pic of Kix and I (Puppytoes) bald in Second Life

After today, my Follow Cost in Twitter is definitely going to go up! As of today, my follow cost is 2.27 per day with 13.55 per day with the last 100 updates. So those of you following me...watch out!

But what does this have to do with me being bald in Second Life (SL). Well, tomorrow I present at nmc‘s Rock the Academy fall virtual symposium. And we are presenting in Second Life. Well, I’ve played; however, I’ve been too lazy to really change up my avatar. And although I’ve been trying to get the time to “pimp out” my avatar, of course, I’m down to the wire and trying to do it at the last minute. When I should be grading papers for my Women & Film class tonight, I’m instead trying to run around in SL figuring out how to buy clothes, get dressed, not embarrass myself and flash the world...you know, basic newbie things.

After wandering around by myself for a while, I wailed on Twitter with a “crud, crud, crud.” And Twitter came to the rescue! Before I knew it, I had more people than I could interact with trying to help me “get dressed” in SL. So this blog is a big “thank you” to @whitetshirts (aka Something), @greenteach3 (aka Faythe), and @befitt (aka Kix) for helping me out today. This is also a general thank you to the microblog-o-sphere as well. And this is finally a reflective moment about the extreme usefulness of Twitter as a professional tool for those who work and play in our contemporary techno-culture. Not only is Twitter worthwhile to study in 21st century scholarship, it is a scholarly tool for the 21st century as well!

pic of Kix and I hanging out at the nmc virtual reception. I won $1000L for the scavenger hunt!

now if I could just figure out how to get my cool purple boots to look right on my funky SL feet…

Carlson @ TechHerding asks a good question about what would happen to technical training if it were to happen via the Radiohead model. I also think he provides some interesting ideas about what might happen. Faster availability and easier demonstration of value being two biggies that impact teaching, learning, and scholarship.

My question is, what if we did this to scholarship? I think one of the signs of scholarship in the 21st century is the move to “open” scholarship that freely shares itself and invites collaboration. Obviously the technologies are there to support this model; but, as in the music industry, it is the economic infrastructure (tenure) that heavily resists change. Not ironically, the changes that Carlson forecasts for teaching and learning are the same for scholarship:

1. Dramatically Lower Costs. No more paper journals, printed monographs, or in the red university presses.
2. Dramatically Faster Availability. Finish your content, put a PDF up on the web. Done. (not a thing changes from Carlson’s point)
3. Dramatically Easier Demonstration of Value. You could show administrators and tenure committees that some content was valued highly, and that some was not. And come on, doesn’t the hyper-specialization of cable television demonstrate that although this would not be controlled peer review, who else is going to subscribe to the output of your RSS publication feed except others in your field? And tracking of citations becomes uber-easy!
4. Dramatically Happier Colleagues. Nobody will have an issue with something they pay for only if they like it. (again, Carlson said it all)
5. Dramatically Different You. In this new world, you’ll get immediate feedback on what you’re providing, and have immediate demonstration of the value (or lack thereof) that you add. If that scares you, it probably should. (yup…Carlson got this right!)

So, does the possibility of publishing scholarship in this world scare you? If so, it probably should. If not, get cracking! Start your own blog like Henry Jenkins, request that the journals in your field have online components that publish in blog with comment features and RSS output (like Flow) or wiki format that invites reader feedback, and ideally revision (like Kairos Praxis). We can’t make this a reality until we have a critical mass doing it! But I imagine I’m preaching to the choir, so how do we spread the word of Radiohead?

I had this brainstorm the other night as I was crazily putting together a course about web-based teaching and learning...a visual journal using one of the online image repositories. I guess this isn’t that “new” of an idea; in fact, I’m sure it came to my mind as Alan Levine‘s ”50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story” bounced around in my head. So as I’m writing this I’m sending out a THANKS to Alan!

Here is the start of my visual journal about teaching a class of teachers about teaching in web-based environments (say that ten times fast). And if you want to see the captions and comments, or subscribe to the RSS feed, visit my visual journal.

Dear readers...do you know of any other blog postings where the “content” is in the replies? If so, please reply below.

And that is more than the well-intended platitude that knowledge is an infinite process,much more subjectively so in the humanities, and that the idea of bringing a strand of thought to completion is but an illusion, and essentially incompatible with modalities of research, scholarship, and thought in the humanities. The current practice of conferring far more cultural capital on the full length book than on the shorter work essentially pleads indifference to the unpredictable and infinite continuity of knowledge-production, which can occur even within one person’s consciousness. (pp. 650-651).

Majumdar does not discredit that some ideas need book length works; however, as those of us in rhet/comp would claim, purpose, audience, and in this case topic should drive publishing decisions, not the length demanded by a promotion and tenure committee.
Ultimately, this just makes me keep on, keepin on. Nielsen’s article helps me to understand why I might not blog as much as I want to and why my blogs tend to be a bit longer than what I regularly see. Majumdar’s opinion piece helps justify my continued push for alternative methods of research and publication.
P.S. It almost killed me to title my blog this way; however, isn’t it ironic that intellectually we love “fat” but aesthetically we desire “skinny”?

As I was reading an article to check a reference in the edited collection I’m working on, Rhetorically Rethinking Usability I came across a table (figure 1) that compares characteristics between usability testing and traditional experiments (Dieli, 1989).

Figure 1: Some Characteristics of a Usability Test Compared with Those of a Classic, Controlled, Experiment

(Dieli, 1989, p. 275).

In the article Dieli (1989) was discussing how the context of actual usability testing requires flexibility and adaptation in a manner that can not replicate nor produce the methods and products desired by traditional researchers. I think people doing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), especially those of use at a two-year college, can identify greatly with Dieli’s point. I’ll admit, I’m tired of trying to explain the how and why it is almost impossible for me to construct a methodologically “sound” empirical study in my SoTL research about teaching with technology. I think the table above provides some ways to think about how and why my frustrations are valid.

Figure 2: Some Characteristics of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with Those of a Classic, Controlled, Experiment

By filling in the second table, I’m better able to articulate how/where there is breakdown between the work I want to do and produce with more “traditional” concepts of scholarship and publication. The “n” row acknowledges that these types of studies will rarely ever be “statistically significant.” This implies two things: first, more qualitative methods need to be included and accepted as valid; and second, that “experience” and “lore” do need to be given some credit an authority.

The “confounds” row acknowledges that classrooms are not sterile environments, period! Again, there will always be considerations about other contributing factors. The “time” row shows were we begin to see the possibilities to different types of SoTL research methods and publications emerging. Obviously an teacher/research can develop a traditional empirical study that uses some classes as the experimental group, others as control, and repeat it over different semesters to get a statistically significant number of participants. Reality check in my world, why would I teach two sections of the same class using different methods, especially if I’m teaching four or five courses? And then, ethically, if I sincerely believe a method is going to better facilitate learning, am I going to not do it with other students (I guess the medical field has to deal with this ethical dilemma all the time, I’ll have to ask my dad about it).

As I started to explain in the discussion of the “time” row, you could either be doing SoTL research that is much more “traditional” and use a whole session’s worth of classes as pilots. However, if you do SoTL research more like I do, either every session is a “pilot,” or they are never “pilots.” Since I like to research how new technologies better facilitate teaching and learning, I’m always trying a new technology or a newer technology in a different manner.

This always beta method of research is what I’m thinking of when I talk about Just in Time Scholarship (JiTS). Basically the research is always in pilot or process; therefore, the “reporting” or publication is just a snapshot in time of the results. Obviously this can be published in more traditional modes, journals and books; however, with the slow time to publication of those media, the content is woefully outdated by the time it is actually read by the intended audience. The JiTS is much better suited for publication in blogs and wikis. Both the publication and critique/commentary processes are faster. And just because its blogging and wikis doesn’t mean it can’t still be peer reviewed! Or, if the person is publishing “results” regularly, think blogging, the peer review can occur after the “publication” of the information in the reply section of the blog posting.

References
Dieli, Mary. (1989). The usability process: Working with iterative design principles. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 32(4): 272-278. Retrieved July 5, 2007, from IEEE Electric Library Online.

• Once upon a time I did a workshop on basic online design strategies using Superman as a narrative metaphor;


• I reported out on my year as Ocotillo Queen of Hybrids (obviously that wasn’t the title) using The Matrix as a metaphor,
  
  
  
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    Take the RED Pill
    You stay in wonderland and we show you how deep the hybrid learning goes; OR

  
  
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    Take the BLUE Pill
    The learning ends. You wake up in your office and believe whatever you want;

  
  


• I’ve been using the phrase “Keeping up with the Jetsons” to refer to my various projects (starting with the dissertation, including a presentation to fellow rhet/comp folks, and currently with my Ocotillo R&D work) to easily describe my research on how/why faculty can keep up with the exponentially increasing number of new technologies;


• I’ve co-authored piece coming out in an edited collection called Resident Franchise (playing with the Resident Evil narrative);


• And now, I found myself somehow identifying with Dr. Strangelove as a scholar studying scholarship in the 21^st century.

If you’ve seen Dr. Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, I’m sure you are saying “eek—Dr. Strangelove was a Nazi.” You are right, but that didn’t first draw me to the narrative. First, I love the second half of the title. There are still major technophobes out there; and I really think they would be happier individuals if they learned to stop worrying and love the technology. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t engage it critically; however, like nuclear bombs, computers are here to stay.

Second, I think the various characters at play in the film do nicely parallel folks we have in the academy and how they react to digital scholarship: “We must preserve our precious peer reviewed print journals.” Admit it…you know these people, right?

Finally, and back to Dr. Strangelove himself, I do identify with him. He has accepted that the bomb has dropped and computer technologies are here to stay. Instead of wistfully dreaming of a prosaic past (which was never that good), he starts dealing with the situation as it currently stands and offering up ideas. Instead of studying a problem to death before making decisions on what works best, he knows that there isn’t that kind of time and we have to act with haste. But that is why scholars specialize right, so people/leaders can ask for their trained opinion instead of learning it all on their own. And yeah, he has a dark past; however, that past informs his current understanding of the future.

Translation: Computers in education are here to stay. They also advance quickly enough that we can’t study something to death before deciding whether or not to implement them (or at least try them out). And yes, I am scholar from the dark side of the academy, the two year college; but folks at the R1 institutions, that experience gives me insight into things you may never understand. If anything, I am not entrenched in the current scholarly processes at research institutions; my outside status occasionally allows me to see parts of the process that those of you living in it are blind to.

Ultimately, what I like about my new Dr. StrangeScholar persona is that I blatantly admit to embracing the chaos. Chaos is messy. Sometimes strange, or even half-baked, ideas emerge; however, I also think that interesting connections are also made out in that messy area. I’ll stay there for a while, and continue with my work on the scholarship of the 21^st century. Keep an eye out for my new chaotic connection between Just-in-Time Teaching and the future of scholarship: Just-in-Time Scholarship.

The rhetorician in me is fascinated by the fact that CNN has now made it standard practice to accept material from anyone willing to upload it. I feel that this is something connected to the fact that technology has allowed us to have so many different syndicated outlets that there is something specialized for small discourse/focus communities. In other words, we can have so many network stations with digital cable and highly specialized advertising. And now, we can have specialized news that we, ourselves, submit as “important.” Granted...the editors still have control over what makes it in; however, this is definitely another venue to fifteen minutes of fame.

Why are we, and my students, so desperate to make ourselves into our audiences? Is it because it is the easy route of communication. There is no mixed message, there is no need to persuade, it is just 100% “understanding.” Or, have we become addicted to remediation? Are we so used to reading things recycled and remixed that we just want to add our “voice” to the mix? Is it easier and cheaper access to technology that allows more people to participate in the remixing and remediation processes? The one thing I really like about this phenomena is that my students should become more accustomed to the idea that multiple people author single texts...even if there is still a “primary” author.