Wow! I had no idea when I started writing the title to this blog post that it would quickly spiral out of control into a Victorian novel.  Well, if it were a Victorian novel, here’s what the cover would look like:

That brief visual digression was in part brought to you via Picnik, an online image editor. Pretty savvy, no? Now on with my MixedInk follow-up!

As I wrote about yesterday (or early this morning, depending on what time zone you’re reading this in) I’ve got a presentation to be prepping for in late June, which means I’ll now be taking more copious and rigidly structured notes about my experience with using MixedInk in the classroom. At this point I’ve used MixedInk a number of times now (more with my sophomores than with my freshmen, something I hope to remedy this next semester) and have noticed some definite patterns as to what type of assignments work well with this software tool versus which ones do not.

This topic of my presentation at the ISTE conference came up at dinner the other night with my wife’s family who we’re presently visiting in Philadelphia. In the course of explaining the process of how MixedInk works to my mother-in-law, who just retired this year after twenty-five years of teaching middle and upper school students at an independent school, I realized two important things: 1) that the process and steps of working through a MixedInk writing topic is a rather involved one, and 2) I need to become more concise in my ability to explain its functionality. As perhaps I’ve mentioned here before, concision is not my strong suit.

Related to the first point is the fact that not all types of writing assignments work well with MixedInk given its multi-step writing, revision, and rating process. One of the by-products of using MixedInk for a writing project is that it generates a deep familiarity (perhaps bordering on annoyance or exhaustion) with the topic and/or text about which one is writing.  My sophomores made this fact quite apparent to me after we used the tool to engage in a close textual analysis of our textbook author’s portrayal of early humans. In that instance the topic that I had the students write on was too narrow, which meant that by the end of the process the students had seen the key quotations from the text and one another’s analysis so much that they had lost any motivation or desire to discuss it in class.

I had much better success with my most recent foray, which involved writing a response to a so-called “historical puzzle.” I adapted and scaled down this assignment from one that a college professor had assigned in a Medieval History course. The puzzle requires that students closely read six accounts of the same event, in this case the Islamic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 CE, in order to achieve two things: 1) suss out the authorial bias that distinguishes the Christian accounts from the Muslim ones, and 2) determine the order in which these documents were authored. However, the students could not simply answer these questions, but instead had to justify their responses with quotations from the text and logical reasoning to support their conclusions. The exercise not only exposes students to the idea of historiography and the ways in which the interpretation of the same event can change over time, but it also pushes them to worry less about the right answer and instead focus on the reasoning and substantiation for their argument. In short, its a good, valuable assignment for getting students to practice the habits of historical thinking in a safe, low-risk setting.

MixedInk turned out to be an ideal tool for this type of assignment for a variety of reasons. Firstly, although the students were dealing the same textual excerpts, each one tended to gravitate to different passages or phrases, so that the entire class didn’t end up reading the same quotation over and over again in the remixing and rating phases of the assignment. Secondly, the way in which the assignment is framed a “puzzle” or mystery to be solved makes it somehow more exciting or compelling. Finally, the goal of the assignment was to remix one’s original essay by drawing on the ideas, reasoning, and evidence of one’s classmates in order to create an essay that garnered the highest ratings from one’s classmates. As a result, the fact that students could see one another’s responses and answers through the transparency-creating feature of MixedInk provided them with alternative perspectives that would both challenge their initial interpretations and also provide them with material that they could use to improve their own essays.

Given that MixedInk topics lead to the creation of one “winning” entry, this topic also seemed ideal because it would generate a single document that the classes could then read, critique, and discuss before learning the correct answers about origin and dates of each document’s authorship. Moreover, because the classes wanted to know the correct answer, reading through this “winning” entry didn’t seem like a needless chore or an unnecessary re-tread of material because it provided a clear point of comparison with the right answer. Although I stressed to students that the accuracy or lack thereof in terms of their conclusions about the relative dates of authorship was not important, knowing the correct answer still proved compelling to students at the end of a process where they had invested a substantial chunk of time into a narrow range of documents.

One area where I hope to have more specific discussion and provide clearer guidance for the students is in terms of the criteria for rating a peer’s writing. It seemed that this portion of the process occurred rather quickly and without a clearly articulated sense of what one should be looking for. Perhaps having the class collaboratively develop a very specific rubric for the assignment before starting the rating stage would lead to a more careful and critical reading of the other entries. Nevertheless, the winning essay from this assignment was quite strong in its reasoning and use of evidence and provided precisely the type of counterpoint I’d hoped to have in contrast to the correct answer.

So, for those of you looking for the easy way out of this post, here’s the Reader’s Digest Version:
•    MixedInk a great tool for in-depth writing;
•    Especially strong for “problem solving” type writing assignment;
•    Requires substantial time investment;
•    Don’t skimp on time spent establishing criteria for “rating”

As you all know, I’m big on my “top 10″ lists and think these lists are an important part of my reflection process. So I figured it would be a good idea to continue my trend with my top ten thoughts from my very first semester of teaching!

Here we go…

10. Kids are kids. No matter where you are, where you teach, what you teach, the bottom line is kids are kids. All have some sort of “obstacle” (don’t we all?), all have something they need/want to learn (secretly, perhaps), all have something that makes them unique, individual learners.

I know this may sound stupid, but when I was going over my pro/con list of potential schools I was considering working at, I thought about where I would have the most “effect” on students and their lives. I wanted to be a “Mrs. Gruwell” type teacher…and before anyone jumps on me for my grandiose views of teaching, I would like to say I still want to be that type of teacher! I want to motivate, challenge, open-eyes, etc., and I think this is where my passion for teaching really comes from.

Anyway, after talking with my mentor, I realized that I can be that type of teacher anywhere. Kids are kids. Inner city vs. suburbia. Suburbia vs. rural. High socioeconomic status vs. low socioeconomic status. Public vs. private. KIDS ARE KIDS! It’s up to me to have the “effect” on students I want no matter where I’m teaching. (And, if I do say so myself , I’m making a difference. How do I know? Because my kids have told me which is the best feeling ever!)

9. Listening is one of the most powerful skills a teacher can have. Heck, a powerful skill that anyone can have. I’ve talked about it many times before, but I’ve realized you can learn so much from your students just by listening. When they realize you are hearing them, they realize you are committed to them and their learning. Asking their opinions, walking around the room, you all know what I’m talking about. Getting students to listen to each other whether it is through collaboration or various other learning environments that require listening. And with this in mind, I had a discussion one time talking about how we can “teach” listening? Do we teach respect and with respect listening comes? How can we improve our listening skills (and help our students improve theirs)?

8. Technology is important — rather how technology is used is important. I believe in technology integration in the classroom. You all know that I’m a huge advocate for using 21st century skills to promote the more “traditional” skills that have shaped the English classroom. And besides the fact I feel that technology adds an element in the classroom that hooks kids, I think technology in itself strengthens our problem solving and critical thinking skills. We no longer have a choice to use it, in my opinion. It’s our job to use it and teach our students how to use it effectively and safely.

7. Writing is my strength. I’ve known this. After all my professional writing/publication/rhetoric and composition background helped pave a pretty good foundation for me. I love to teach writing and help students see that they are great writers, too (which by the way is where this might come in the picture next semester). And though I’m a great writer, I know that I am also a great reader. (Love to read, need to make more time for it.) I can analyze and critically read a text with the best of them, ha! However, I find that I have a harder time teaching students reading strategies that work for them. In other words when it comes to writing, I can spout off ideas/strategies immediately that students may find helpful. With reading, it takes me a second to think about…it’s not an automatic for me. I know what works for me, but I know that my students aren’t me. Thus, developing an automatic  repertoire of reading strategies is one of my teaching goals.

6. Student creativity is amazing. I am always floored by some of the ideas my students come up with. I really try to incorporate every opportunity I can to bring their creativity out and thoroughly engage them. (I think this is where multiliteracies plays a huge part.) With this in mind, I need to do a better job of keeping my teaching ideas together (enter: yellow notebook, twitter, gmail task list) that I think would really help bring out my students’ creativity. I also want to work on helping my students see that they are capable of and have already created a lot of awesome things (be it their formal essays, glogs, podcasts, flip videos…the list continues). I want them to be as proud of their work as I am. (Again, where this ties in….and other publishing/contents/etc. that I can come up with for them.) I also need to start making copies of sample student work to reflect back on (any ideas/suggestions on how others are collecting student work?).

5. Keeping an open mind is essential to success today. One thing I really push in class is always keeping an open mind. Respect is key. We aren’t all going to get along; we aren’t all going to agree. But we can have an open mind while respecting our own beliefs, morals, values. (I need to expand this idea more…but it’s another blog post all by itself stemming around Paradise Lost.)

4. Personal Learning Networks! Yep, that’s right PLNs can be a teacher’s best friend(s). I feel very fortunate to have people I can turn to via blogs, twitter, ECN, email, text, phone, next door…you name it, and I have someone! Our classrooms are not an isolation room. And I think it’s important for teachers all over to embrace and welcome the thoughts/inputs/ideas of others…be it right down the hall or across the country!

3. It’s ok to not have all of the answers. I’m still learning. I love learning (a part of why I teach). And I think it is a great attribute of a teacher to always acknowledge that he/she is learning, too. I want my kids to be life long learners…I can’t think of a better way for me to show them what  life long learner is than to be one myself! And I know I’ve said it before, but I think that a classroom that encourages cooperative learning (with me as a “learner” as well) is one that will see a lot of success.

2. Reflection/”me” time is a necessity. Absolutely. An important balance between school and personal life is a necessity. And it’s something I’m working on. I don’t want to feel “blah.” I need to make time to do the things that have shaped me into the teacher I am today. And, as the saying goes, you have to take care of yourself first before you can attempt to take care of others.

And last but not least…if you couldn’t already tell….

1. I love teaching. It really is all about the little things. And I have made a difference even through the tiniest things I would’ve never thought to leave a “footprint” in my students’ minds/lives.

(I love teaching .)

I was watching a show on Hawaii with my parents tonight on the Smithsonian Channel (they get waaayy cooler channels than I do), and watching a surfer catch a wave, thinking, “That’s physics in action.”  The way the surfer has to understand the physical motion of the wave, calculating for speed and force, adding in the importance of placement for the perfect balance at the point where the wave crests and the barrel is just beginning.  It was utterly beautiful.

My students believe that physics is something in a classroom lab.  It doesn’t exist outside the walls of the school.  Neither do the reading strategies I offer them, the scientific process, the history lessons they learn, or the books they read.  They kind of understand that they’ll have to do math in the “real world”,  but since they have calculators, even that is beginning to show a real loss of importance.  I have no way of showing them the applications of what we learn in school because of the very fact that we are in school.

Upon reflection, I am beginning to realize just how important a field trip really is.  Not only is it a way to emphasize a lesson’s worth outside the classroom walls, it is ideal for information synthesis.  One of the things I really think we are missing in schools is the ability to show the students that nothing is in isolation.  It’s like all of the lessons are in a vacuum, and I think there is a great importance in showing how the idea of physics meets surfing or shipbuilding, how history is related to literature and psychology and politics, how chemistry is related to art and music.

I wonder if the idea of field trips was no longer considered a 4-letter word would our students begin to naturally acquire the skills and thoughts we find so important?  That real world application seems to be lacking in the current model – and I think to the students’ disadvantage.

Netagogy is the study of netwok and internet-based learning.

The notion is an expansion and interpretation of Connectivism, heutagogy and andragogy.  It is the process of engaging learners with the structure of learning experience in personal, social, international networks, and internet.

Netagogy places emphasis on learning how to learn, with multiple loop learning, personal, social, global and nebulous learning opportunities, a multi-purpose and non-linear complex and emergent process.  A multi-learner interaction coupled with self-directed Netagogy requires that educational and learning initiatives include the innovative and improvement practice of network and internet-based learning and technological skills, as well as learning experience on the multi-faceted perspectives and interpretations on various subject domains in the networks and internet.  These could include Connectivism, Networked Learning, Social Media Learning, PLE/N, Virtual Learning Environment, LMS, Web 2.0, Information and Communication Technology, Mobile Learning and Digital/Online Learning.

This Netagogy helps to develop the capability and capacity of both individuals and networks in personal and social learning with affordances: communicating, engaging, interacting, cooperating and collaborating with others, leading changes necessary for transformational learning under a network and internet based learning ecology.

Further refinements are required on this Netagogy, as these are just my first thoughts.

Your comments are welcomed.

Imagina (i sé que és molt imaginar) que el primer dia de classe a l’Institut, en la primera classe de Biologia que has tingut mai, el professor, abans de dir bon dia, de demanar els noms, de mirar suspicaçment els alumnes, comença així:

Your cells are a country of ten thousand trillion citizens, each devoted in some intensively specific way to your overall well-being. There isn’t a thing they don’t do for you. They let you feel pleasure and form thoughts. They enable you to stand and stretch and caper. When you eat, they extract the nutrients, distribute the energy, and carry off the wastes but they also remember to make you hungry in the first place and reward you with a feeling of well-being afterward so that you won’t forget to eat again. They keep your hair growing, your ears waxed, your brain quietly purring. They manage every corner of your being. They will jump to your defense the instant you are threatened. They will unhesitatingly die for you—billions of them do so daily. And not once in all your years have you thanked even one of them. So let us take a moment now to regard them with the wonder and appreciation they deserve.

I que, abans que hagis aconseguit fer pestanyejar els ulls, continua així:

If you could visit a cell, you wouldn’t like it. Blown up to a scale at which atoms were about the size of peas, a cell itself would be a sphere roughly half a mile across, and supported by a complex framework of girders called the cytoskeleton. Within it, millions upon millions of objects—some the size of basketballs, others the size of cars—would whiz about like bullets. There wouldn’t be a place you could stand without being pummeled and ripped thousands of times every second from every direction. Even for its full-time occupants the inside of a cell is a hazardous place. Each strand of DNA is on average attacked or damaged once every 8.4 seconds—ten thousand times in a day—by chemicals and other agents that whack into or carelessly slice through it, and each of these wounds must be swiftly stitched up if the cell is not to perish.

Per acabar d’aquesta manera:

When cells are no longer needed, they die with what can only be called great dignity. They take down all the struts and buttresses that hold them together and quietly devour their component parts. The process is known as apoptosis or programmed cell death. Every day billions of your cells die for your benefit and billions of others clean up the mess. Cells can also die violently—for instance, when infected—but mostly they die because they are told to. Indeed, if not told to live—if not given some kind of active instruction from another cell— cells automatically kill themselves. Cells need a lot of reassurance.

In June 2008 William Gibson received a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, from Simon Fraser University…

I wasn’t there for the ceremony… and therefore missed the bagpipes leading the regalia into Convocation Mall… but I went up Burnaby Mountain to attend a post-ceremonial gathering in the W.A.C. Bennett Library…

I remember asking Gibson if he ever worries that after completing a project nothing new will come…

that he’ll never get a better idea…

He looked at me like I was nuts and said, something like,

Of course… as I’m writing a book… which I never admit to myself that I’m actually doing… I’m thinking that this is the worst thing I’ve ever written… that no one will want to read it… every time I finish a book I think, that’s it… I have to wait for the weeds to grow up through the floor boards until they’re waist high all around me before I get the feeling like I can start on something new again…

His wife added, from the side of the room, something like…

I hardly see him when he’s in his process… he works alone in his room… and when I hear him say something like “this is the worst thing I’ve ever written,” I know that he’s almost finished…

and I say, “Just keep going dear, you’re almost done…”

A woman came up to me, after the conversation, and asked, 

Are you a writer??? 

I dismissed myself, saying, “Ohmigod no… why would you ever think that???”

She said,

because your questions sound like you’re speaking from experience…

like you know all about your last best idea…

I thought but didn’t say,

Yes, just like Rex Smith must have felt after singing You Take my Breath Away on the rooftop of Landsdowne Mall in Richmond, B.C. when I was in grade seven…

because not everyone is ready for an absence of segues…

This morning I checked my mailbox and came across the link to an article on school design…

As a student I spent more than enough time in portables and the 70’s noise of the Open Area…

feeling the life sucked out of me by flourescent lighting, asbestos insulation, and wall-to-wall utility carpet…

As a teacher I worked in a classroom with small windows on only one of four walls…

windows looking onto a parking lot…

Under those kind of conditions I consumed chocolate every hour on the hour to keep my engines running…

Eventually a Secret Santa began to leave chocolate full of booze on my desk…

with anonymous notes like,

To get you through this Pineapple Express… I leave you, Prozac… 

Then I remembered the power of homemade bison jerky… 

and winter wanderings through suburban neighbourhoods,

for getting through the heart of darkness into some northern light,

with my class…

Mark my footsteps my good page... tred thou in them boldly...

A principal, with reptilian eyes, once said to me, when I told her that I needed to move across the pod to the sunny side of the school, for my mental and physical health (spirit was not even on the list back in 1999) when a classroom opened up due to a retirement…

If that’s what you want you better post into an another school… 

one of those old schools with big windows… 

I gave her the finger… professionally…

and I know that she got the message…

I would walk across a field of broken glass for the last principal I worked under… 

She teased me about being woowoo but she never said,

NO…

only,

I needed some time to think about what you’re asking for and I’ve  just put in a work order for renovating the whole school with full spectrum lighting…

and a fire pit for the school yard…

I always loved  singing ’round the campfire, when I was a Girl Guide back in Kingston…

It has always been clear to me that the people who design schools have never been in a school, worked in a school, or have any idea what kind of atrocities a forced physical structure can inflict on children and adults who spend the best part of their waking hours in an institution…

and if they have, it killed their creativity…

This morning I read these words… 

and I COULD NOT believe my ears…

When Daniel Cecil was named lead architect for Kennebunk Elementary School in 2001, he took the school’s motto, “Look through the eyes of a child and see the wonders of the world,” to heart…

 ”Students must also be able see themselves in the building,” he says. “Images of kids must be visible throughout.”

To this end, whimsical drawings showing children relaxing in nature and animals participating in games — rabbits playing hopscotch, beavers bouncing on seesaws, and bears gliding down slides — are found in most common areas. Like the windows and skylights, earth-tone color schemes and nature-oriented themes bring a sense of outdoor wonder inside the school when the days are short, the sun is scarce, and the snow piles up.”

Read the full text with some critical integrity, for yourself… 

http://www.edutopia.org/kids-eye-view#

Since when do whimsical drawings showing children relaxing in nature and animals participating in games — rabbits playing hopscotch, beavers bouncing on seesaws, and bears gliding down slides have anything to do with looking through the eyes of a child…

the wonders of the world

or an education…

I never saw beavers on seesaws or bears on slides when I was a kid…

except at Disneyland…

This projection of cheap graphics and corporate culture onto children, and the people who work with them, crosses the 49th parallel to dominate Canadian schools because we, as Canadians, allow it…

This summer a friend who works in a newly renovated wing of an old school with big windows,

said to me, with visceral grief, something like…

My whole pedagogy (the way teaching and learning happens) had to change when I moved into my new classroom… I used to have all my students involved in ongoing projects and now there isn’t any space… I had to pack up my arts and crafts table… there are windows in the room but I can only open one of them a crack… last June I had to buy a spray bottle for every child during the heat wave…

it was the only way we could survive the inferno…

You should see Charles Dickens Elementary… rainwater is collected from the roof to flush the toilets, but the classrooms are so small that teachers can’t do what they used to do with their students…

Why don’t people who build schools ever talk to teachers… or kids???

When I woke up this morning I had no idea what I was going to do today…

or that I was going to write about this…

But after doing the dishes and guzzling a glass of organic carrot juice,

instead of shooting Vodka straight into my jugular…

it just happened…

All year (it seems) I’ve been collecting blog posts and tweets and in an effort to declutter my inboxes, I’m going to just post links them with perhaps a couple of words of “why I saved this”.  Feel free to add commentary and links of your own:

• Doug Johnson’s series of posts on budgeting.  He’s only done three so far, but the Internet v. Books and Budgeting for Lean Times are going to be read and reread as I prepare AY2011’s budget!  (I’ll also be evaluating the school’s ROI)
• From across the pond, The Librain’s take on Flipping This Library is serious food for thought.
• YALSA’s series of posts entitled Dollars and Sense.  As a member of YALSA (I’m on the Strategic Plan Committee and I’m presenting at the ALAMW YALSA Institute), keeping on top of what my public library colleagues are facing is important.  I’d also argue vice-versa, as school budgets (see Doug’s posts!) get cut.  Can you say partnership?
• Gwyneth Jones’ list of Twitter applications you Must Have/Use. Some of my faves? Twitterfeed and TwitterDigest.
• I read Buffy’s Carrots post just after having had a conversation with a colleague.  She was so excited about some of the ideas I had for bringing technology into her class… but “I don’t have time to revamp the project right now”… but “I don’t know when I can play with this to see if it could work”.  Time to think about carrots that will make that comment a thing of the past. (my suggestion?  let’s play now and plan for next year) Imagine how something like The Alice Project could change students’ experience of learning.
• Two guides worth a second (and third and fourth) look: Using Web 2.0 in Libraries and Improving Libraries for Learners. (via iLibrarian)
• End of the Year/Decade Lists: 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2010, Scholastic’s 10 Big Ideas in Education, 5 K-12 Technology Trends in 2010,
• Share this to your department chairs (I did, back in July when it first came out): Not Enough Time in the Library and How College Students Look for Information. (E-Tech does a good roundup of the implications)
• What’s a Library? Linda Braun, Beth Friese, LizB, StephenB, Peter Godwin
• Yes, change hurts but it is not an option.  Thinking about the implications of “web 2.0″ on our profession is also not an option.
• Collection Development issues: what do we buy?  what format?  In this day of limited budgets, knowing our readers’ preferences is critical.
• I’ve been railing against the terms “Web 2.0″ and “21st Century Skills” for a while.  It’s nice to know I’m not the only one.  Not sure that Information and Digital Literacies is any better, but it’s a start.
• Britannica Forum did a wonderful series on multitasking (on the other hand, Bob’s High School Curriculum seems a bit too Dead White Male for current trends)
• Digital Literacy – what are we doing about it?  E-tech’s summary of her presentation at Blended Librarian Online Learning Community is a must read. On the other hand, it may be a myth.
• I loved Scot McLeod’s presentation at NECC earlier this year, and now it’s online for those that weren’t there.

In this Management Innovation and Online Higher Education Part 2: Management Innovation “New services are emerging that allow prospective students and their parents to hear from existing and former university students. As more information becomes available, online programs will need to be ready to demonstrate superiority. Those that produce content according to the ‘cottage model’ (described above) will appear amateurish.”  Well said.

Will “superior content” and/or content based online programs be good enough to demonstrate superiority? Would a learner-centred approach towards learning be an alternative way of satisfying the students (and the stakeholders too) needs? What is expected from our learners and society? Would the emphasis be based on the education and learning process? The current Web 2.0 is still not yet integrated into the LMS, and so it becomes a struggle between professors and lecturers in the classroom trying to capture the attention and interests of students, versus students going everywhere like MIT open course ware, Standford University and various university sites and resources, wikis, blogs, Delicious, social networking sites – Youtubes education, etc for the most up-to-date knowledge and information. So, how about the integration of PLN/E with LMS based on learners’ needs and expectations? Would this be the fundamental strategic move that educational institutions could consider? Would this allow for a big leap in both teaching, learning and research that would benefit both educators and learners, and the institutions?

Replacing the old wine skin with a new wine bottle would help in solving the problem, rather than pouring the new wine into the old wine skin, where the new wine would soon leak out. Here the old wine skin and the old wine  is the traditional classroom approach to education and learning and the rigid and static course content, the new wine bottle and the new wine is the heutagogy, social media learning and LMS/Web2.0 with educators, experts and c0-learners as resources and support.

On the occasion of this week’s visit to New York to be a guest in Bob Levinson’s Bob Dylan class at the 92nd Street Y taught by Nina Goss, here is one of this blog’s initial posts from back in May:

If I Was a Master Thief, Perhaps I’d Rob Them: Bob Dylan, Plagiarism, Freshman Composition, and the “Cult of Originality”

They’re Planting Stories in the Press

After spending many years among the has-beens, a once renowned performer releases a series of well-received albums. After a while, amid the new rave reviews, reports surface that some lines from these new albums have been stolen from an obscure nineteenth century poet, a Japanese gangster novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, old films, and a number of blues songs. Talk of plagiarism emerges. The guy may have written some strikingly original songs back in the day, people say, but now, clearly, the well has run dry. Sadly, he must rely on the work of others to produce much of anything.

Yet to others, this is no surprise. What about his first famous song, the one school children the world-over sing? As Greil Marcus points out, that melody is straight from the old spiritual, “No More Auction Block.” His second most famous song from two years later took chords from “La Bamba” and stole its title from Muddy Waters. Though in many respects that particular song was never new, in some strange way, it was newer than most—so much so that it changed the popular music world irrevocably. Marcus quotes Al Kooper who said it was like when “talkies” replaced silent films–it “put a lot of people out of work.”

Whether you are talking about the artist’s new “controversial” songs or the old “groundbreaking” songs, none is original if you go by common definitions. Yet in some miraculous, inexplicable way, they are.

God Knows When, but You’re Doin’ It Again

Even before the release Bob Dylan’s latest album, Together Through Life, there were rumors all over town. Some say the early download, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” sounds like “Black Magic Woman.” Those of a somewhat earlier vintage might think of “Who’s Been Talkin’.” Scott Warmuth’s excellent detective work has found that the album title, Together Through Life, is lifted both from Walt Whitman and from James Joyce’s letters to his wife. The Bruce Davidson cover photo was a cover photo before––on Larry Brown’s book, Big, Bad Love. Several lines in the songs (co-written this time with partner in crime, Robert Hunter) come from The Canterbury Tales, others from Ovid’s The Erotic Poems. Despite all the uproar over stolen lines from Confederate poet Henry Timrod and Japanese novelist Junichi Saga in his two previous albums, apparently, Bob Dylan is up to his old tricks.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Depending upon your perspective, either Dylan is an artist the likes of which the world has rarely seen, or he’s a musical pickpocket.

Maybe you can’t have one without the other.

As a listener and a blues-educated musician, I am familiar with the folk/blues worlds and how most new works borrow extensively from what came before. Not only am I not troubled by such appropriations––I consider them indispensable. Yet, worlds collide: I also teach freshman English. In that setting, undocumented appropriation is the third rail. It’s a capital crime. What’s a poor composition teacher-slash-musician to do?

Something Is Happening Here, But You Don’t Know What It Is

Perhaps I should make a distinction: I am at ease with appropriation as long as it is used to create rather than duplicate. I’m not alone. If members of the blues/folk/jazz cultures hear something familiar, they might say, “I like what you did with that.” When something “new” turns up, these people already know its genealogy to the letter. (The documentation is “embedded,” you might say.) When you are just copying (i.e. the Elvis version of “Hound Dog”), rightful owners deserve acknowledgement and proper compensation (which they often didn’t get back then). But that’s not what this is about. This is about what the act of creating involves. When you are borrowing to create, you are granted greater freedom (or should be), and for good reason.

Few will have an awareness of this other open-source world musicians know so well. As a consequence, outsiders, like overwhelmed comp teachers who have been burned too many times, feel violated. Yet, if at some point those folks decide to get more involved, they’ll learn soon enough. Eventually, such listeners will find their way back to some earlier (though maybe not “original”) sources just as I did, largely because Dylan’s songs pointed me in that direction. As legal expert Lawrence Lessig says, “You pay respect to tradition by incorporating it. But you make the tradition compelling by doing so in a way that makes everyone want to understand more.” In just two lines, Lessig captures the essence of Dylan’s career.

The academic world does things differently. If I were to refer to the “uses of chaos” here or to comment on Dylan’s use of “dialogism,” people familiar with English composition studies would know I’m referring to Ann Berthoff and Mikhail Bakhtin. (Duh, as the kids say.) Even though, like with the blues singers, these references are already deeply embedded in my peers’ neural pathways, I need to document them anyway. In academia, that’s the only way you’ll ever be heard. There are gatekeepers in place to uphold certain quality-control standards. Nothing wrong with that. Giving credit where credit is due matters. How to do that, however, changes depending on the context. In traditional music, whatever gates do exist tend to swing freely like those John Wayne movie barroom doors. Though it may not look like it, Dylan is following conventions and accepted practices. Where he works, borrowing is just how it’s done. Credit is assumed based upon a vast reservoir that is held in common. Put up a bigger gate and you don’t get a Louis Armstrong, or a Memphis Minnie, and Bob Dylan would be forever young Bobby Zimmerman.

You’re Very Well Read, It’s Well Known

Music, literature, it’s all the same to Dylan. In an Oral Tradition article, Richard F. Thomas describes how Dylan digs deep, going back even farther than The Canterbury Tales, using Ovid and Virgil in “Love and Theft” and Modern Times. Thomas speaks eloquently of what it does to a listener who unexpectedly hears other voices in Dylan’s songs:

But even on the first time through “Love and Theft,” even before we had noted the quotes around the title that drew attention to the theft of Eric Lott’s title, before we had been handed the snippets of Confessions of a Yakuza, transformed into Appalachian and other vignettes, there was Virgil, loud and clear, in the tenth verse of “Lonesome Day Blues” (itself a Blind Willie McTell title):

I’m gonna spare the defeated, I’m gonna speak to the crowd / I’m gonna spare the defeated, boys/ I’m going to speak to the crowd/ I am goin’ to teach peace to the conquered / I’m gonna tame the proud // (“Lonesome  Day Blues”)

But yours will be the rulership of nations, / remember, Roman, these will be your arts: / to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer, / to spare defeated peoples, tame the proud //(Virgil, Aeneid 6.851-53, [trans.Mandelbaum])

Such insertions, known as “intertexts,” are not gap-fillers for a burnt-out, writer’s-blocked songwriter. They are placed there precisely to create something new.

Poems that are layered with intertexts reveal depths of meaning through our recognition of those texts as we import other contexts that work together with new images, metaphors, and other poetic or musical effects. That is true of Virgil, Dante, Milton, and as we saw, it was true of “Lonesome Day Blues” and much else on Love and Theft.

Thomas, the classicist, hears Virgil where others hear just Dylan. Someone schooled in the blues/folk tradition can no longer just hear the singer or the guitar player when listening to a song because for those people, the song is an echo chamber of familiar melodic and lyrical voices. Like Thomas listening to Dylan, Lessig, too, hears voices when he reads law briefs:

A great brief seems to say nothing on its own. Everything is drawn from cases that went before, presented as if the argument now presented is in fact nothing new. Here again, the words of others are used to make a point the others didn’t directly make. The old cases are remixed. The remix is meant to do something new.

The phrase used to make a point the others didn’t directly make is key. This is something mere copying could never hope to do. These recent works of Dylan’s, says Robert Polito, like all of his works, are “Modernist collages,” much like Pound’sCantos or Eliot’s The Waste Land which are filled with allusions and lifted lines but which stand on their own, to say the least. In the company of such master thieves, Dylan, too, uses lines familiar to some and places them in new contexts. “Timrod,” says Polito, “works as a citation we’re ultimately intended to notice, though no song depends on that notice.” In short, these are not like photocopies or essay mill purchases from cheathouse.com. They function within the new works independently of their original contexts.

Like traditional music, literature is littered with lifted lines.  Jonathan Lethem recounts the thefts of Nabokov, Pound, Eliot, and Shakespeare. Paul Collins cites thefts by Poe, Melville, and also mentions how “Lawrence Sterne’s immortal diatribe against plagiarism in Tristan Shandy was itself  . . . plagiarized from Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.” In addition, Collins reports that the introduction of Google Books to the search engine world has exposed some previously hidden thefts that could be “the first rumble of what may become a literary earthquake.” Though it sometimes has pretended to be somehow separate, the literary process is proving to have been another version of the folk process all along. Here’s how T. S. Eliot put it: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

Virgil was also accused of plagiarism, says Thomas, and his answer to his critics was a defiant, I’d like to see you do that! :

Why don’t they try the same thefts? They’ll find out it’s easier to snatch Hercules’ club from him than a single line from Homer.

As Thomas shows, for Dylan to seamlessly weave together lines from Virgil, an allusion from translator Mandelbaum’s introduction, phrases from a Japanese gangster novel and Huck Finn, and then put them into a song that uses a Blind Willie McTell title shows not only that he has a lot of nerve, but also exhibits Herculean skill.

Coming up –

Part II, plagiarizing about plagiarism, Bob Dylan and Muddy Waters chime in, some good fishing spots, Andy Warhol, misplaced fossils, old is the new new, architecture, law school, “I just sorta recorded it” . . .

Part III, college dropouts, the death of the term paper, lawyers, pirates, and black marketeers, Cafe Wha?, love not theft, hey Woody Guthrie I wrote you a song

Postscript: a tour of the cotton field, a rundown of sources, plus intertexts, and other voices.

Related posts here.

                It has been an interesting experience taking a technology class with people who are already teachers and attempting to use technologies in their classrooms. This is my first quarter in the MAT program; I have nearly two years before I will be in a classroom of my own.  So while some of my colleagues are actually applying our learning to their classrooms, I am formulating my pedagogical beliefs about technology and its place in the classroom. For example, Harris, Mishra, and Koehler (2009, p. 396-97) emphasize not only the use of technology, but “the connections among technologies, curriculum content, and specific pedagogical approaches” which “produce effective discipline-based teaching with educational technologies.” While I am not completely sure if I will ever use tools as specific as Scratch or SuperGoo (Peppler & Kafai, 2007), I think it is more important that I develop a philosophy about incorporating technologies into education without becoming too focused on the technology and lose sight of the rest of the content the state requires that students learn.  The technology will change and become outdated; from this course I now understand that it is about finding technologies that are worth using and that will work well with the rest of the course content. So while I cannot say that I am leaving this class with a list of tools that I will definitely use, I do know that I will use technologies that are supplemental to the material we are working on in class.

                In years past, the use of technology in the classroom by making the classroom online through online courses has carried a negative stigma with it. Bacer (2009, p.1) describes that students previously enrolled in online courses faced learning obstacles because “the lack of audio and visual clues can create a sense of silence” because students are “not seeing or hearing the other learners.” I shared this perspective and did not believe that it is possible to learn as much in an online course as in an actual classroom. However, through the use of tools such as VoiceThread, WordPress, and EtherPad, there is a connection between the other students and myself; they are now more than just a name on the computer screen to me, proving to me that an online class can be worthwhile. Teachers now have the ability to overcome the obstacle of engaging the students in an online classroom through tools that allow students to interact with one another and work together, even if it is not face to face.  Even in regular classrooms, technologies have been difficult to incorporate because of the cost to purchase the latest and greatest programs; but most of the technologies we looked at this quarter were free, allowing teachers to have plenty of options without having to pay.  The advancement of technologies that allow people to be more interactive through the use of audio, video, real-time technologies, and others, make using technologies for class work an enjoyable activity that still allows learning to take place.

                Using technology in the classroom is not always an easy feat. Sandholtz and Reilly (2004, p. 487) explain that it is difficult for teachers to stay up to date on what technology is available to teachers and that it is better not to expect them to have high technical skills, but for them “to focus on developing curriculum, evaluating learning materials, and thinking about how to provide better learning opportunities for their students”; when this is done, “teachers are likely to use technology more effectively and creatively in their teaching.” Students are expected to be taught how to use technology so they are ready for the digital world that we live in. However, this is not a specific content area in itself; teachers have to tie it in with the rest of students’ educations. As someone who is not yet a teacher, I cannot say that I understand the difficulties that these and some of my peers have described, but I feel more informed about some of the struggles I may face and some of the expectations that will be on my shoulders when I walk into my classroom. Not only have I been informed about potential challenges, rather, I feel as though I have also been equipped with the tools and with the philosophy to allow me to succeed in becoming a teacher who utilizes technology in the classroom.

References:

Bacer, Kathleen (2009, May). Utilizing auditory and visual tools to engage the 21st Century eLearner.

Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types: Curriculum-based technology integration reframed, Journal of research on technology in education, 41(4), p. 393-416.

Peppler, K. A. & Kafai, Y. S., (2007). From SuperGoo to Scratch: Exploring Creative Digital Media Production in Informal Learning, Learning, Media and Technology Special Issue: Media Education Goes Digital [Electronic Version].

Ribble, M. S., Bailey, G.D., & Ross, T. W. (2004). Digital citizenship: addressing appropriate technology behavior, Learning & leading with technology 32(1), p. 6-12.

Sandholtz, J. H. & Reilly, B. (2004). Teachers, not technicians: rethinking technical expectations for teachers, Teachers college record, 106(3), p. 487-512.

If we were able to design an undergraduate art program what would it look like? There would be disciplines in this academic utopia, within which technical skills were taught and foundations built. Students would, gasp!, have to read and learn to verbally articulate their opinion and ideas, which like it or not, is a critical skill in today’s art world. Group critiques that transcend discipline and develop critical thinking would also be a must. Its ignorant to think that just because someone is in the ceramics department means they cannot have a conversation about ideas and visual form within a painting. Seminar courses would form the backbone off of which students would be free to pursue disciplines of interest as well as those governed by the program. These seminars would link these courses and students together through discussion, reading, film, gallery visits, etc. and could be team taught by faculty from a wide array of fields; art, art history, philosophy, etc. They would allow students to see that while schools often drive wedges between mediums there is a larger conversation out there that is less interested in the provincial distinctions between them. After all, its not about the medium, its about what you do with it.

Bear with my lofty idealism just a little bit longer. As students progressed through the program of seminars and foundations, making their way closer to completion, a focus would have to be chosen. Sculpture, painting, fibers, whatever. This choice would not, however, limit students to that medium and its facilities. They would be free to move fluidly between areas as dictated by their work all the while being continuously anchored by department wide critiques and team taught seminars. Students would be taught the importance of developing and maintaining practice while not forsaking specific skills. These are most likely not new ideas, but i cannot keep tabs on every university program around the globe, so you’ll have to excuse any repetition. So whats the biggest hurdle? Well, oddly enough it seems to be the faculty. All the entrenched interests, prejudices, insecurities, laziness, entitlement, arrogance, politicking, and bitterness that exists in University systems are like toxic fly paper to the best ideas and youngest energies. It is that energy, along with the thoughtful, engaged, and exciting faculty of all ages around which we should build any type of academic program.

With that said it should come as no surprise that i think Universities need to reassess and make some serious changes to the tenure system.  Abolishing it isn’t effective, but imposing some mandatory performance reviews and breaking the impenetrable protective shield encasing tenured faculty would serve students best. That, after all, is what its all about. How do we serve and educate students in the best possible way? How do we provide them with faculty that is engaged and thoughtful in each and every course they take, without exception? How do we best prepare them to enter the world and practice the thing that they love? If our goals are these things, and designing a program around them is a priority, then a path seems crystal clear.

Dr Lynne Graham-Matheson, of the Pedagogic Research team, has written a brief report on the different research activities that have taken place in the (old) library and the new facilities at Augustine House (AH).

Before AH opened (September 2009), we undertook research in the (old) library with a view to establishing a baseline of information about library use which could be compared with work in the new building. This took place between April and July 2009.  The research was opportunistic – resources were limited and so surveys and observations had to be carried out when researchers (members of staff and student volunteers) were available. The timing was dictated by the removal of some staff from the (old) library building and the closure of the library as part of the building development work.

 Data were gathered through:

• observations of students using the (old) library
• a student survey
• an online staff survey (academic staff)
• interviews with key AH staff
• observations of student using AH before the iBorrow netbooks became available

These various activities were intended only to provide a benchmark to use as a comparison with the iBorrow data and we did not expect to draw any firm conclusions. A particularly interesting finding was the way in which many staff appeared not to have thought about the impact that AH could have on their teaching, except perhaps in a negative way, focusing on the distance between main campus and AH, which they saw as limiting their opportunities to, for example, set tasks whereby students needed to find information in the library and report back.

With the iBorrow tracking data going live in October 2009, this will enable us to understand how learning spaces are being used by students through the deployment of different data capturing methods:

• location tracking data
• direct observation and interviews with students in AH
• “vox pop” Facebook group on iBorrow
• pedagogic scenarios (looking at the relationship between staff – student – space)

Once AH opened, it quickly became apparent that some staff were turning this to their advantage, planning their teaching so they could organise a visit to AH for several hours, perhaps including lunch, and organising research activities, discussion groups and tutorials. A few examples:

• PGCE students are directed to use the curriculum resources area for a set task. While working they take time to have lunch and to meet with tutors about their learning journals
• Students taking the same course at Broadstairs and Chatham meet for a study day with collaborative tasks at AH
• The tutor assigns students a task, and sits and works in the coffee shop, so is available for any students who need help
• First year students are given an assignment task, taken to AH to find books and resources and begin to plan their assignment – the tutor is on hand to help if needed
• Individual tutorials can take place while students are working on individual or group tasks – tutor can be in the coffee shop working, no ‘dead’ time waiting for students to arrive (although probably not an appropriate space to deal with difficult issues)
• Taking a group of part-time or mature students to work in AH, have coffee together etc can help them to bond as a group and feel part of the university.
• Students spend the day working in AH to prepare a group presentation using the whiteboards, video etc and then present to the other groups at the end of the day.
• Students in parallel teaching groups are set a collaborative task to work on in groups in AH. Tutors determine the groups so that the students have the opportunity to work with fellow students they have not met before.

With the help of Prof Betty Collis, we have developed a pro forma, for staff to record their teaching activities. These will be analysed into a set of ‘scenarios’, which can be used for staff development purposes. An example of how this might be done is as follows:

A group of students (Dimension 1c) in nursing are getting ready for an initial practicum experience in a local hospital (Dimension 4c) and need to anticipate issues and problems that they will confront (Dimension 2a). Each student has prepared a list of key problems that he/she expects to have to confront and submitted them in advance to a shared workspace (folder) in the VLE (Dimension 7a). Before their group session they read each others’ lists (Dimension 3a) and come prepared to take the lead on discussing what to do about one of the issues if members of the group confront it in practice (Dimension 5b). The instructor has requested that each group submit a brief report via the VLE about the issues that were discussed (Dimensions 6a and 7a) which she will in turn use as a basis for discussion in the next face-to-face session of the module. The instructor indicated that the students could contact her by phone or chat if they needed help and if she was available she would reply directly (Dimension 7b). The students arrange to meet in a semi-enclosed collaborative area for their discussion (Dimension 8, Zone 4).

As patterns emerge from the data analysis and the observations the gains of cross-referencing and correlating the information from these two modes of data collection will be illustrated for the sector.

In this edition, Kay McClenney, head of CCSSE, talks about CC’s reliance on adjuncts, and also comments on the influx of younger home-schooled or gifted students.

Answers About Community Colleges, Part 2 – The Choice Blog – NYTimes.com

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I recently added two new pages to the blog: a bibliography for listing references I cite on multiple occasions, and a suggestions and requests page. The bibliography is likely to soon contain citations for at least some of the following books which have recently come into my possession:

1. Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Sipser
2. Lectures on Quantum Mechanics, Faddeev, Yakubovskii
3. Representation Theory: a First Course, Fulton, Harris
4. Conceptual Mathematics, Lawvere, Schanuel
5. Concrete Mathematics: a Foundation for Computer Science, Graham, Knuth, Patashnik

I haven’t looked at 2 or 4 very closely yet, but so far I find 1, 3, and 5 to be among the best written textbooks I have ever read. Sipser’s book, in particular, strikes me as having found a perfect balance between brevity and clarity. His tone is conversational but finely polished, and I rather like his habit of summarizing the basic strategy of a proof before actually writing it down. Generally I am finding the book an absolute pleasure to read, which I can’t say for most of the math textbooks I’ve seen. You will likely see me blogging a little about languages and automata once I finish up my current series (right now I’m stuck on what should be a trivial proof).

Why don’t more mathematicians write like Sipser?

Traditionally, the answer to a given (flow) problem is obtained by copying suitable equations, submodels, and boundary conditions with their appropriate solution techniques from available sources. This is called “matching” and may result in a good first-step learning experience; however, it should be augmented later on by more independent work, e.g., deriving governing equations, plotting and visualizing results, improving basic submodels, finding new, interdisciplinary applications, exploring new concepts, interpreting observations in a more generalized form, or even pushing the envelope of  existing solution techniques. In any case, the triple pedagogical goals of understanding, skills, and design can be achieved only via independent practice, hard work, and creative thinking.

Kleinstreuer, C., Two phase flow: Theory and applications, Ch. 1, Taylor & Francis Books Inc., 2003.

from TED.com

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, “What makes a life worth living?” Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of “flow.”

Upcoming in Part IV of the Flying as Well as Creeping Things series, we will be introduced to a writing student who worries that his writing doesn’t “flow.” He may be right, but he may be wrong about why.

Papers are graded, final grades are in.  I’m not officially on break, quite yet — tomorrow I will go in and clean my office, but then I am free for three weeks.  I do plan on making this winter break a working break — that is finish some poems, write some reviews, and get my manuscript ready so it can go out into the world in 2010.

In the meantime, I will also be catching up on all my reading, especially a few early Christmas presents (poetry books, of course) that came in the mail today.  I also have a small stack of books about writing pedagogy that I want to explore.  And speaking of pedagogy, I know that the Internet has been flooded with December sales, but I found one bargain that can’t be beat.  Check out Teachers & Writers Collaborative, which is having a sale — $8 per book — during the month of December.  I’ve already put my order in.

Subject to confirming some minor issues with our travel documents (we now have three passports between the two of us, and our return flights terminating in either Helsinki or Glasgow depending on which airline website we download our itinerary from) I will be attending the American Institute of Architecture Students 2009 Forum in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota from 29 – 31 December. On the 31st I’ll be running a seminar / workshop event entitled Trans-Atlantic transactions, in which the American AIA Code of Ethics (http://www.aia.org/about/ethicsandbylaws/index.htm) and the British RIBA Code of Conduct ( http://www.architecture.com/TheRIBA/Organisation/Constitution/CodeofConduct.aspx) will be explored, deconstructed and re-assembled to consider what it is architects do in practice, and to discuss the contribution of recent graduates and young architects to an expanded notion of practice.

I was planning to submit a more detailed description of the event to the AIAS Forum organisers, but my hand slipped and it was emailed as described above. It actually reads much better than what I had planned, and I’m looking forward to meeting students and other Forum delegates in a few weeks time.

My attendance at the AIAS Forum has been made possible thanks to Queens University Belfast’s Emily Scott Montgomery Travel Scholarship, and my research cluster The Centre for Built Environment Research (CBER).

In his 2002 essay “Design and Crime” Hal Foster argues for the notion of recouping a sense of disciplinarity. This is far from a whole sale embrace of re-instating old divisions and distinctions, but of essentially putting this notion of discipline and its contestation into historical context, reevaluating it, and understanding what led us to now in order to ‘provide culture with running room.’ For Foster this running room is seen as a way out of the consumer loop, or, at least the pervasive influence of design on every aspect of out lives, from our faces to our DNA.  The essay talks more broadly about the disciplines of design, art, and architecture, but i wonder if we couldn’t use his ideas as a spring board for thinking about distinctions between mediums within art departments.

Most art schools break down into areas first, Fine Art, Applied Art, Craft, New Media, etc. Each medium is then dropped unceremoniously into one of these areas taking with it a whole complex web of associations, practices, and prejudices. The stereotypes are beyond cliche. Watch any movie about art school and you’ll get a full dose of them. Painters are sensitive and wear v-necks, ceramicists are sandal wearing hippies, designers jocks, and all professors are apparently bitter, disinterested,  and sleeping with multiple students. Spend any actual time in an art school and you will discover some of these things are true, and others couldn’t be further from it. So what do we gain from these hard and fast distinctions between disciplines? Are we sealing ourselves and students off in a hermetic bubble, or are we giving them a clear and focused set of skills for a specific career and artistic practice?

If distinctions provide us with running room, shouldn’t we seek to preserve some of the current divisions? Sure, but what should be thrown out are the prejudices and assumptions that come along with these divisions. What good does it do students who want a broader sense of what it means to make art within contemporary culture? Zero. What good does it do students who don’t hold the same medium specific prejudices and insecurities of their professors? None. This is why neither strict distinctions and boundary-less melting pots work. Too many restrictions and you risk preventing students from following their own curiosities without flack, too few and they get lost at sea, their attention being pulled in too many directions to learn. There are exceptions of course, but we should be very skeptical about hard and fast arguments for either model as they ignore the needs of students for that of the faculty. If anything we don’t need to be creating more distinctions between mediums. Applying the old model for art education to contemporary practices strikes me as wholly misguided and ignores the very context out of which these practices emerged.

As Ciências Sociais estão mudando e a direção na qual estão indo é obvia: mais estudos empíricos quantitativos e menos teoria. Como menciona Earl Babbie no seu livro Métodos de Pesquisas de Survey, a explicação para isso tem muito a ver com a invenção e a difusão do computador que permitem a realização de estudos anteriormente proibidos pelo tempo requerido para fazer os cálculos. Porém, os impactos dessa mudança vão muito além da monitor e do teclado e, para compreendê-las, é preciso treinamento específico e detalhado. É na capacidade de prover esse treinamento que o livro em revista Métodos de Pesquisas poderia ser considerado indispensável para o jovem estudante de Economia, de Direito e de outras ciências da sociedade, bem como para o professor sem conhecimentos sobre a pesquisa empírica.

Recentemente, num artigo publicado no New York Times foi discutido o assunto dos métodos empíricos na Ciência Política. Segundo o artigo, tem sido crescente  o movimento no campo dessa ciência (liderado por um cientista anônimo chamado ‘Perestroika’) contra o uso ascendente de métodos empíricos (tipicamente estatísticos). O artigo relata entrevistas com membros dos dois lados do debate e mesmo consegue a opinião de cientistas de grande fama, como Joseph Nye da Kennedy School of Government, da Harvard University, sobre como as suas pesquisas e de seus colegas têm mudado nos últimos anos. A questão que o artigo não discute é como a formação dos alunos tem sido afetada e como a preparação do aluno tem cambiado por causa dessa mudança no campo.

Apesar do fato existirem pelo menos alguns cientistas políticos que prefeririam  que não estivessem acontecendo essas mudanças a favor de estudos empíricos, elas vão além das Ciência Política. Na minha formação como economista na American University era requerido que eu tomasse pelo menos uma aula de estatística e outra de econometria. Mesmo se esse exigência não parece tão fora do comum para o aluno de Economia,  interessante é que minhas aulas estavam cheias de alunos de outras disciplinas (Sociologia, Antropologia, etc.). No campo da Economia, dizem que são os alunos vindo das ciências duras, a Física e a Engenharia em particular, que estão disputando as vagas nos melhores programas de pós-graduação. É evidente que os caminhos da pesquisa nas Ciências Sociais estão mudando e, por causa disso, os assuntos ensinados precisam também mudar . É aí onde entra o livro de Earl Babbie.

Earl Babbie estudou a Sociologia desde o ano de 1960 quando ele começou sua graduação na Harvard University. Em 1969, ele recebeu seu PhD pela Univerisidade da Califórnia, em Berkeley, onde também dirigiu o Centro de Pesquisa de Survey. Hoje em dia professor na Chapmand University, Babbie escreveu e publicou dezenove livros sobre a pesquisa empírica social.

Embora seja intitulado “Métodos de Pesquisa de Survey,” as quatrocentas e setenta e duas páginas do livro (sem incluir anexos ou bibliografia) se dividem em cincos partes todas as quais contendo lições metodológicas e teóricas que se aplicam a pesquisas empíricas quantitativas ou qualitativas.

Na primeira seção do livro, “O Contexto Científico da Pesquisa de Survey”, o autor explica de modo claro a lógica científica, como ela tem sido desenvolvida durante os últimos séculos, e as características da ‘ciência’ destacando-a como “determinística”, “parcimoniosa”, e “intersubjetiva”. Daí, Babbie se concentra nas Ciências Sociais mostrando que, apesar de não poder aproveitar-se de experimentos em laboratórios como as ciências duras, na busca de regularidades sóciais a ciência social mantém as características essenciais daquelas ciências. Em seguida, ainda nessa parte do livro vem uma discussão do survey como um método de pesquisa social. Citando o artigo “A Menor das Ciências”, publicado pelo sociólogo Allan Mazur, Babbie defende a legitimidade do survey e da Sociologia como ‘ciência’ afirmando que, apesar de as ciências ‘macias’ conterem problemas com relação à metodologia, como as ciências duras sempre estão num processo de melhoramento e que, com a inovação do computador, “as ciências sociais expandirão radicalmente nossa visão do que pode ser a ciência”.

Adiante, a segunda seção do livro tem a ver com o “Desenho da Pesquisa Survey.” Aqui, o autor relata os vários tipos de pesquisa survey que existem (surveys inter-seccionais, longitudinais, e de painel, etc.) e delineia as propriedades de cada um. Nessa parte, a experiência do autor se torna inestimável por causa do fato de isso lhe permitir suplementar as discussões de teoria com exemplos da vida real e das experiências adquiridas no trabalho de campo. Assim, Babbie consegue explicar os diferentes tipos de amostragens, por exemplo, de uma maneira que faz com que as diferenças sutis entre eles sejam sublinhadas e que o leitor consiga lembrar delas.

É no terceiro grupo de capítulos que o livro começa a abordar assuntos mais detalhados e específicos das pesquisas de survey. Intitulado “Coleta de Dados”, o autor descreve como construir um questionário e um survey (duas coisas diferentes) para maximizar a probabilidade de que os resultados sejam representativos da população e úteis para a pesquisa. Porém, essa porção do livro não trata exclusivamente de assuntos técnicos. Aqui também encontramos uma discussão fascinante sobre a importância do computador na pesquisa moderna e as mudanças que já tem provocado nas ultimas décadas. Especificamente, o capítulo 11 sobre o processamento dos dados discute esse assunto  afirmando que o “que o microscópio foi para a biologia e o telescópio para a astronomia, o que o computador tem sido para a moderna ciência social”.

A próxima seção do livro continua com a análise específica da seção precedente discutindo “A Análise da Pesquisa Survey.” Essa seção trata detalhadamente de como um pesquisador deveria elaborar um trabalho no qual serão apresentados os resultados da pesquisa. Assim, discute como preparar tabelas e gráficos, como organizar o trabalho, como apresentar os resultados da survey para falar da população em geral, e —possivelmente mais importante — como criar e representar  relações determinantes entre variáveis para mostrar uma correlação entre eles. Discutindo esses assuntos, Babbie dá ao leitor as ferramentas para elaborar ou analisar e criticar um trabalho baseado numa pesquisa de survey, mesmo se o leitor não tiver uma formação em Estatística ou Matemática. Ele começa o capitulo 16 com essas palavras e, ao chegar ao fim da seção, o leitor pode admitir que são verdadeiras: “Muitas pessoas se deixam intimidar pela pesquisa empírica por não ficarem confortáveis com matemáticas ou estatísticas [... porém] a pesquisa empírica é, antes de mais nada, uma operação lógica e não uma matemática”.

A habilidade de distinguir e representar separadamente os aspectos matemáticos e os aspectos lógicos da pesquisa survey poderia ser o maior contribuição do livro de Babbie porque dá acesso a novas fontes de informação a pessoas que anteriormente não podiam usá-las.

A última seção do livro, “A Pesquisa  Survey no Contexto Social”, continua com essa meta, entretanto retomando uma discussão de nível mais teórica das primeiras seções. Aqui Babbie  aborda do assunto da ética numa pesquisa social. Aqui recebemos regras gerais sobre com dirigir uma survey ética. Exemplos disso: os participantes devem ser voluntários, ou as entrevistas devem ocorrer sem prejuízo, ou as informações baseadas nas entrevistas devem ser apresentadas na forma de anonimato e sob sigilo. Também recebemos um treinamento em relação a como enfrentar uma pesquisa do ponto de vista de um ‘consumidor informado’ — quais são as perguntas a fazer, quais são os aspectos mais importantes a estudar.

Resumindo, o livro de Earl Babbie, Métodos de Pesquisa de Survey, é uma contribuição importante as Ciências Sociais não só porque discute teorias novas, mas também porque aborda assuntos básicos relacionados à Estatística e à pesquisa survey e as apresenta de uma forma compreensível para as pessoas de todas formações e origens. Dado o fato que as Ciências Sociais vêm se transformando, sendo cada vez mais baseadas na pesquisa empírica, a habilidade de compreender e criticar um trabalho empírico está aumentando em importância.

Por isso, o estudante novo nas Ciências Sociais pode se beneficiar do livro de Babbie bem como o professor menos inclinado às perguntas empíricas de qualquer universidade. Assim que vale a pena para os dois ler o livro Métodos de Pesquisa de Survey de Earl Babbie para familiarizar-se com as informações e temas básicos da pesquisa empírica. É preciso se preparar para o futuro.

A fairly recent DfES Report (2003) concluded that the benefits of e-leaning tools were to enable experimental pedagogy in the classroom. Is that really why edtech teachers want to try new Web 2.0 type tools? Is there a myriad of reasons for using emerging technologies – beneficial to the teacher and learner and most of all to the teaching and learning that takes place. Secondly, I wanted to know how e-learning tools improve the way that teachers teach. So I set a little poll for the 500 or so teachers in my PLN on Twitter.

I picked out the top benefits to teaching I could think of and included a space for teachers to add their own reasons. Crucially, I included a more than one answer too as something requested from a previous poll I tried.

The ‘Other’ answer box yielded the following:

This accounted for just 5% of the vote and actually includes one of the main responses. Interestingly, 24/7 availability was important to one of the respondents. The overall result after 5 days was:

More or less an even split between engaging and inspiring and including more than one of the other answers. There are many benefits of e-learning tools; not just to try new methods of teaching but also to inspire our learners showing that we can also push ourselves out of our comfort zones as they do daily. Some great debate started too:

Fascinating reading! Thanks to everyone who took part.