation. In it, he talks about moving from descriptive accounts into analytical accounts and interpretive accounts. He stresses the importance of time for extended reflection to enable a researcher to move to interpretation. The essential element of time is clearly illustrated with an interpretive account he wrote to "finish" his dissertation 25 years after he turned it in. As he introduces this work, he cites Clifford Geertz who "reminds us that we never really complete our studies, we only abandon them." That really puts this dissertation project into perspective for me. I may not have everything finished, but I plan to abandon it some time in March.

You just might be a graduate student if...

You just might be a graduate student if...

You can read the entire list, but I laughed the hardest at these.....

...your office is better decorated than your apartment. Hmmmm. My study is the second nicest room in the house. The nicest? Cem's study, of course.
...you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.
...you have ever spent more than $50 on photocopying while researching a single paper.
...you wonder if APA style allows you to cite talking to yourself as "personal communication"

Fifty Research Tips

From Sara Delamont's Fieldwork in Educational Settings

Delamont includes a table titled, Wilson's fifty research tips. I thought I'd share a few:
1. Don't panic too often.
2. Only write on one side of the paper.
3. Be nice to librarians (especially in inter-library loans). Becky's note: Be nice to the technologically-savvy ILL librarians who brought electronic ILL on campus!
11. Don't think photocopying is the same as reading.
35. Keep writing.
39. Buy a book on punctuation. (Two English teachers on my committee. What was I thinking !?!)
50. Remember that purple clashes horribly with lots of colours.

Today's pop quiz

CHATquiz,
originally uploaded by BeckyF.

I've been using Engestrom's CHAT framework for my dissertation. I'm taking an activity-theoretical look at work spaces and interactions for the electronic portfolio authoring process. Today it's your turn. This is my work space as it appeared this morning. I was using Atlas.ti. Be sure to click on the picture to travel to Flickr and read the notes.

What's your CHAT analysis of this space? You can enter your thoughts in the comments, send me an email, or ignore the challenge.

The last post on organization - I promise

Today I made great progress on the data analysis. Starting from scratch was definitely the right thing to do. I worked about 7 hours just on coding. I'm happy to report the new coding scheme is working great! I had to make a few tweaks, but they were minor. I noticed some previously unnoticed ideas and I think I was able to find those because I had spent more time on my analytic framework. I still have many hours coding work in front of me, however my confidence in what I'm doing has increased about a thousand fold! I'm pretty optimistic.

Yesterday, a very nasty Florida-style lightning storm settled over my house in the afternoon. It stayed around for several hours and every room in the house had a UPS chirping as the power flickered and flashed. I didn't trust my surge supressor that much (some of the strikes were really close) and I decided to just quit working and unplug everything. (I prefer to be characterized as cautious, rather than paranoid.) But what to do without using my computer?

I'd been reading Getting Things Done, by David Allen. (The cool geeky types refer to this as GTD). They have a category they track called "Waiting for." That was the idea that caught my attention. I've always been so frustrated trying to remember when to follow up on things someone was supposed to do, but didn't. I try to keep that stuff in my head rather than systematically track it.

Since I wasn't going to be using my computers any way, I decided to implement a slightly modified version of his system to see what would happen. I spent a couple of hours plowing through the two piles of clutter I had on my desk. Gone! I also found a GTDTiddlyWiki and I modified it to suit me. TiddlyWiki is a very nifty little tool and I just love the idea of a wiki on a stick. That's what I have now! That, and a completely, amazingly, clean and organized desk and an (almost) equally organized file system.

There's been a lot of hoorah about GTD, but I haven't been drinking any GTD Koolaid. Imagine my surprise when I realized that my mind was racing in completely productive ways today, rather than the distracting ways it sometimes does. Maybe there's something to this being organized stuff after all.

Lately, I've been reading about "getting organized" more and more. Tonight, I noticed the Academic Coach had a posting on it. She even pointed to someone who was concerned about organizing books. When my sisters ask me what I want for Christmas this year, I'm going to ask for Delicious Library. (Dr. B, I know I told you I was going to order it and just haven't gotten around to it.) I won't forget this time because I've already got it noted on my Someday Maybe list. I suppose I could email them this blog posting, too.

Starting over....

Last week, I said I'd read about 80% of Patton's 3rd edition of Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Yesterday, I finished his chapter on qualitative data analysis. (I think he might have written it just for me.) He said just exactly what I needed to hear. Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked through an Atlas.ti tutorial and read the full-blown 417-page manual. (That's unusual for me. I much prefer digging in and trying to figure things out on my own.) Thanks to the insights from those two sources, I trashed all the analysis I'd done so far.

That's not as bad as it sounds. Now I've got a much more organized and coherent frame for the coding. I understand better how I can use these codes for analysis. I believe I'm going to have a pretty rich saturation for my theoretical framework. (Imagine how rich it will be after I collect the second round of data!) Knowing the data as I do, and re-thinking the codes has helped me see a richness in the data I collected at Mason State that I hadn't fully appreciated until now. I'm very excited!

But there's more! Now that I know more about the software (a well-written manual is amazing that way), I can catch up pretty quickly. For example, I was able to easily import the code list (I started making using Inspiration on my Mac) into Atlas.ti on my Windoze laptop. It was, quite literally, as easy as drag and drop. I was also able to auto-code all of the speakers' data with just a few clicks per speaker. Auto-coding isn't a substitute for manual coding, but when it's appropriate, it's FAST, leaving my time free to focus on the more important stuff. THAT is how a computer ought to be used!

Online QDA's website

I've been a bit nervous about how long it would take me to figure out how to use all the features I would need in Atlas.ti. Their help system seems fine to me, but let's just say I've been approaching the analysis phase of my dissertation with a healthy respect for the complexity of the task.

Today, I was reading a bit about using computer software to help with analysis. It didn't take long before I finished the book chapter and fired up Firefox looking for more information. I found Online QDA, a website designed for a range of users, from beginning to experienced. There's some introductory information about qualitative research in general, but their specific focus is on using CAQDAS software, including Atlas.ti.

They've also got an impressive glossary and list of methodologies.

Finally, they've got one of the neatest feedback forms I think I've ever seen! It's on every page and even gives you the chance to edit your answer to the question "What could improve this page?"

This month is the first AECT blog-in

Over at Cognitive Dissonance, Nate posed the question, “How do we get members of a community (like the Association for Educational Communications and Technology) communicating with each other using the various technologies that we have available?”

A partial answer could be to show our colleagues the best stuff that’s out there. And the way to do that just might be to introduce them to reading RSS feeds. After all, reading feeds has the capacity to offer a daily dose of professional development and intellectual stimulation.

I’m still a doc student, so I'm compelled to offer support for this suggestion.

Gary Boyd commented that people are pressed for time to pay attention to these things. He says “there needs to be something really important to communicate about.” I hope our colleagues consider “the best stuff” really important and worth their attention.

In my case, I’m currently reading 124 feeds. I know I'm missing some and I could probably drop some. I’m sure the new-to-RSS crowd would appreciate suggestions for what to read. (They’d have to learn about blogrolls before they could use them).

Kay Persichitte speaks of her need to centralize communication within and among divisions. She’s not alone. RSS feeds can help – a point Descy’s May/June TechTrends column title tried to make calling RSS “Your one stop for news and information!” (Available here behind an AECT member login)

So, if reading RSS feeds help introduce our colleagues to these new technologies, how can we introduce them to RSS?

Scott Adams mentioned Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation model, and Moore’s application of DOI to technology marketing. If we look at Rogers’ Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process [pdf], we can find some guidance on “marketing” some of these technologies across the chasm to reach those “early majority” colleagues.

If it’s been a while since you’ve read Rogers' work, let me remind you of the stages.

• Knowledge. Our colleagues need to *know* about these new technologies.
  But how best to tell them and who best to tell them? Well, that just depends.
  Some learner analysis would be appropriate here. Broadly speaking, peers telling peers might be a reasonable overall strategy. It might have to be done face-to-face, though.


• Persuasion. This is where our colleagues look at the characteristics
  of the new technologies. If they can see the relative advantages (centralized
  communication, high-quality content) that's a step in the right direction.
  Add trialability (Bloglines is free) and observability (you can lurk forever with RSS feeds) to help make your case. Fortunately, aggregators
  are easy to use, avoiding a lot of complexity issues.


• Decision. Our colleague decides whether or not to try this
  new technology. If they give it a chance, they move into the ...


• Implementation stage where they adopt it or reject it. Finally, they reach
  the


• Confirmation stage where they either convince themselves they've made
  the right decision or they reverse their decision.

What happens after that will be interesting to see. For some people, reading quality RSS feeds will be as far as they go. Others will jump in to the conversations, commenting on provocative posts. A few will become more involved with some of the technologies we're so excited about using. Hopefully, some in that last group will be opinion leaders.

I don’t know what Trey Martindale and David Wiley have planned for their Hitchhiker’s Guide sessions at AECT, but I’m confident they’ll get some on board. I’d probably introduce Bloglines. It just might be the “starter drug” for the social software network!

Too much to learn

First, let me just state up front and without equivocation that I know this is a classic doc student trap. I know it. I've heard it before. I've even said it to a friend or two. Admitting this fact is the first step on the road to recovery. Now that I have the disclaimer out of the way, let me just tell you that I've been reading some very interesting things over the last day or two.

Today, compliments of Trey Martindale and his del.icio.us links feed, I found academic coach, a new blog to read on a regular basis. I just love her tag line: "Earnest exhortations and random tidbits for dissertating grad students, post-doctoral job hunters and tenure-track faculty." Trey's really been on a roll lately. Looks like he's becoming one of my trusted sources. Of course, he's making it difficult to overcome that blogastination.

I've also been on another book buying spree. M.Q. Patton's 3rd edition of Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods arrived Wednesday afternoon. I think I've probably read 80% of it by now. It's a 600-page book so I'm more than just a touch bleary-eyed. My methodology chapter (first draft completed today!!!!) is certainly improved for having done so. I've got another couple of books on order. I hope they don't cause me to do a massive rewrite!

The tenure package

Over at Pedablogue, Mike writes that he just submitted a 3-binder set for his tenure package. It's relatively brief, with a link to another article by Kirk Martini. In that one, Martini talks about the 4-volume set he compiled and likens compiling the tenure package to building a city. He also discusses a colleague's recommendation to include a little glass box to highlight the very best work. .

I can't help wondering about electronic portfolios for this effort. I don't think they're especially popular and I suppose that's because the risk of thinking outside the box (or binder) is too great. Does a CD or DVD carry the same weight with reviewers?

I felt like this LAST week

Clancy Ratliff is working on her dissertation, too. Today she quoted from someone's year-old post:

I've been totally useless today. I just can't seem to get anything done. But I am looking at maybe finishing a draft of my second chapter by Monday. That's the good news. Of course, we'll see what the comments are like. No matter. I just keep writing. It might not be great--might not even be pretty good. Nevertheless, it is fifty pages of words with quotations and paragraphs and subheadings. If that ain't a chapter, then I don't know what is.

I'm feeling much better THIS week. (Maybe it's the zero-message inbox) Who knows what next week will bring?

Getting MORE organized

I've been waiting for a chance to look at BaseCamp or Backpack. I finally did it this weekend and started a free account with a To Do list. While I was visitng different sites, I found this article. I was inspired! This is the result!!!