Are we there yet? No ... and this is why - an appeal to database owners and academic libraries

I'm about to write another assignment.  This must be about my 40th serious assignment of over 2000 words requiring academic research, looking for good peer-reviewed studies, reading through 1000's of pages to try and distill exactly what is being said, whether it is of relevance (directly or tangentially), and once I'm finished that to pause and think and think and think and try to come up with some new insights, some different ways of applying the theory, some critiques that go beyond the obvious.

As I've written before, (unfair advantage, how I used to write) the true work isn't in the procuring of the articles, it's in discerning their relevance, it's in rejection rather than reading.

So why am I, Anno Domino / Common Era 2015 STILL spending so much time on the library database doing silly work.  Honestly, those who lead academic libraries and who run academic databases please tell me why this isn't easier, faster, more streamlined?  Is it me? Am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

Right now I'm looking for good literature on "Classroom Libraries".  I put in a federated search. At the same time, I search Google Scholar.... (read more) 

Activity and paralysis

Reading, reading, reading. I know I should start trying to write, but I'm in a kind of simultaneous paralysis and activity. Each new reading I do, I discover a whole field of knowledge and information that I know way too little about. Today I discovered the LEA (language experience approach) to teaching reading and writing. And the relevant (for me) "cousin" D-LEA (i.e. with digital). I'm sure every single teacher in the world is totally familiar with this and today was the first time I'd encountered it - academically at least. I'm pretty sure it's what they do at school and that my kids experienced it, I just didn't know the name. Duh. So this has kicked off a new round of activity - frantically learning more about it and how it relates to my topic; and paralysis - not being able to start writing my assignment yet. 

Unfair Advantage

Following the release of the results of our first assignment, there has been some soul searching and discussion on how better results can be attained and what went wrong etc. I’ve seen this on various Facebook groups I’m a member of too. I’ve referred earlier to the whole privilege thing, and I’ll say it again.  No one mentioned it, but of course some of us (myself included) had an unfair advantage. When I write “the whole privilege thing” and then so easily reference the exact article, it’s because I’ve read it, and stored it on Evernote, and can easily access it.... read more

Last night's Sichuan dinner in Chengdu - picking through the peppers!

Writing in order to write

After a hiatus of over a month due to moving house, school holidays, visitors etc. I'm having to pick up on writing again.  I've done a lot of reading in the interim - for my course and around my course and for an article I'm co-authoring for the IASL conference. I'm finding if I don't put my thoughts down I tend to dream about them way too much. And believe me, dreaming about virtual networks, new literacies and various multi-player online games that I don't play myself and only read about is no fun.

I did encounter an interesting blog post on the value of blogging as an academic (Not that I'd pretend to be an academic - even as the conceptualisation of what an academic is shifts). It is a really good article and I'd recommend you have a look at it. I agree completely with the points. When I write, I'm forced to think more deeply about what I've read. I have to link it to other things, I need to bring things together that were bouncing around at the edge of my consciousness into focus.  I do miss the days when blogging was more social and posts would get many comments and communities would spring up around them. There is a bit of that going on, but not nearly as much as before. I think discourse has moved onto other social media platforms and I think that blogging as a pseudo academic tool may have flogged itself to death - if everyone is blogging, who is reading the blogs?

My son, the reluctant reader and even more reluctant writer has started reading Zoe Sugg's Girl Online and is thinking about starting a blog. He already has an avid Instagram following from the days that he was passionate about photography, and I'm sure would blog in an equally competitive way (is this type of competition a social media thing or a boy thing or just a thing?). I said I'd support him and that it was probably a good idea, given that blogs were more traditionally a "girl" thing, and he'd probably find an audience in kids like him.

Writing, longer writing, beyond 140 characters or passing on liked posts on social media is something valuable, as it is transformational and productive, not just consumptive, which is the easy part of our digital world.  And now my focus needs to shift to my assignment.