Blogger issue!

It is very annoying, sometimes you are glad to post an entry and then an error suddenly occures, then you have to spend time on resolving it.

After I posted my ideas today, met this error "001 java.net.ConnectException", which made me have to search the solutions, but unfortunately, not find the better way yet :-(

See 1, 2, see how annoying sometimes the technology problems! Then when I decided to give up trying, the problem is sorted out automatically as well! But my time has gone, so next time, if meet any techinical problem which is not created because of my operation, I will not try to reslove it myself :-)

An idea

In 2005, Lawley ask this question “why do academics blog?” in her blog and attempts to explore the value of blogging in educational settings deeply, many useful sources and comments there, but there seems to be no satisfactory agreement yet.

I think there are no reasons that academics have to or do not have to. We probably shall ask firstly “What are the advantages of using blogs?” and “How different between use and do not use blogs?”

Communication

It is a time to think about “communication” again when people say that a blog is a communication tool. According to Longman dictionary, it is described as “the way people express themselves so that other people will understand”, “the process by which people exchange information or express their thoughts and feelings”……

Communication happens when people talk face-to-face, contact by letter, telephone, mail, instant message, or virtual meeting and so on. There is no doubt that communication is intertwined with interactions.

In virtual environment, through the first stage data collection and analysis, I got a feeling that blogging is indeed beyond spoken and text-based (written) communication. It’s more than visual and sound. It also includes care and belief, a kind of emotional and perceptive communication behind there. In 1999, Christine Ingleton pointed out emotions in learning has been neglected; they are part of social bonding and the basis of self-identity and self-esteem.

I was thinking how to explain the little sense that blogging may help emotional communication in learning.

Learning and quotes

“… human are more likely to persevere when their purposeful activities are acknowledged and rewarded.” (Garrison, D.R. & Anderson, T. 2003, p.94) In the e-learning environment, are there more acknowledgement and rewards for people? Are people encouraged more by others or more by themselves?

I can’t say that there are direct relationships between quotes and my research, but it is always good that I get some sentences which will help for the research. I like putting the quotes together and read them later on, and quite often change my MSN name using these quotes. In other words, they are not only helpful for study, but also really help me perceive this world. I suppose some people have the same habits to me, use the quotes for certain interests.

I got this nice quotation from Andrew. “Capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (Keats 1817). Being a qualitative methods adopter, I always struggle the “ways of seeing”.

Put some quotes here, for my further study:

There can be no knowledge without emotion. --- Jay Cross, ‘Informal learning’, 2006

You can’t connect the dots looking forwards; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever… --- Steve Jobs, 'You've got to find what you love', 2005

You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge; but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom. --- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

The range of what we think and do
Is limited by what we fail to notice
And because we fail to notice
That we fail to notice
There is little we can do
To change
Until we notice
How failing to notice
Shapes our thoughts and deeds. --- Ronald David Laing (1927-1989)

To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour. --- Wlliam Blake (1759-1827)

An relaxing time – “search 2”

It is a true and funny story which happened in my office this week.

One colleague (A) missed one session of a module, she went to ask another colleague (B) who undertakes the same module.

A: … I missed the class that day, could you tell me what’s that about? …
B: … mainly how to use different search tools and compare them with gateways, database searching … for the coursework, you need to choose one search tool for searching a research topic…
A (with a confused face): a searching two? How can I use it? …
B (also with a confused face): Don’t you know search tool? Search tool is search engine, such as google, I show you …
A: I know google, a search engine, but what is search one?
B (still with a confused face): Search one? Ah, I see, my English! Aha, Aha, I mean search tool rather than search two, not one, two, three …

lol lol lol ……

Search one
Search two
Search three is coming ...

(image from http://virgil.azwestern.edu/~dag/lol/images/Laugh.jpg)

Qualitative research methods

“Using Qualitative Research in Higher Education” (Morris, 2003) is a brief but clear PPT for qualitative methods: observation, interviews and focus groups.

I like the quotation:

Cultural interviews engage the researcher in to processes:
- Familiarization
- Defamiliarization
“Without the first, the listening skills needed for data collection and analysis are impoverished. Without the second, the investigator is not in a position to establish any distance from his or her own deeply embedded cultural assumptions.” (McCraken, 1988)

For the interviews in my study, I think use the term “probe” is more appropriate than the term “prompt”. Or probably I need to use more probes than prompts.

What are your lessons through blogging?

I got some useful ideas from an entry: 18 Lessons I’ve Learnt about Blogging on proBlogger, even though Darren Rowse mainly develops the blog for business and organisations rather than for education.

“The harder I practice, the luckier I get”. Yes, we should believe luck is not always a nature thing.

“A key question every blogger should ask when starting out is around the idea of what value their blog will give readers.” It seems, for most bloggers who use blog for personal space or personal diary, they are seldom bothered by this question. They care themselves more than their readers, don’t they?

“One Blog Many Categories or Many Blogs?” Uhmm, my opinion: better put one topic under one blog and integrate these categories into one webpage.

Take a quick glance: Web 2.0

Following Blogs, Wikis, Web 2.0 as a new term, has raised people’s interests this year. What is Web 2.0? is there Web1.0? Is it a technology? Is it a concept? Is it an online application product? I will give some resources later. Come across Web 2.0 Validator, interesting! I tried my blog, 8 out of 52. Seems far to be a real Web 2.0. :-(

At first glance of Web 2.0:
The introduction from Wikipedia
What is Web 2.0? See Tim O'Reilly’s definition

Know more about Web 2.0:
Interview about Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 written by Paul Graham

Dion Hinchliffe’s Web 2.0 blog provides many new ideas about Web 2.0. It is worthy of looking at the entries: The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005 and All we got was Web 1.0, when Tim Berners-Lee actually gave use web 2.0

All things Web 2.0

Web2.0 logo

The Third Annual Web 2.0 Conference “Web1.0 was commerce. Web 2.0 is people”

Web 3.0, Jeffrey Zeldman presents his different opinion of web 2.0 on A List Apart Magazine

Web 2.0? It doesn’t exist by Russell Shaw

Learning to love Web 2.0 from BBC News

Web 2.0 Definition and Tagging from Richard MacManus’s blog: Read/WriteWeb

10 definitions of Web 2.0 and their shortcomings written by Ian Delaney

Blog awards

It took me one hour to read the sixth year of the world’s most established weblog awards. Interesting! Unfortunately, it didn’t include the best academic blog or the best educational blog.

Then, I spent about an hour on reading and comparing the categories of these blog awards and see how they are changing since the first one to now:

Weblog awards since 2001
The Edublog Awards since 2004
Canadian Blog Awards since 2004
Asia Weblog Awards since 2003
Irish blog awards since 2005
Indian weblog awards since 2005
Swiss Blog Awards Since 2006

Learned things recently

One of my colleagues passed viva recently. Talked with him, I was very impressed by two things:

First, how to write memos. As Pandit (1996) said:

“three types of memo may be distinguished: code memos, theoretical memos and operational memos. Code memos relate to open coding and thus focus on conceptual labelling. Theoretical memos relate to axial and selective coding and thus focus on paradigm features and indications of process. Finally, operational memos contain directions relating to the evolving research design.”

My colleague showed me a tidy thick collection of A4 papers, like a student’s handout of one year. I think he had organised these three types of memos together and have written them down as chapters of a book formally. He did this on each time he wrote memos which were with time, ideas and evidences rather than recorded the memos informally and scattered. This excellent work must be build by a good habit of writing.

Second, how to improve writing skills? When I asked him this question, he told me, no secret, the more you read, the better writing you will get. Reading the good articles from the authority publications, see how they write and keep writing formally.