Education and Digital Cultures
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Just sharing a link to a favourite blog of mine; the quality of posts definitely makes up for their relative infrequency! The posts provide examples of the use of ethnography in libraries, and I find discussion surrounding the methodologies employed to be often extremely useful.
I haven’t read this book, but it was mentioned by a couple of colleagues in a Research group I’m in at work, so I thought it might be worth sharing. From a few books reviews I’ve glanced it, it appears to be full of innovative ways of doing ethnographic research (including, possibly, Dan’s break-up letter) – definitely something for my ‘to read’ list!
(Try saying that after a pint or two)
Here it is! Just click the image below to (hopefully) open up a PDF in Google Drive.
I’ve been really impressed with the detail Dan has gone into on his netnography; it puts mine to shame in terms of many things but particularly the level of immersion achieved. But I thought I’d tweet specifically about the love letter/break-up letter methodology, because I’ve used it several times to get students’ feelings about things, though I’ve never written a proper one myself.
It’s got me thinking about the netnography methodologies that we’re all using; what I’ve chosen to do certainly doesn’t feel rigorous enough. I know this is a low-stakes exercise, but that doesn’t really let us off the hook as far as methodology development goes…
In the small amount of UX and ethnographic work I’ve already done, I’ve learned the value of admitting and questioning the biases and assumptions we might naturally hold. So I’ve spent a little time this week, in preparation for the micro-ethnography, thinking about what I might assume about the participants on the course, and whether those assumptions are fair.
I’ve come up with three things:
a) they’re human
But maybe they’re not. I’ve seen The New Adventures of Superman, and I cannot therefore discount the concept of robotic investigative journalism.
b) they know what a MOOC is
Leaving aside any epistemological dilemmas about the nature of knowledge, I’m not sure this is true. How much determinism can we assume? Heaven knows what I’ve signed up to without knowing it. So, erm, let’s switch this to…
b, again) they’ve heard of MOOCs, or they’ve been told about them, or they’ve stumbled across them randomly on the internet
Which feels like a spectacularly unhelpful statement. Finally, I ended up with:
c) they have an email address
This is probably all I can assume with any certainty. They have access to a computer, and to the internet – but we can’t be sure about the level of that access. What they do have is an email address and – crucially – the relevant skill set to set that up, to enrol and participate.
Scannable Document on 24 Feb 2017, 10_53_23
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February 24, 2017 at 10:53AM
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I’ve been thinking this week about presence and absence, partly in response to a decision I made at the beginning of the week not to reveal myself as a researcher on the discussion board for my MOOC. This was for several reasons, but mainly that I sort of missed the boat:
(a) the discussion boards I’m predominantly looking at are historical (i.e. they’re two weeks old), so new posts would be missed
(b) there isn’t anywhere else obvious to me where a post like this would be seen; there is a ‘general’ board, but there are very, very few entries on it
Anyway, this quotation from Hine was caught me at just the right time while I was considering this and made me consider my own status and identity – in the MOOC setting, as a researcher – and the impact that might have. Today (two days later), as I sit having finished (but not yet posted) my artefact, I’m still wondering about this…