For me, writing papers and thesis chapters has become routinized in the interchange between screen and print. The digital environment is great for building and developing structures – I’ve found Scrivener particularly useful for ‘chunkifying’ texts. But I often find reading printouts and correcting with a pen a more effective process for assessing and refining overall narratives, as well as spotting grammatical errors. One doesn’t necessarily follow the other: it’s rather a reciprocal process between the two media.

“…the learning technology community has raided other disciplines’ ‘toolboxes’ without always recognising the values and assumptions from which those tools have been developed.” (22)

Reference

Oliver, M., Roberts, G., Beetham, H., Ingraham, B., Dyke, M., & Levy, P. (2007). Knowledge, society and perspectives on learning technology. In G. Conole & M. Oliver (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives in e-learning research. London: Routledge. 21-37.

I’ve had my abstract accepted for Challenging the Binaries, the Centre for the Study of Literacies International Conference at the University of Sheffield on the 29th and 30th of June. The paper will expand on ideas I discussed in a previous blog post. My abstract is as follows:

Drawing on my research into how PhD students are using social and participatory media, I problematize binaries associated with online identity by adopting two generally opposing social practices from lifelong learning studies: the ‘confessional’ and the ‘critical’ (Usher et al., 1996).

In a confessional practice, the learner is disempowered in accepting the dominant (often solitary) model of learning, aligning her subjectivities with formal educational discourses to articulate her own learning needs. Corresponding pedagogies are based on rhetoric of the ‘self,’ and manifest in professional profiling and portfolio development (Tennant, 2009). Identity is seen as stable, developmental and coherent across spaces of productivity, reinforcing binaries of formal and informal, and work and recreation.

In a critical practice, identity is multiple, fluid and fragmentary. Rather than adapting to specific learning contexts, empowerment is authenticated through questioning, challenging and potentially changing them through discursive practices. The literature on critical pedagogies locates the politics of self-representation within the cultural processes of education, and sees the learner as a socially and politically constituted agent able to shape her identity construction.

Through developing authentic representations of ‘doing a PhD,’ framed within the transformative nature of the doctoral learning experience, I argue identity construction extends beyond activities associated with thesis development and models of socialisation, to incorporate student agency within and across multiple practice contexts, ranging from entrepreneurialism to student activism.

References

Tennant, M. (2009). Lifelong learning as a technology of the self. In K. Illeris, Contemporary theories of learning (pp. 147-158). London: Routledge.

Usher, R., Bryant, I., & Johnston, R. (1996). Adult education and the postmodern challenge: Learning beyond the limits. London: Routledge.

On Tuesday, I attended the funeral of Richard Laight, an ex-colleague from the University of Nottingham who became a close and valued friend. Given his sudden, unexpected death, it was a sad and emotional occasion, but one which also celebrated a life that had blessed many. I was asked to read this fitting epitaph. Richard will be greatly missed.

An honest man here lies at rest …
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of Age, and guide of Youth:
Few hearts like his with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.

Robert Burns | Epitaph on my own friend, and my father’s friend, William Muir in Tarbolton (1784)

I’m just off to the Engineering and Science Graduate Centre to run a social media training session for the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (Midlands and Oxford). Here’s the slides:

An interesting post from Dr Mark William Johnson on the myth of the online community. I wasn’t able to comment directly, so I’ve presented a few thoughts here:

From what I understand, the notion of online or ‘virtual communities’ (Rheingold etc.) partly emerged from the activities of early adopters who were both collocated and geographically dispersed, but importantly, were relatively few in number. As such, they engaged in the type of shared interests and enterprises that might be genuinely considered analogous with the development and maturation of physical communities. Subsequent online platforms like Ning-type sites continue to exploit the community metaphor, albeit superficially.

In response to the exponential rise in the number of web users, Castells, Bauman, Wellman etc. offered up varying interpretations of ‘networked individualism’ as an alternative metaphor of web sociability. This would seem to be a more appropriate reading of how many of us use the web today, particularly in the strategic, self-invested behaviours Mark refers to. Yet even in this type of online landscape, whilst individual motives may vary, aspects of empathy, altruism and reciprocity – that we might associate with the values and social cohesion of the physical community – are evident in some of the (sometimes transient) social aggregations that can emerge (such as those around some dedicated Twiitter hashtags).

Image source: Piccsy

Yesterday I was happy to attend an Early Career Fellowships Event organised by the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Social Sciences (CAS) at the University of Nottingham.

Whilst the event drew on funding opportunities and support services specific to the University, it primarily focused on the key national funding schemes relevant to the Arts and Social Sciences, and general advice on applications, which might be useful to pass on.

Kicking off, Prof. Pat Thomson – in her capacity as CAS Director and an ESRC reviewer – located the role of fellowships in the post-doctoral landscape, and provided an honest assessment of the current opportunities facing new researchers in an increasingly competitive field. She stressed the need to be flexible, opportunistic and entrepreneurial. There was no mistaking that the limited number of fellowship awards represent a highly sought-after opportunity for academic career development, and that potential applicants should also consider other trajectories including: teaching posts, working as a post-doc on research projects (with possible opportunities for limited teaching), and external non-academic research work in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Lisa McCabe from CAS ran through the main national award schemes relevant to the Arts and Social Sciences, namely:

• AHRC Early Career Fellowships
• ESRC Future Research Leaders
• Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships
• British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowships

Each have their own specific requirements and conditions of eligibility, but from these some common concerns and tips for applicants emerged that were re-emphasised by subsequent speakers.

It was stressed that applications should not be seen as a reworking or extension of doctoral theses, but a proposal for an original and timely piece of research in a significant field of study. The Leverhulme award in particular has an emphasis on originality and might privilege applications that challenge traditional disciplinary boundaries. Evidence of pilot work (including publication) may be advantageous, though not to an extent that risks concerns over ‘double funding.’

Crucially, reviewers of Early Career Fellowships give equal quality weighting to the project and to the applicant. Therefore, applicants should clearly demonstrate their ‘independent research potential’ and passion for the research subject.

Review bodies are commonly multi-disciplinary, and applications should have a clear rationale that engages a non-specialist audience. Ample time should be given to writing applications, inviting feedback from senior academics, such as supervisors, thesis examiners, and heads of school, as well as successful award holders, whilst making the most of research support services in the university.

It was stressed that applicants are eligible for most fellowship awards for several years after successfully gaining their doctorate. Whilst some may be fortunate to be awarded a fellowship soon after graduation, many will require the extra time gaining experience in teaching and research work and consolidating their publication output to be in a position to develop a successful application. As such, it is common for applicants to reapply for fellowships, though some schemes may have conditions on the timing of reapplications.

Not surprisingly, the need for strong evidence of work through peer-reviewed publications was emphasised throughout the event. Briony McDonagh, a successful Leverhulme ECF holder, explained how she worked as a post-doc for two years before receiving her award, giving her the opportunity to develop further journal articles from her thesis.

In addition, significant evidence of partnership and networking activities, knowledge exchange and public engagement are greatly valued.

Svenja Adolphs, an ESRC Grant Assessment Panel member, provided further insight on impact and outreach activities from a reviewer’s perspective, suggesting applicants involve end-users in the process of developing the application. It may not be sufficient to merely identify potential partnerships – a full commitment should be sought. She also reminded us that impact activities need to be evaluated, and that the method of evaluation should be described.

University of Nottingham researchers can access the presentations and further information on the CAS Workspace.

“Technologies have always changed us. Fire gave us a way to cook meat, essentially pre-digesting food and altering the evolution of both our teeth and digestive tract. Wearing fur allowed us to shed our own. Likewise, text changed the way we process and remember information, and television changed the way our brains relate to three-dimensional space. Digital media now extends some of these trajectories, while adding a few of its own.” (pp. 32-33)

Douglas Rushkoff | Program or be Programmed

Rushkoff, D. (2010). Program or be programmed: Ten commands for a digital age. New York: OR Books.

Here’s a useful tip for anyone with Adobe Acrobat.

The quickest way to avoid the annoying hard return formatting you usually get when copying and pasting text from a PDF into Word, Open Office or whatever is to first add tags to the document:

Advanced > Accessibility > Add Tags to Document

There are other ways round it, but to think I used to correct the formatting line by line…