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… 😉
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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. 🙂
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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:
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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