dougbelshaw.com/blog

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#uppingyourgame: an educator's guide to productivity is now up to v0.4!
(I'm looking for people to translate it into other languages when finished - if you're interested get in touch!)

For me, 2007 has been a bit of a drought year in terms of reading. The arrival of my son Ben in January put pay to any thoughts of doing anything other than sleeping after going to bed. Having said that, I did manage at least one book per month on average, so below is a list of them with a one-sentence review.

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Posted: December 31st, 2007
Categories: Everything Else
Tags: Books and Reading Material
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I went to see Will Smith’s latest film I Am Legend yesterday with my brother-in-law Sean. I was expecting a bit of an action film and not have to think too much, but I was pleasantly surprised. It a rollicking good story with fantastic special effects – although obviously not as good as Beowulf which Hannah and I saw in glorious 3D on my birthday (December 22nd for those that missed it…) (more…)

Posted: December 28th, 2007
Categories: Everything Else
Tags: General, Moving Pictures
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BBC News reports that both the Children’s Minister and the NASUWT’s General Secretary of Teaching have urged parents to ensure Christmas toys stay at home. The latter, Chris Keates, is quoted as saying, “can be a real headache for teachers when they are trying to get everyone settled down to start learning. Teachers would be grateful if pupils just brought a pen.”

This is fairly short-sighted and in fact does not reflect the view of all, or even most, teachers. At the time of revolutionary devices such as the iPhone and the benefits of ‘games’ such as Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Age we need to be looking towards new pedagogies to replace the ‘teacher-at-the-front’ model. The two spokesman above have shown how out-of-touch they really are with education in the 21st century; it’s time to start harnessing the power of the technology students own to really personalise learning.

Posted: December 28th, 2007
Categories: Education
Tags:
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I should know better than to do potentially disastrous things when I’m tired. But yet, at 10.45pm this evening I updated the firmware on my Nokia N95 and, guess what? I lost all of my contacts. So now I’m going to have to wait until people for whom Hannah hasn’t got the details get it touch with me. I suppose I can put a message on Facebook…

If you’re reading this and want to stay in touch, please text me (don’t forget to put your name at the end of the message!) (more…)

Posted: December 19th, 2007
Categories: Technology
Tags: contacts, Frustrations, mobile, N95, Nokia, phone
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Eduspaces, where I previously hosted my Ed.D. blog, has given notice that it is shutting down. I have therefore moved my Ed.D. blog here, to edublogs.org.

It was a fairly easy process:

1. Download RSS feed from Eduspaces.
2. Sign up for edublogs.org blog.
3. Go to Options/Import in new blog.
4. Browse and upload RSS feed from Eduspaces.
5. Categories were all wrong, so had to delete them all manually (a bit of a pain)
6. Configuration of new blog.

Hopefully this will give me a bit more flexibility and make it easier for people to find my reflections. The only really annoying thing is that the imported posts have ‘James’ as the author instead of me…

Posted: December 16th, 2007
Categories: Everything Else
Tags: blog, Ed.D., edublogs.org, Eduspaces, Research, Thesis
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Inspired by Bredo’s diagrams in ‘Philosophies of Educational Research’ (within Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research – see previous post for reference), I’ve produced the following diagram. Hopefully it will help clarify my thinking when it comes to writing the methodology section of my thesis proposal:

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Posted: December 15th, 2007
Categories: Thesis
Tags: Ed.D., Education2, methodology, proposal, Research, Thesis
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I didn’t want to break my teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk blogging hiatus, but I’ve been wondering why, over the last 24 hours, the whole world and his dog seems to be adding me as a friend on Pownce. For those who don’t know, Pownce is a Twitter-like social networking tool that allows you to send files and was co-created by a founder of the immensely powerful and influential Digg.com.

On further investigation it would seem like Twitter’s been down for some people for the last day or so. The problem with social networking tools is that very often it depends on critical mass rather than the utility of the tool. Pownce has better features (grouping friends in sets, file-sharing) but on the other hand to unlock them all you have to ‘go Pro’.

A tool such as Pownce could create a really effective ‘walled garden’ to use in education. Whether it be within a single class or school, or opened up more widely, these micro social-networking tools have the flexibility to be used in so many ways. I’m thinking of using Twitter to help my Year 11s to remember to revise…

Posted: December 15th, 2007
Categories: Education
Tags:
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(click to enlarge)

The demographic of Facebook is predominantly people in their late 20s/early 30s. One has to wonder what we’ll be discussing and how we’ll be interacting in, say 30-40 years’ time. Have a look at the image above. It made me chuckle. Original here on Flickr.

Posted: December 12th, 2007
Categories: Everything Else
Tags: Facebook, Flickr, funny, humour, social networking
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There are two main philosophical traditions when it comes to research methodologies: positivism and constructivism. Positivism holds that the world is ‘out there’ waiting for us to discover it, whilst Constructivism holds that ‘facts’ are socially and psychologically constructed labels and descriptions we place upon the world as we experience it. All research methods – apart from perhaps Pragmatism – fall into one of these two camps.

The Wikipedia article on Methodology sums things up quite nicely:

Methodology refers to more than a simple set of methods; rather it refers to the rationale and the philosophical assumptions that underlie a particular study. This is why scholarly literature often includes a section on the methodology of the researchers. This section does more than outline the researchers’ methods (as in, “We conducted a survey of 50 people over a two-week period and subjected the results to statistical analysis”, etc.); it might explain what the researchers’ ontological or epistemological views are.

The following OpenCourseWare resources (found via the very useful oercommons.org website) should help me – especially these in particular:

• MIT (15.347) – Doctoral Seminar in Research Methods I
  
• MIT (15.348) – Doctoral Seminar in Research Methods II

Some books I shall be looking for to help me with my thesis proposal:?

• Allison, B., et al. (1996) Research Skills for Students (001.44 RES – Education Library)
• Cohen, L., et al. (2000) Research Methods in Education (370.72 COH – Education Library)
• Creswell, J. (2007) Qualitative Inquiry and research design: choosing among five traditions (300.723 CRE – Education Library)
• Patton, M.Q. (2002) Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods (300.723 PAT – Man Library)
• Phillips, E. (2005) How to get a PhD: a guide for students and their supervisors (378.240941 PHI – Education Library)
• Wisker, G. (2001) The Postgraduate Research Handbook: succeed with your MA, MPhil, EdD and PhD (001.42 WIS – Main Library)

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Posted: December 9th, 2007
Categories: Thesis
Tags: Ed.D., methodologies, Research, Thesis, Wikipedia
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I was up at 5am again this morning working on my Ed.D.? It’s hard when it’s so dark and it’s the end of term…

After looking at various research methodologies, I think I’m going to go for a combination of a hermenutic, philosophical and pragmatic approaches in the dialectical tradition. It could all end up a mess, but I think I’m on to something: digital literacies are culturally and very specifically situated, but have broader elements which can be discussed, synthesized and made sense of.

Here’s what I’ve been looking at today – all from the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research:

• E. Bredo – Philosophies of Educational Research
• N.C. Burbules & B.R. Warnick – Philosophical Inquiry
• F.M. Connelly & D.J. Clandinin – Narrative Inquiry
• C. Genishi & T. Glupczynski – Language and Literacy Research: Multiple Methods and Perspectives

Posted: December 8th, 2007
Categories: Everything Else
Tags: books, Ed.D., methodologies, references, Research, Thesis
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