A blog for my notes for Qualitative Research.
Links
Other Stuff
: Testing out theme/thesis statements...
The Internet figures prominently in the lives of American teens. Over 17 million kids, between the ages of 12 and 17, use the Internet (Lenhart, Rainie, & Lewis, 2001). This represents about 73% of the young people in this age bracket. Also, almost 13 million adolescents use instant messaging. It seems that literacy is reinventing itself through these new digital technologies (Luke & Elkins, 1998), and this has huge implications for teachers at the middle and high school level.
As a means to tie in traditional writing activities with new technologies, weblogs or blogs seem appropriate. The blog has many dimensions that make it well suited to students and their unique voices. Today's weblogs are comparable to journals in their styles, providing personal reflections and, possibly, relevant links to related materials. Weblogs are structured much like a traditional journal, with their segments identified by time and date. The weblog may provide a type of online diary where writers can produce daily reflections. Weblogs may be thought of as a series of snapshots of day-to-day activity - both Internet-related and real-life - highlighting the resources individuals use and how they evaluate and apply them in specific contexts. By following weblogs over time, students can obtain a sense of how others digest and make sense of Internet materials.
In this study, I propose to compare adolescents' use of traditional journals with the use of blogs. I believe that using blogs, participants will increase the frequency with which they make journal entries, the length of those entries, and the evidence of critical thinking skills. Most importantly, I believe that using a blog will increase the participants' feelings of self-efficacy and perspective of themselves as authors and publishers.
: Even Barbie has her own blog!
: (To steal shamelessly from The Princess Bride ...) Let me tell you what we talked about tonight...no, that would take too long...let me sum up. ;)
Our assignment had been to read Weis, Chapter One, and Glesne, Chapter One. As a result, we talked a lot about quantitative vs. qualitative research in class. In my mind, the definitive statement to separate the two is that quantitative is objectivist and qualitative is constructivist in nature. I'm beginning to really see how my project -- without the benefit of a qualitative component -- would be sorely lacking in insight. If an electronic blog does not increase frequency or verbosity or higher-level thinking, it may still make a difference in the participants' perspectives and views towards writing and journaling. I'd lose that if I stuck only with a quantitative approach.
We also talked about social injustices in America. It was a very interesting discussion and I enjoyed talking with everyone in class. I also love the fact that we have a class of nine women. It's a nice three hours. :)
One other note...I starting thinking about the qualitative portion of my proposal and how I would word it in my thesis statement. I was brainstorming, trying to come up with concepts or adjectives to describe what I would hope the qualitative portion would reveal. I came up with increases in self-efficacy, viewing selves as authors/writers, more positive outlooks towards writing....then I ran out of ideas. Suggestions?
: Well, tonight in class we began to talk a little about our research projects.
I'm trying to wrap my mind around how I might apply qualitative research to the blogging project I have (tentatively and always subject to change) chosen as my dissertation project. As I was running thru my project, Lisa suggested I might think of interviewing the students involved in the study to get their first-hand thoughts and perspectives of blogging. That sounds good to me.
: This is my electronic journal for EDU7330. According to my esteemed professor, my journal should include:
So.....we're off! Stay tuned for fun!