evidence based practice

And where can i get some?
I am finding it hard to move on.
The day job has a mountain of marking, the family juggling has my mum in hospital after a fall and after a further fal while in hosp, a broken hip. The PhD would benefit from some uninterrupted dedicated thinking and data collecting time.

Meantime I have had reason to revisit my ethics application using the NEAF Australain system.
4.2.9 (c) The research aims to benefit the category of children or young people to which this participant belongs
The target group for Youthline is young people aged 14 years to 24 years. The research aims to benefit young people who access Youthline counselling involving text messaging, message board postings or email.
The purpose of the research is to investigate the use of text messaging, message board postings and email for counselling so that there is a better understanding of how these services are received, as well as provided, and to inform the shaping of services to best meet the needs of young people. There is currently no evidence base for practice in the provision of text messaging for counselling. There is no research in the transformation of a telephone counselling agency moving from verbally mediated counselling to include the use of txt and text mediated counselling. There is no research in the transformation from verbal to text mediated services of a telephone counselling agency whose target group is young people. There is local and international research identifying txt as a predominant mode of communications for young people (BBC News, 2004; Joyce & Weibelzahl, 2006; Statistics New Zealand, 2006).
The proposed research is responsive to having services shaped by and for young people. Requiring parental consent for young people has at times hampered research into adolescent health and is described as unethical when it is a barrier to participation, research validity, and improving health outcomes in response to research findings (Dagmer, Sanci, Patton, & Sawyer, 2005; Renzetti & Lee, 1993; Sanci, Sawyer, Weller, Bond, & Patton, 2004). To deny the participation particularly of young people who are estranged from their parents, or who are wary of parental involvement, denies an evidence base for practice that could result in improvements to health care as a result of the research.
There is no other group that the information could be obtained from.

Just sometimes, having an evidence base for practice feels incredibly important.

how (not) to get funding

I didn't get to make a difference, the funding application fell over.
Things I learned:
1. It does help to make the application stand out, TXT gained attention
2. Saying you would do it with or without funding doesn't work.
3. Size matters, Starlings law: the bigger it gets the harder it is to squeeze.
Should have known this; its easier to love puppies, kittens, babies...pheromone quotients are high for fledglings.
3. Philanthropy likes desperation.
4. Decisions on funding endeavours for youth should be made by youth.

Moving on:

Research possibilities in social networked spaces

Research possibilities in social networked spaces is an area i have been thinking about with regard to my own study on texting, internet message board postings and email counselling. In gaining ethical approval and in not wanting to damage an online community in any way, i am looking at self reported experiences rather than actual client experiences. I was beginning to get quite despondent about the research validity and reliability. When research occurs how do we know that everything involved is not contrived, if I want to study handwashing then self reporting is obviously going to give a different measure than observations. The presence or absence of reality was getting torturous. Sherry Turkle and Donna Harraway have convinced me that the borders of reality/unreality are blurred. I began to consider that all research is contrived to some extent, it all leaves a footprint, alters the events.... and then i began to think so the best i can do is virtual research in a virtual world. If i were an ethnographer in 2nd life then i might have observations, but again is it of any value, can it be useful for others in a terrestrial life... Fortunately some reading got me out of this funk. Bruce Mason's article Issues in virtual ethnography reminded me of actor network theory (as if i could forget....but had!) Latour says: follow the actors. So whether they are in this reality or a virtual one doesn't matter ....trace the connecting. Its of no real issue inside of ANT as to whether its a real person- its an actor, just stay with the actor in or out of whats called reality, trace the connecting through cyberspaces.
ANT is described in similar terms to a CSI programme, trace connections, let the evidence speak, doesnt need to be human (or a live human...) to be given voice. So I thought i would check out the soon to be released CSI that traverses 2ndlife:

In my second life

Phoebe, despite feeling chronologically aged in this environment, can now manage to make and stack bricks like a toddler. I dont know if anyone has studied growth and development in secondlife, but i seem to be going through phases i last went through decades ago, learning gross motor movement before fine motor movement... I think I'm now in a stage best described as 'parallel play'. I can even dress myself!
In an extreme makeover Phoebe got the harjuku look she had been dying for:

new media, new literacies, new teaching and learning

More on holding on and letting go.
There are so many questions raised in using social software in education; its huge, grows and evolves daily... so even getting a handle on what it is, poses difficulties.
Sheldon Kopp suggests, even a stone can be a teacher.
And just as surely social software can too.
But its about how and about the purposes and about having a match between the means as well as the ends in education.

In the brilliant discussion that I could only access because of socialsoftware, Sandy McAuley on the edtechtalk new literacies media panel at UPEI Sept 29 suggests any integration of new technologies should consider:
1. What problem is it trying to solve?
2. Whose problem is it?
3. What new problems are going to be created with the solution proposed?

I like the thoughtfulness here, there are no solutions or evangelizing of rightness or wrongness in the use of social software or of Web2.0 in teaching, just a thoughtful regard for whats involved.

In applying this to my research, the integration of txt for mediating counselling, this suggests looking at who wants it and for whom does this generate a problem.
Young people seem to be wanting it, txt seems a preferred means of communicating for this group. This might be cost driven, might be ego protecting, might be something else, but seems young people esp expect to be able to engage in this way and as a first choice.
Whose problem is it? Organisations that work with young people and especially organisations whose service is primarily communicating with young people, youth counseling by a telephone agency is obvious but also teaching and learning places ... Universities who want to notify students might consider greater use of this medium. For example, student support 1st year experience team contact students who haven't met assessment deadlines. (A new funding model with an emphasis on student success makes us more attentive to students not achieving). When its done by mail this tended to add a week to the drawn out process of not having got work in on time and didnt always get to the person anyway. Then it got a bit faster using email; but there seemed an increased likelihood that those most needing of the message were also most likely too be transient and least likely to have fixed abodes or Internet access. T'da the cellphone, these ubiquitous devices are everywhere. Seems every student has (at least) one (need to do a quick survey at my next class).
The problem involves evolving the services. Sometimes this is easy as with the example here, sometimes its about getting others (particularly the 'grown ups' to think txt friendly).

This leads to the next question, what new problems? This area is the unknown, some things we anticipate, some things we don't, and how do we alter as what we are altering alters us... This is the main area of my study. It (IT) alters counselling, can it still be counselling when its the 160 characters or less fitting the face of a cellphone?... Does it alter the people involved, does it assist those already socially avoidant to remain socially avoidant? .... Might it increase the likelihood of prank "ph calls' when the 'caller' is not seen or heard....But it may also decrease these as the traceability is more overt with numbers visible...
Bottomline, is it seen as useful by the target group- whats there experience, their hopes, does their use increase, decrease....Does it assist in making connections with a group who might not otherwise...

Dave Cormier suggests the social software opportunities create alterations in scale. He describes teaching in a room of 20 vs teaching when there is potential to connect with the world; a class with access is different. The boundaries have gone, its no longer me and the students, its the world. He takes this a step further suggesting the production of what is knowledge similarly alters. And that the transparency of learning also increases.
AND So does the transparency in teaching. On blackboard or whatever, what i do becomes highly visible. I'm feeling a Foucaudian panacopia coming on so it must be time to let go ...
Will Richardson idenitifies that maybe schools & learning institutions can't manage this. It is too much the square peg in the round hole... that schools cant change this much, letting go of the control of learning being be too much ...

So back to Leunig,
holding it gently ...
knowing that letting go will be just as important.

holding on and letting go

Do an internet search for Leunigs holding on and letting go cartoon, its a special piece advising one to hold on as one might a day old chicken, or a live fish, or the queens handbag....and that letting go is a whole new area to be managed in another cartoon, another day.
In making change happen, the hype isnt enough.
No matter how evangelical the early adopters might be, this isnt enough.
No matter how sparkly the innovation, the sparkle does not create its own S shaped curved trajectory.
To make change happen in Health promotion there is a mantra about making the healthy choice, the easy choice.
Sometimes this is about letting go- recognising habits, letting go of whats comfortable, identifying goals, creating opportunities for doing things differently ...
Leunig's cartoon wisdom on how to hold on points to this.
Latour, Callon, Law all point to this. Actor network theory identifies the 'work' involved but it still seems that the letting go is often bypassed when talking about change. I have just been reading futurelab 2006 on social software and learning networks. Little regard was given to what would have to be unmade, unattached.
Looking at what maintains the status quo is as important as strategizing implementation.

Your panties are showing, the dark side of a novel medium

A literal novel use for the ubiquitous mobile:
NZ Herald , pge B4 Fri Sept 28,
Tom Leonard, a New York writer, has an article on the writing of novels on the screen of a cell phone.
Tracking the story, an earlier form of the story in the Wall Street Journal identifies that in
Japan novelists find a novel way of writing stories
Of the 10 Japanese bestsellers in 2007, half apparently started life as keitai novels.
A mobile phone novel website, Maho i-land, started 7 yrs ago and now lists a million novels. In Japan, more than 3 million text based novels were sold in the first half of the year, literally outstripping pulp (tree based) fiction!

The prose seems to have accommodated the medium, its described as heavier in dialogue, and has less descriptive build up of scene or of characters: and has short paragraphs.
I think its probable that the writers and readers as well as the screen size have influence. A network of actors at play/work.
Still, the medium is the message- working with this medium involves being contained by the small screen. Construction accommodates the constraints: the work arounds involve fitting the (small)screen. Thinking becomes blank areas, spoken speech takes as few words as possible to get meaning across... some critiques of the genre suggest this is similar to comic culture...
It might also be that the writers having a preference for particular types of literature, manga being a cited example.

manga characters

differ from their anime counterparts in both visual design and characterization. The manga has more "ecchi" and whimsy, but certain aspects of the plot are darker.

k, maybe the panties were too dark an example, but its a snapshot of the genre.

A preference for dialogue over scenery or character depth is portrayed, whether its readers and writer preference or cell screen sized influence.

I can't see the thesis being written on a cell phone...however

Fanfiction
is huge. (I do not need to worry about my teenage daughters reading or writing, it just looks different when it involves fanfiction, the books are less visible).
It would be easy to say, but its just a tool, the reading and writing still happen. But it is more than a tool, this tool has extra 'special effects'. The reader chooses whether or not be a passive audience, whether or not to be an isolated one. While still awaiting the favourite authors next installment, , these readers are writing the next alternate installment, prequel or sequel! And actively contribute to shaping each others work by providing each other feedback on their writing.

So audience, you have your topic....
The thesis: how mediums used for counseling are both shaped and shaping.
The study: to be informed by Actor network theory.
What comes next?????

still waiting
still ...

will
I
write it?

will
u?

Image obtained from
Rah_manga_panties.jpg‎ (300 × 299 pixels, file size: 53 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Source: Momose Takeaki; Izubuchi Yutaka (2004). Kit Fox. ed. RahXephon Vol. 1. trans. Joe Yamazaki. San Francisco, CA: VIZ Media. ISBN 1591164079.
Website reproduction: http://www.viz.com/onlinemanga/om.php?chap=rax-hi-chapter-1
Original manga ©2001 Yutaka Izubuchi / Takeaki Momose / Shogakukan
Translated text ©2004 Viz Media (Viz LLC)

afraid of the dark?

I was running a counselling training group for Youthline when the lights went out. My co-facilitator was part way through saying "is anyone afraid of"(with one person saying me) the dark. She had her cell phone out and had altered the backlighting faster than the sentence could be completed. Within 2 mins I also had a txt from my home alone teenage daughter saying the lights were out followed by a tearful phone call. The effect of too many horror movies were quickly relieved in being able to say that the lights were out where we were too. No personalized axe murderers, stalkers just for her.
Having learned very quickly from my student, I could advice re the use of the mobile as a torch and she could then find candles.
Being an aging hippy I had missed the learning of how to use cell phones at a concert..." "dangerous little devices these cell phones" Bono, U2
Here's an ANT informed rather gorgeous study by Chris Chesher of U2 creating the milky way using cell phones. The ubiquitous cell phone can:
1. make and receive ph calls (21stC daughter thinks it hilarious that anyone would ever have stayed home all night waiting for a boyfriend to ring)
2. send and receive txts,
3. leave and retrieve messages,
4. a means to check weather,
5. play music,
6. play games,
7. take, send, and or store store photos, videos,
8. a reminder of appointments,
9. my alarm when travelling
10. CSI forensic location tracking device
11. something for the self conscious to do with their hands now that smoking is frowned on,
12. a means of establishing social cred,
13. a means of political activism,
14. creating the milky way
15. and a torch.....

Not surprizing then that teenage daughter couldn't work out how to function without her cell this weekend past- no money on the prepay. I naively suggested the cute invention of landlines, but no, speaking to anyone was to be avoided.
Or of using a computer to send an SMS, no- they wont know whose txting (say what? I know you can add that in the message)
There's an attachment here that I could barely figure (if the hard drive hadnt died on my laptop recently, i dont think i could have empathized at all).

How to write funding applications

I want 2b all i can be & more
2live 2learn
2b a conscious human b ing
2think 2feel 2act
i want by understanding me
2 understand others
i want 2b all that i am capable of
& then i want 2 work & 0 <

Sorry, that last bit got a bit too cryptic;
"and nothing less"
How to write a funding application to make a world of difference in 160 characters or less ;) can it fit on the face of a cell phone?
My apologies to Katherine mansfield, I am sure she would see the funny side.
How you propose to make a difference, what skills or experience do you have that will benefit your chosen organization? In 350 words or less list your relevant skills passions and personal attributes whether they come from life experience or education your skills, your passion.
On being short with words Ernest Hemingway when challenged wrote an entire story in 6 words:
For sale: baby shoes: never used.

Such succinctness, sweetness and sadness.
Or as Phoebe said to Monica on Friends "going out with your last boyfriend's son is like going out with a Greek tragedy!" It's all there.

I am still scrambling with the word count, how to fit it in a nutshell, deleting the social niceties and trying not to be terse to the point of arrogance, make the words short, simple. Spell check it, use the active voice, Say it once, say it well. Cut the 'ands', use the comma, the semicolon...
Please, if you have knowledge or ideas on grant applications I will be happy to receive your wisdoms, humorous, helpful, real or just fun :) even commiserations :(

how to write a thesis

Havent even got there yet, but even the steps of writing between where i am now and where i want to be continues to be in very small steps.
“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

In simplifying a plain language statement for a young audience, i began with may, I changed it to will, put it in, took it out...
I learnt how to use track changes, but halfway through learnt how to make it say it was me rather than my workplace that was doing the editing....then started again so I would look like a competent being.
I now need to proofread; and if not careful could find myself editing down to the blank page...
It might never be as good as i want it, but as Latour advises, "a good thesis is a finished one".

not articulated very well, a darth vader moment

Sherry Turkle, suggests therapists take Second Life seriously as tool for understanding their clients’ innermost thoughts and desires- "playing out the self that they want to explore....It’s not always who they want to be. Sometimes they can be exploring a dark side of themselves.”

This is a blog.
I use it as an unreal place, a musing space.
If I thought i wouldnt get lost in space, i could separate, compartmentalize or distribute myself, so that in this place it was only the phd stuff, but then I might want or need a different place for the higher ed stuff and a different place for the bits that are not work nor phd stuff.
I know my capacity to compartmentalize is not that efficient.

Welcome to the dark side.

The rapid movement between superhero/cyborg and Darth Vaderish dark moments seem more pronounced in a medium that only punctuates the moments. The reference to cutting and pasting now seems larger than the muse it was meant to be.
Maybe Ulises of Ideant fame might see this as an example of being nodal centric- we attend most to the nodes in a network, the actors, what is indelible. (I confess to skim reading what I found quite dense- If I understood it at all). However, what is not seen, is not necessarily not influential. Thats what the chardonnay does- makes for very convoluted sentences (even though the wine is invisible now also). But its a lot harder to give credence to actors, actants, and translations that are fleeting. Similarly, it must be quite hard to choose which ones to focus on in any research write up. In the writing, some things just look larger than intended. And in the reading also.

when i grow up i'm going to be a cyborg superhero!

Some light relief on being a doctoral student and educator out to change the world...


I have the power!

I have the knickers!

And I have the email and txt messaging to keep me busy for a very long time!
Feel free to join me, change the world!

Thanks to superheroine anya ixchel for pointing the way

Transformation Kit(free) available on line!
Now all i need is all the other ANT assemblages to aggragate.
Latour and Law identify that making stuff happen involves hard work & hidden masses. Star takes it further with invisible work.... and Mol with performance...
I'm finding i need more than the cut and paste knickers...

My hard drive died,the spinning ball, mouse freezing crashing stuff eventually caught up with me,"sigh".
My new macbook pro is cute,comes with mega power but doesnt know how to talk to itself or resurrect old files such as my blog searcher engine thingy or its history of a years searchings.... am feeling somewhat over-rated as a superheroine cyborg.
Wont give up the day job(s) just yet.

The joy of txt

txting;

silent loquacity,
taciturn turn taking.
160 signs, or less.

Pleae add to the joys of txting;
1. Haiku anytime, anywhere.
2. As appointment reminders
3. Volunteer roster reminders
4. pull down short bites of health promotive content...


Seriously; I am looking at the positive contributions of a txting world, how might txt be used in working with young people?
Is it a signpost for other services, or can it be the service itself???
What are the application possibilities 4 txt counselling?
Please- no advice re phone sex.
This is a serious inquiry

computer literacy and academic literacy

A further discussion of adult literacies.
This argument - that there is nothing wrong with cut and paste- pressupposes that the sources are acknowledged, to do less being academic theft.

The university I work at has recently started using turnitin,software to detecct plagiarism. Having used it and discovered that a few, maybe 1-2%, have aproblem in writing there own thoughts, I'm prompted to consider whats wrong with a cut and paste culture and just maybe there is nothing wrong with it.
The advantages:
Clearly delineates what is not the students own work
The disadvantages: the risk is that no knew thinking is generated- or at least that there is no evidence of new thinking generated- so maybe the task of academics becomes a little harder- how do we know what a student learns if they dont put it out there.

A further tangent to consider is that maybe its the way of our future? The use of cut and paste is so easy, there's an accuracy that cant be denied in using the authors own words, a bricolage or tapestry- stream of multiple persons consciousness on a theme.
The adult literacies of a future could be establishing the knowledge base (just like a lit review does) And then be followed by the authors own discussion.

In reading danah boyd, on social networking, she makes a link to
Copy and Paste Literacy? Literacy Practices in the Production of a MySpace Profile.]

In this article by Perkel, the making of identity within a social network (myspace) is discussed, the cutting and pasting of othereness creating an identifiable self.
Its a fascinating article.

The concept of otherness in creating self can be taken further. With a little tweaking informed by ANT, this could be described as being 'othertaken'.
In Latour's, Reassembling the social, he identifies how assemblages construct parts of a social world, and taking this further, identifies that actors are also subject to being constructed- being overtaken or 'other-taken'.

"When we act, who else is acting?"
In academia who else is acting includes the actors that are policy, historiacl conventions on conformity. The use of software, turnitin, becomes another actor, a sort of silent policeperson, that does a job. There are also the less overt actors, myspace may have an effect on the construction of self and the construction of social conventions, and potentially even on academic conventions. Maybe there are other ways to write and to think and to contribute new knowledge.

Just a provocation, but I am interested in what readers think.
The 'machine is us/ing us' and its worth considering the effects.

computer mouse and innovation

The mouse in
Wendy Warren's thesis
While E-magining English literacies, her thesis provided a performance in its own right (write? rite? ). The mouse wrote, had voice, or at least its own paragraph.
A performance involving human as well as non human actors.
The constraining structures of academia also had effect. Her describing rather than using a calligraphy E being one example.

In studying a sensitive research area, youth counselling via the internet, there are constraints. These are well founded- I do not want to do anyone harm. At the same time an absence of evidence base for practice also does harm. Maintaining the status quo supports current practice by default.

Back to progressing an ethics application-
1. how to be convincing on the absence of harm for young people. The target group this agency works with are 14-24yrs, participants could be as young as 12. I have argued against the need or desirability for having parental consent. I need to extend this argument to convince a committee that young people involved will be protected from harm in being involved.
2. rewrite the plain language statement so that a panel of grown ups with the best interests of young people at heart can read it. It needs to be plainer. I agree, despite the proof reading supplied by a 15 yr old this was conceptually at least, at too high a level.
3. review section on anonymity for those who developed or support the software involved for counselling; as these people will have been identified by others as relevant to this study, I need to make it clear to these people that their anonymity may be unable to be protected.
4. say how long a piece of string is, where consenting grown ups are interviewed, specify (again) the number of minutes involved.

I'm beginning to wonder about the conundrums created in expecting a PhD to add to new knowledge, while the constraints restraining how this be done are so binding.
Meantime my computer is going slower, the spinning beachball is more common, the mouse freezes, crashes, a battery holding less and less charge...
The 3 year lease expired today, how long does it take a bureaucracy to get a new one up and running
Despite Latour not believing in conspiracy theories or social forces, this little ant's endeavour is in danger of being quashed by forces human, (in)humane and/or non human.
aaaargh

adult literacy and communication literacies

Adult literacy isnt what it used to be: the advent of computer and communication technologies has had a significant impact on spelling. TXTng a message in SMS sets a max of 160 characters or less for each message sent/received.
This leads to significant changes in spelling and creative writing.
The combat against spam lead to obscure means for testing the humanity involved, u no the reading writing and recognze the human tests...
Today I learn "There are 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 ways to spell Viagra."
Brian Hayes
cites Rob Cockerham http://www.cockeyed.com/lessons/ viagra/viagra.html
tho the link didnt work 4 me :(
Cockerham apparently gets this number from a combinatorial analysis. He starts by tabulating the various possible substitutions for each of the five letters V, I, A, G and R. For example, any the 12 characters I, i, 1, l, |, ï, ì, :, Ì, Î, Í or Ï might serve for an I. Considering just such one-for-one substitutions, Cockerham comes up with 3×12×17×2×3×17 variations, for a total of 62,424 spellings. Where do the rest of the 6×1020 possibilities come from? Cockerham observes that the spelling can also be altered by inserting extraneous characters into the word, as in V_i_a_g_r_a. Taking the basic pattern to be *V*I*A*G*R*A*, where each asterisk could be replaced by any of 192 printable characters, he multiplies 1927 by 62,424 to get the total cited above. (An addendum mentions a few more substitution possibilities, bringing the total to 1,300,925,111,156,286,160,896.)
Hayes suggests there are other compuations on this numbers game, but concedes the liklihood of over a million recognisable spellings dependent on context.

vi4gra v1agra vi@gra viagr@ v.i.a.g.r.a VIAGRA VI4GR4 etc etc etc
Such creativity, ingenious. The wonders of science, incredible.
We are shaped by nonhuman actors...

invoking a critical imagination

" Without imagination unidentified lives and situations will not become real to us and without becoming real, such lives are unlikely to engage our compassion. "
(Loewy, E. (1997). Moral strangers, moral acquaintance and moral friends Connectedness and its conditions. New York; state University of new york press.)
i have been considering what makes good teaching, and surely it is this:
1. the need to imagine what it is that students will need to know, in a future that I dont know.
2. the need to imagine what the life of a student is like, how to make the acquisition of knowledge and skill enticing, and memorable. Not as a need to know for an exam, but how to ground the learning in a practical way, a deep way.
3. to be compassionate, that the purpose is to make a difference not just for those i teach and learn with, but also for the community and the world we live in. To make such connections engaging and supported.

In contrast Biggs and Tang (2007) say:
OBTL in itself does not say how to align ILOs, TLAs and assessment tasks, only that they should be aligned. Constructive alignment provides the "how-to" by stating that the TLAs and the assessment tasks activate the same verb as in the ILOs.

Hello! say what?
i dont feel connected, i dont feel compassionate, considered or consulted.
I check my acronym conversion kit and discover:
OBTL is outcomes based teaching and learning,
ILO is the intended learning outcome,
TLA is the teaching and learning activity.
And discover we are on the same planet after all, 'sigh'
:)

I was looking at this because i am also considering the funding application and in considering what things i have made a difference with previously- every time its this critical imagination.
email is what grown ups use, my daughter uses text, SMS, bebo....so whats the better medium for providing access or entry to counselling for youth with crisis- i dont think its the Ministry of Health's approach. While they have an established web page on depression and advertising campaign, its not being used by young people. So add a page or add a new website.
i dont think its going to be whats needed.
Imagining seems a better starting point.

Reassembling the social

A structure for anting!
Some upfront advice to follow:
Notebooks x 4,
1. for keeping track on progress (this blog is notebook 1!)
2. data collect with attention to chronology
3. for writing, the clever ideas when they come!
4. for the response the actors have to being written

BTW: If any ants are reading this, I'd like to hear of your experience in doing ant research, I am not inclined to following steps such as these, is amassing the data while blogging the process not enough? I concede, a spot for clever ideas, quips, directions for the writing is probably not a bad idea, and there is potentially useful info to be had in monitoring the effects or responses to being written...
Have you followed this advice?
What suggestions would you make?

I am reassured that the type of question i am wanting to study sit well with Latour's ideas on ways to go about reassembling the social.
How to make sense of reality- what is the social made of?
and what is acting when we are acting?
And with regard to the sociological endeavour, or what matters in a sociology of the social: localize the global, redistribute the local, and connect the sites.

So, in the use of txting and e-counselling and message board postings for counselling:
What occurs that make this work possible?
And in as much as we think we shape the service/s, how does the form of such services, shape us- the actors involved.

And I am reassured that Latour is not anti a critical edge, that striving for political relevance to gain a critical edge is important. However the means of attaining this edge shouldn't be collapsed too soon, the connections need be paid in full, not presumed.

I want to make a difference!
The years of study 'should' do more than be time or space occupying.
I struggle with humility :(
I live in hope that my description should be rich enough that the story/s told and the reading/s made are more than modest witnessing. That 'something' that I have done/ will be doing "matters".

Back to this weeks processes:
1. ethics needs tidying and tightening up,
2. an appointment at Youthline on Friday, to progress a funding opportunity
3. a funding application to 'make a world of difference'.

Amazing Grace

Proving that I have a social life, i saw this film over a bottle of pinot noir. But even in my social life the PhD doesn't go away.
Reading Latour's 'Reassembling the social', has altered my vision so that everything is reconfigured in terms of actors and mediators.
Unfolding throughout the film was an exercise in change; What does it take to change the world but assemblages of actors. Please be warned: if you don't know the plot or the history of British politics of the time 1833, there is a plot spoiler coming. Although the film centre staged a major player in Witherford, there was also the rise of the PM Pitt the younger. The influence of the friends, Quakers (Clarkson) as well as those of other religious persuasion (Newton, previously a captain of a slave ship and later writer of the hymn Amazing Grace) as well as non religious or secular friends both political and otherwise, and people both black and white, and gendered. The multiplicity of factors that effect change was magically portrayed. The movement of Bills, not passed, the falling out of friendships for what seemed political mistiming. The apparent lack of influence of petitions and of sugar boycotts. And then the cleverness of the boring approach, the conniving to remove opposition and the attack surreptitiously made on the maintaining forces, the structures that stabilize current practice, that allowed slave ships to trade. Something here about preventing the use of flags carefully unattaching some of the scaffolding that sustained the slave trade by the removal of an actor- in this case the actor to use Latours description, is a flag. This move reduced the amount of slave trading that could occur, and this had a flow on effect that reduced the economic reliance on slave trading. A timing of parliamentary sittings reminiscent of Yes Minister, involved deliberately engineering non attendance by the opposition in an actual and psychological sense. Tickets elsewhere were freely provided and the proposal of a boring bill proposed by the most disarming and boring MP, told most boringly, and seemingly innoccuous. Is it just in history being dramatized, that the act can be seen as so powerful, and a clever ploy, presumed with deliberateness? And with the declining business of slave trading it then became possible to oppose slave trading when it was no longer the economic necessity it was previously seen as. The influence of other players; the writer of Amazing Grace, the song becomes an actor, the trace of an ex ship's captain reformed from slave trading who entered the church....
How much may or may not be constructed for the media. Certainly web sites for the support of Clarkson suggests his part was underplayed while Wilberforce was grandstaged. Nonetheless an entertaining exercise in the Latour's Reassembling the social: Fourth source of uncertainty. Groups are made, it is not political will or societal pressures that brought change, it is actors whose actions can be traced. And in the Fifth source of uncertainty the writings and tracings themselves have influence (eg amazing grace as song, and also where the film has continued influence on modern day slave trading).

God made or man made

i struggle with such a title but mother nature, could also be placed here.
Are these memes?
I couldnt resist the contrast in imagery with my previous posting.
Feeding off the uncertainties, Latour proposes the imagery of spermatazoids that used to be considered obstinate little machos swimming forcefully toward the powerless ovule: are now attracted, enrolled, and seduced by an egg the agency of which is becoming so subtle now that it can select the good sperm from the bad.
(from fairy stories to science rendering women as passive)
Latour (in reassembling the social) is arguing that matters of fact are arguable, that there is an assembly of work required in maintaining or in moving factual beliefs. Matters of fact he more aptly renders as matters of concern, with their stabilizing mechanisms needing to be rendered (more) visible.

Meme, pronounced mem, "selfish meme"

I’ve been tagged!
I exist, yay.
Actually I let myself get caught. i asked for it, such a sad one.
An “8 Random Things About Me” meme.
(talks to self, aside: whats a meme, infectious viral thingy; sounds like STD's...how do I do the symbol thingy- save that for another day; tells self: I am not selfish, will play well with friends, if i had any....)

The rules are:
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

So here are my 8 random things:

1. I dont know what a meme is, I think I'm meant to, seems i think i get a handle on it and then it mutates
2. Sometimes i get scared of what educators do to people
3. I am owned by two Siamese cats, Frodo is developmentally challenged, Rose is in charge.
4. I have two goldfish, one is incredibly demanding, bites at the side of the bowl to ask to be fed. I am not putting my hand in the water, he is incredibly aggressive (How do you sex a goldfish anyway????)
5. My first car Alice, was a triumph herald, shiny chrome, navy enamel, too high maintenance
6. I am currently reading Harry Potter instead of my PhD readings
7. I want vodafone to sponsor my PhD
8. I <3 web 2.0; involvement to a depth i choose, chasing delicious clouds, entering into learning what, when, and where I want to, and with whom i want to (assuming there on the net, and alive or at least tracings of their writings are).
9. My laptop wont keep a charge for more than 29 minutes :( This limits the learning where i want to...
10. I am culturally colonized; i like starbucks, my computer no longer holds a charge long enough to make it worth taking her there

Now time to play tag...
I dont have enough online blogging friends , but please if you want to play let me know

Impressionable human: reassembling IT, reassembles me

" ...impressive observations concern what we have learned about humans based on our interactions with robots rather than the other way around." so claims Adam Kolber
While he cites Sherry Turkle regarding what we learn about being human by studying robotics, i am also aware of what i learn about myself in studying IT. I am in danger of becoming too narssistic, my own reflecting on my own reflecting could see me becoming lost in navel gazing.

Today i am an impressionable human.
I attempted going to work, but the number of parking spaces in excess of the numbers of people needing to park created an opportunity for going to a cafe to read. So, reading Latour, Reassembling the social, I think I finally get it.
" The social has never explained anything; the social has to be explained instead."
Latour uses the analogy of a building site explaining that when seeing a construction site, there is the awareness that things could be different, or at least that they could still fail." Its not that i am socialised to be good , bad or indifferent about my work, there is no social stuff making me behave this way rather than that, but there is an assemblage of factors, all which leave traces that must be accounted for if they are to be considered as having influence.
The social construction of what is 'real', involves being able to discern or to deploy the associations.
In a footnote, (p.95) Latour cites Deleuze as saying "Relativism is not the relativity of truth but the truth of relation."

It is these relations, these constructions, associations, assemblages that creates what is real (for a time). What is discerned may be part of this, may even bolster or strengthen some of the ties that bind.
But all of this can also unravel, and as Latour identifies p. 103. this is a difficult spot.

To the God of small things

Many thanks, I shocked my IT technician Graham today by telling him i loved him!
Such are the small pleasures of being a doctoral student.
My endnote 7 is now endnote X , 3 months of my own incompetence or the softwares incompetence (FAE= fundamental attribution error, suggests i should not blame myself when things go wrong....) had meant i was left with a library that would not talk to my word documents.
Today all is good in the world.
One of the following may be true:
I held my tongue right
I prayed to the God of small things
Graham took out the trash so there was no remnant, no ghost in the machine
Endnote developed, belatedly, a patch to convert endnote 7 to endnote x for macs.
The three pdf files out of more than 200 in the data file that had hieroglyphs incompatible with the software, including question marks and poles, were deleted (I will one day discover where links dont work and say damn...)

I have no idea which, or if all, of these actions can be given credit for what now works, but am soooo happy!
Work does not suck. There are after all IT technicians in my work world.

Blink 182

All the, small things
True care, truth brings
I'll take, one lift
Your ride, best trip
Always, I know
You'll be at my show
Watching, waiting, commiserating

Say it ain't so, I will not go, turn the lights off, carry me home
Na, Na.......

Late night, come home
Work sucks, I know
She left me roses by the stairs
Surprises let me know she cares

Say it ain't so, I will not go, turn the lights off, carry me home
Na, Na......

Resistance is futile / Resistance is duty

I loved seeing this appropriation of the scary and turning it into the fun loving monster that only an ipod can accomplish. Nice to see the inhumane, humanised. But it is also symbolic of the power of web 2.0 advertising. This beauty was made for apple in a competition and is available at the apple galleria as a download for screensaver, wallpaper, feel free to do there advertising for them...
Not only do we have product pushed, we have product pulled.
But please in between the exterminate! exterminate, exterminate.... resistance was futile (not useless).
(Unless as put by HART (Halt all racist tours): When discrimination becomes policy, resistance is duty)
In between the protest movement of the 1970s i also remember learning cognitive dissonance, I must love eating cockroaches if the nice person tells me to do it and I do it (either that or i am incredibly stupid).
In web 2.0 advertising, I must really love the product if I invest time in making their adverts for them (or I'm sucked..)

Performance as thesis

How to write a thesis, early days yet since the data isnt collected but the ethics application is left loose enough so I am not tied only to written format.
John Law talked of one submitted in a suitcase (I can see Terry shaking his head at that one)!
But I am still concerned that the audiences for whom it is important may be alienated by thesis prose.
Some people still consider the thesis a selfish act written for the writer, and the markers, I like to think it may have greater interest.
Ann Marie Mol take on ANT, and as reminded by cj, research is a performance in its own right. But so is its reading (you never read the same book twice...or as Latour suggests you never swim the same river twice).
This piece that i got from chasing other peoples del.icio.us clouds
( I <3 web 2.0 )

From an interview (his last) Kurt Vonnegut:
...the novel has always been an elitist art form. It’s an art form for very few people, because only a few can read very well.
I’ve said that to open a novel is to arrive in a music hall and be handed a viola. You have to perform. [Laughs.]
To stare at horizontal lines of phonetic symbols and Arabic numbers and to be able to put a show on in your head, it requires the reader to perform. If you can do it, you can go whaling in the South Pacific with Herman Melville, or you can watch Madame Bovary make a mess of her life in Paris...

Computer mediated communications in counselling

An ANT informed analysis.
I hadn't got much further with my study but had reason to reread some Ann Marie Mol from the Body Multiple as well as an earlier piece of her writing Ontological Politics.
Their are areas that caught my attention (again).
1. Its too simplistic to consider that communications and computer technologies are good or bad in mediating counselling; that we can have txt messaging counselling, email counselling, message board postings... all purporting counselling is not able to be answered in terms of right or wrong. Just as other counselling could be brief or prolonged, take one form or another, Freudian, Rogerian , CBT etc. The issues are simplified to the point of being ridiculous when considered in terms of good or bad. The 'gold standard' by which face to face is used as a comparison to CCT mediated counselling is too complex as what f2f comprised of could be a miriad of things, and so can CCT mediated counselling...
So, back to Mol, who says that thicker questions evolve where practice is forgrounded, rather than is the intervention effective- what effects does this intervention have.

And,
2. What was at stake (considered) when a decision between alternative performances was made?
The notion of choice in deciding between alternate performances presupposes an actor who actively choses, while potential actors may be inextricably linked up with how they are enacted.
Is there choice? Or is there a rut being made that establishes patterns inside of which, what's established, what's current, becomes 'the' way.
In studying the practice, laying open practice, the process is not neutral as opening up practice gives space to arenas where attention is currently less focused, and provides voice on what else is going on.

As Law suggests in After method.Mess in social science research, simple clear descriptions do not work well when the stuff itself is incoherent. The attempt to be clear, increases the mess.

I was hopeful that once I got through the messiness of an ethics application that a clearer path would lie in front of me...rereading Mol and John Law has soothed me somewhat, that it was/is messy maybe should be the norm! Nonetheless I am sure that a messy ethics application wont be appreciated by those who read such things...back to simplifying the complex...and back to amazon.com - Reassembling the Social, by Latour, something to read while the ethics committee deliberates.

I am because I bebo, being visible

amusinghttp://ai1sa.bebo.com/

Feels odd to becoming more 'visible' in cyberspace, but between wikis and bebos my extraterrestial existence is expanding. My Mothers day present from my teenage daughter was assitance with bebo (so long as I do nothing uncool that can be traced). Extraordinary quality time as we parallel play on laptops!

Be ing inspired was in part from Ewen MacIntosh) on being visible.
"If you don't tell people about what you're doing online, in 2007 you don't exist, don't expect people to know how wonderful life is on your side of the fence if you haven't taken it online."
and further to this, if you work in the public centre, there's an obligation to share.
I agree, your country pays for you.

And
Be cause
Be cause some causes are good
I am enjoying being able to invest PhD study into a voluntary organization- how does text, e-mail counselling and message board postings contain, constrain or construct counselling for youth.

And because ITs here.
I had an email asking why we would want an online forum (happens to be blackboard) to link with each other or to place pdf files forms etc when the "I" drive does this. Its a bit like asking why would you want a computer desktop when there is a solid hardcopy desk already there. The point is that one is not just a repository. But a means of connection.
Being IT literate involves a lot more than being able to use a clever typewriter and its really sad that people with influence in the education sector and especially the tertiary education sector still do not get this.
Definitely "could do better" or a little more forcefully-
IR Improvement Required.
Us grownups in the education sector just have to get our heads out of the sand and realize that the world moves at a pace where our children need to teach us.

Who killed Pandora? A partial perspective

The picture of Pandora by Rossetti is held by the Liverpool museum

Pandora: Or my love of technology (borrowing heavily from and acknowledging the influence of Bruno Latour's Aramis).
The following is a lightweight ANT (actor-network theory) informed analysis.

A starting point is called for, and maybe I am being a little node-centric but I have to start somewhere, and Latour suggests: Follow the actors.

The actors (and I could have called these actants so there was less assumption re human or not, and no intention is made of gender excluding language). These include-
myself (obviously)
Pandora (a rather nebulous entity, a piece of software, a treasure, who by the way is not dead, just dead to me and to others who live outside of the USA)
The actors that created her (again, a superficial analysis so somewhat limited in naming entities). Tim Westergren is one founding father.
The juggernaughts of copyright enforcement (faceless, nameless at this point, certainly I can in my partial perspective cast these as villains)
cj, the person who led me to Pandora

A point of passage, my ibook, or any computer with broadband. Without this, my connection is literally impossible.

Some archeology and chronology
Pandora existed without me, she still does, but we are no longer together :(
I was enticed, cj described her so I went visiting and became enamored, seduced and enrolled, inscribing not on paper but online, a prenuptial agreement offering limited durability, reads as free trial, and then a need for an American address for a sustained relationship (my best friends brother obliged, two more actants)(Susan Leigh Star might call this some invisible work, Law might suggest a little subversion, others maybe a little translation on the instructions, maybe a workaround, nudging here and there to make accommodations and enrollment possible, preventing her asphyxiation momentarily). And I enrolled others.

I have the artefact of my amusingspace Nov 2006 weblog to point to.
And our relationship was somewhat real for a time.
Then somewhat abruptly the relationship was terminated.
Not because I want this, and not it seems because Pandora wants this. Nor Pandora’s makers.
Again, I have artefacts to point to, an emailed Dear Pandora visitor letter.

The juggernaughts of copyright would seem to require the makers of Pandora to look for IPS addresses where residency is not consistent with the address provided. I presume another actant of a software search engine let loose in the 'blackbox' that contains Pandora, can seek and destroy. There is also the actant of USA based legislation to suggest copyright infringement. Presumably there are fiscally driven actants driving this.

The copyright juggernaughts require Pandora to disengage certain assemblages, myself included.
Perhaps our alignment and disengagement was inscripted, thou shalt not covert American Goddesses, no USA citizenship, no marriage. The juggernaughts placed pressure on Pandora’s makers and have suggested her continued existence is contingent on the policing of her relationships. Her future love affairs needs be xenophobic until such times as further negotiations allow such prejudice to be reduced.

This relationship changed me. I learnt of musicians and artists that I otherwise would not have. I bought CDs based on my relationship with Pandora. As much as I thought I could use her, she also used me. We enjoyed and enhanced each other. A symbiotic sociotechnical love affair, and to paraphrase Latour, this relationship was as solid as it gets.
I will get over it, and believe she's already over me.
This relationship is more ephemeral than ever and is now love lost. Faint hope is held of more negotiations that will renew the relationship.
My first love as cyborg is beyond my grasp.

puddle of mudd; Pandoras gone

thought she was grand
Fell in love found out first hand
Went well for a week or two
Then it all came unglued

In a trapp trip I can't grip
never thought I'd be the one who'd slip
then I started to realize
I was living one big lie

[Chorus]
She (superlative) hates me.......... trust
she (again superlative) hates me.......... la la la love
I tried too hard and she tore my feelings
like I had none and ripped them away


Bother. Superlative expletive.
Pandora finaly noticed i am not an American.
I have never wanted to be one so much as now.

Dear Pandora Visitor,
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
We believe that you are in New Zealand (your IP address appears to be .............. If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com
We share your disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding.

And so she tore my feelings apart.
Pandora introduced me to artists i would never have followed up on if it hadnt been so easy.
But now its gone.
Hope that was the last thing out of pandoras box....hope she comes back.

Freedom vs obedience in tertiary sector education

While socialising with a student today she told me she has to go to a disciplinary hearing for missing more than 20% of her timetabled lectures. She has paid something in the order of $2500, for a semesters courses and then the institution I work for thinks they can take her to a disciplinary hearing for not availing herself of the courses???
The lecturer hasnt bothered to get feedback to discover what might put off attendance, things like public discussion of personal issues could well be of concern here. There is such an arrogance in assuming students have to be within the four walls timetabled and in the presence of a great one to learn. Bollocks.
But the institution seems to have a rule saying we take your money, in exchange we provide you this service, and then if you dont use it we take it off you. Hello?
Let me see if I can make an analogy here of similar services, I purchase six months worth of access to the internet, and then I dont use it for two weeks out of 10, the company can drop me, refuse me further access...?
In the meantime her house has had a fire, her mum has dementia, the house is on the market.
All assessment points were being met, but she is now so stressed re a disciplinary hearing she couldnt concentrate on the next assignment and thought she might drop it.
Its a university for Gods sake, not only that, but a health faculty, one that teaches caring, mental health, health promotion....
The student gets taught all about optimising the health of others, saving lives even, but we dont trust an adult to make adult decisions about where their learning may best take place?
This is stupid.
This is not about education or learning or being student centred or being adult learning oriented.
This is about control.
No wonder institutionalised education gets bad rap.

Plaitting ropes of sand

The man who writes to the masters of Pig Island
about the love they dread
plaits ropes of sand
Yet i was born among them
and one day
will lie amonst their dead.

James K. Baxter
Pig Island letters

Writing the ethics application, still, is a lot like plaitting ropes of sand.
Its important, but it seems incredibly time wasting if not detached from reality.
I've almost got enough rope to hang myself with!

How to obtain consent from online others...
who may or may not be under 18yrs...
who therefore in a std ethics application would, apparently, need parental consent...
but what they talk about online, they may not want their parents to know...
and it could be unsafe for the young person, that their parent/gaurdian knows...
and where anonymity is promised....
and the content is personal/private...
Seems like every little bell that can send off alarm bells for the ethics committee, short of it involving toxic waste, has now been rung.

To be human? To be a child of the sun...to be an earthling...

Being empowered and empowering...
To quote an exceptional NZ woman that my institutionalised learning did no justice to, Katherine Mansfield identified her needs, while she was dying of tuberculosis she strove, she risked, she said "risk, risk anything". I don't move forward if I I don't risk. So My background is health and education, and in my mind, they are both basically about the same thing: how to empower? What should I be aspiring to in assisting others to aspire? What is it that others might aspire to? Well, Katherine just says it so well
"...the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love—the earth and the wonders thereof—the sea—the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good—there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.
Then I want to work. At what? I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this. I want to be writing....
But warm, eager, living life—to be rooted in life—to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for. "
Got that? Nothing less!
And more than this, it matters when I create the circumstances that makes this less likely to occur. Where I make it less likely it cannot be called education nor "work for health" (ref to David Seedhouse, to do less is dwarfing!)
Now back to compliance, there are deadlines to be met, educational structures that impose limitations...an ethics application for the doctorate that still isn't in by its second due date....
Time to stop being a child of the sun, and just fit the square peg into the round hole...at least for a couple of days...
Thanks to artichoke and Stephen's web for the diversions, now back to my constrained rather than empowered education...
(I can almost hear the ghosts of lecturers passed saying its not empowering if it leads to disadvantage, if it leaves you unable to be credentialized in a world that demands certification... time to thank James Marshall and Colin Lanksheer, for introducing me to the concept of freedom in education; that there might be philosophy to such undertakings, and time to thank David Seedhouse for introducing me to a better reading of Mansfield than my institutionalized schooling managed, thanks also to Chris Bigum for reminding me that plain ordinary folk in educational institutions might also be heroes.)

i am feeling decidedly post human today

Posthuman Future, an illustration by Michael Gibbs for The Chronicle of Higher Education's look at how biotechnology will change the human experience.
In getting through the oxfam training the attention to my doctoral life lapsed somewhat.I am feeling somewhat split as if cycling not through online programmes or online lives as eluded to by Sherry Turkle, but this is currently the nature of my terrestrial lives, compartmentalised, cut and pasted and patched!
(70 km this last weekend and feet with blisters on blisters that reflect this, and sadly an ethics application similarly suffering, not quite fractured but seems somewhat fractioned.
In walking though I had the blessings of having my feet, if not my soul attended to by a gift of spiritual healing from a friend, I know I felt lightened by the ministerings, but blisters are blisters and walking on them still hurts. My spiritual self has been offered txt ministerings, just text me from when your in Taupo so I can channel the energies where and when...
i just love how care is communicated through whatever medium comes to hand, or foot or soul...
Imagining that i am not a human being on a spiritual path, nor a spiritual being on a human path, but a cyborg whose spirituality can be enhanced...

Absolute power(point) corrupts absolutely

I was in a lecture theatre about 4 years ago when informed that powerpoints as a basis for teaching were the death of teaching, and i disagreed. I believed it was how they were used. I had a similar experience defending the use of online teaching when notes online were believed to lead to widespread non attendance and maybe the death of education. But things are never that simple are they? As Latour points out, the world is messier than that, there are simple expositions and there is complexity. I know I can use ppt to be evocative, to capture attention, to provoke. Admittedly this does not tend to happen when using bulletpoints.
Seth Godin explains this well. demonstrates how ppt need not be bulleted, and instead provokes by using imagery, he might also have considered the invocation possible with music which he talks of but doesn't embed.
Nonetheless, I note he finishes with a list despite his admonishment that bullets are for the NRA.... And these too can be critiqued, for example
"Never use more than 6 words on a slide"
Doesn't it depend? If I want to show prose or poetry or even have students critique the value or limitations of lengthy verbage there is method in my madness.
The 'point' he makes though is that teaching and learning needs engagement. Parker Palmer (using text) described the image of a teacher with a cartoon balloon filling the space between teacher and student as if it were a airbag distancing the connection, total predetermination of words can create barriers.
The transfer of a medium designed for one setting into another comes with possibilities, in this instance the medium was designed for the boardroom and condensing of info was a priority, the transfer to the educational sector needs to be a thoughtful process (surprized?). There are first and second level effects (Sproull and Keisler), where first level are anticipated and known in advance, or at least anticipated in advance.... But it is the second level of effects that may be doing damage, changes unexpected and sometimes unwanted.
The full possibilities of a new technology may be hard to see, are likely to emphasize planned uses and underestimate the 2nd level effects.
They argue that unanticipated consequences usually have less to do with efficiency effects and more to do with changing interpersonal interactions. Such changes alter how each of us works and even the work we do. These 2nd level effects emerge somewhat more slowly as people renegotiate changed patterns of behaviour and thinking and can cause insidious changes.
But these 2nd level effects are not caused by technology on its own trajectory or operating autonomously on passive people or organisations, they are constructed as technology shapes, and is shaped by interactions.
For example, does teaching by bullet point lead to an inability to construct arguments, sustain this argument across an essay....Is this why lecturers lament that students can't write an essay, perhaps insidious alterations to teaching styles creates this?
There is always push and pull, as much as we think we shape, the medium too has agency and is shaping us.

a modest study informed by ant

I have narrowed the scope of what I intend to study, the complications of multiple ethics applications, across 2 countries, 2 universities as well as an external agency finally filtered into my conscious system. The word math on a thesis split between 3 studies similarly informed this decision.
The scope of my research is to explore the use of emergent technolgies in a counselling service. The technology I am investigating is broadly defined by Franklin(1999) as practice; "the way we do things around here". Technology according to this definition is not a modern invention, just the way things are done.
And in this consideration of the 'way things are done' my area of interest is the how changes implemented have both first level as well as second level effects (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). They explain how changes made often have other offsetting consequences...more efficiency in one place can result in negative sequalae unimagined.
So, altering the medium or platform used in counselling will have effects unimagined as well as forseen. As these effects become known, in what ways do these then shape the evolving practices, and in what ways are we too shaped.
This follows in the line of writing from McLuhan to Turkle, the mediums we use change us. They are not mere tools, they have agency.
In what ways then do texting or e-counselling reconfigure counselling as it occurs...as much as we might think that we shape what we do, in what ways are we shaped.

watching me watching you

watching me watching you, originally uploaded by ai1sa.

I talk of “me” and you as reader are invited in.
So, thats me in the picture.
I talk of “you” and there is more demand.
Your reading this!
The way material is presented makes a difference in the writer/reader relationship…
“You dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented b@st@rd, it’s you I am addressing, who else from inside this monstrous fiction. You read me this far then? (Barth, 1988, p.127) Regressions in the fun house had me bemused with far too much time on my hands today! A linktribution to cogdogblog and from there to Angela Thomas,
Avatars as art

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

the quality of magic is strained

I became accutely aware last week of my disability and vulnerability as a cyborg; the sense of impending doom when my imac faded and would not spark- a 15 minute evolution for 'life' to boot up again and a hurried backup of everything precious onto discs and cyber spaces. (Only when studying can 'everything precious' take on such weirdness).
And now constrained; no wireless network, a pod involving half a dozen passwords, a samsung pc, internet explorer and blogger seems especially clutsy today. (Could of course be me, a lack of sleep for fear of missing flights and heat that this kiwi is not used to that compounds feelings of flightlessness).
However, one ethics application is well underway and two more will follow suit. An aggragation of things is needed for such change to occur- the absence of 'work' and other such distractors of a real world, allows for a surreal existence more congruent with being a student. I am however twice blessed- not only do i have study in this alternate reality- i also have Melbourne.

Following the actors

My prof suggested a news feed, I couldn’t get it to work, but with the help of a colleague, got a similar one ( I think) up and running. I check it intermittently (gone are the times I check it multiple times a day). Now I attend to the feed a few times in as many weeks, but in doing so I got fed a link to a site with another link to a pdf on an article (I just love these connections to further connections). I might not have read it otherwise. But a 2005 article on journalism by Fred Turner, in Sociology epistemology provoked the following as an application of ant in my own field of study:


Currently most research into communications for health professionals is deeply attached to the (modern as opposed to post modern) notion that health professionals teach health professionals how to communicate. There appears a separation between professional and lay, staff and patients, caring and being cared for. New media however erode these distinctions. By placing an emphasis on actors, actor network theory provides a lens for seeing relationships differently. The ‘actors’ are no longer exclusively human, and the arbitrary boundaries created in labeling become less important as the focus shifts to performance.

I have a passion, or at least an interest in, these multiple performances; how is each performed differently? What happens when a lay population communicates care? What happens when care is communicated to (pushed to) a novice population of health professionals? And what happens when care is pulled down (asked for) by at risk youth?

This doesn’t seem as coherent today as I would like it to be, but if I practice the writng, it continues to evolve…
And to use a turn of phrase from artichoke that grappling without lust might be unethical surely then to grapple (with at least a modicum of love or passion) might just assist in getting an ethical application off the ground....

being us/ed:

Alan Levine at cogdogblog put me onto this video developed by Michael Welsch at digital ethnography (a working group of Kansas State University students and faculty dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography.)




The contrast of writing with digital communications is explored. Its a fast paced provocation for exploring how the medium is the message. Titled Web 2.0... The machine is us/ing us.
I am awestruck. And I think I am using the machine, but at the same time...

In the same week I came across an article (that's not the right word, a series of web pages) on the rise of the participation culture It is this participatory nature that grabbed my attention when first I delved into IT as a teaching and learning medium. ITs alive, it sparkles, I can follow what I want to, go where I choose to, add to what's out there as well as adding to my own development. Pushed and pulled. Beautifully captured. This same week I was also touched by an article, new criteria for new media, on how valuing of staff needs to be able to capture the new mediums being used; academia in its PBRF and promotion systems has yet to catch up with forms of dissemination and creating of knowledge that move faster than journal publications, textbooks or conferences. And I am pushed and pulled a little more ... how then to push the boundaries on how the study of an IT application in a doctoral study might be presented back to the academy in a format that sits alongside a thesis. How to have form and function in synch. How to have the quivering of what is brought up from the depths not lose its liveliness in translation to a form that can be examined.
But as a recipiennt of TIME person of the year, 2006, I trust my skills will be up to the task, I just need to continue letting the machines use me...

C@' (catastrophe)

I have just discovered the catastrophic wonders of acute circulatory overload to lower limbs in walking 18km on hilly terrain in approx 26C heat in training for Oxfams trailblazer 100km in 36 hrs. The scalding type of rash around the ankles, a form of cellulitis referred to as golfers vasculitis. This looks angry and ugly, but settles quickly over a couple of days. I had thought it indicative of my own level of physical neglect and found it oddly comforting when other team members were similarly afflicted. C@' as a team is committed to raising $2000 for Oxfam (so not only do we get the joys of personal and team accomplishment, it actually makes a difference in the world. You can follow the endeavours of team C@' on our Oxfam webpage (donating is optional). A special thanks to Carol for showing global interest.

Educational iatrogenisis

A stand against wikipedia is headline news in Inside higher ed. Here it is reported that the history department of Middlebury college has banned the use of wikipedia.
The blanket decision seems to me to be an exercise in hammering.
I want to cry for freedom in education, not so that people are disadvantaged by being subject to misinformation (which btw is also present in text and journals) but the primary purpose of education is (in my considered opinion) to encourage thinking and to share knowledge. What irony for an educational institution to tell people what they can or cant cite, read ... think. The dwarfing of thinking is an abusive act for an educational institution to engage in.
Is there a word for institutionalised education induced dysfunction?
Educational iatrogenesis?
Iedrogenic?
Feel free to contribute alternate possibilities.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki

disturbed; shaken not stirred

Sherry Turkle has expressed concern, a rest home she had left Hasbro's 'my real baby' dolls thought they were so useful they bought 25 more.
She cites how a depressed elderly woman projected her own depression on to one of these robot toys saying that it was also sad.
In a Wired article on the making of these interactive toys irobot CEO Colin Angle said "You need to create a life-form that understands that it's being played with... A lot of interactive toys simply drive the conversation. You push a button, it talks. My Real Baby had to be a life-form, not a forced march."

I see a forced march.
I am relieved that Turkle is disturbed. In who am we, she wrote of whether our use of IT extends or constrains us.
I am disturbed, under what conditions can or should a human touch be replaced with a robotics? The move from toy to human substitute begins insidiously.
ITs not just a doll, ITs not just a toy. This a political animal.
This is not ai, this is real life, a real world absence of care; a lack of human resourcing masked as care.
IT is seductive, not only because it is beautiful, but because it is cheap (when compared with staff, time, love, affection).
To quote a famous self confessed cyborg, Donna Haraway, - and to bring forward a critical social thread into the discussion- it could be otherwise. An aggragation of actors is required for care to be replaced by toys, this could be otherwise. The world's 'most therapeutic robot' should be contested, surely it depends on how IT is used as to whether there is therapeutic value or harm?
Techtoys blogsite links to paro seal with a beautiful movie clip of this 'toy' set to the music of Zeeche. "If you love her...mamma said... don't do it. ' or at least, do IT alongside care not as a substitute.

Paro fur seal

lost or added to; a disturbed existence?

I am quivering, my disturbance being prompted by a social commentary on Bebo produced by Daxon & students at DCU Dublin City University, Ireland. Bebo: The Movie portrays some moments of a life online. If most of us wouldnt do it in 'real life' how come we do it online? From little throw away lines- post it comments, a flame war, photos and video clips, 'show us your flashbox revealed as flashing photos through to videos of pole dancing! Plus the pun intended i assume with polls and poll masters. In addition are the on/off nuances of the medium. Whose online or offline and when and for how long being choreographed.
The medium in this instance is very much the message /massage. Marshall McLuhan identified how a new invention or innovation "introduces into human affairs'. Not just the channel or media used, but the change in interpersonal dynamics that the innovation brings with it [the massage]. The medium as culture, simplified right down to a cultural medium (like agar) growing change in the people, change in attitudes and in behaviour, in interpersonal dynamics. Changes occurring both interpersonally and intrapersonally, and if i go a little cosmic here, transpersonally also.
On one level its about Bebo, with its fixtures as well as its social mores shaping what is/isnt done.
And at the same time, I am feeling lost in the funhouse (Barth, 1988). This raw little movie prompted my multi mirrored experience with actors out of context and still embedded within. And my own online blogging about life on the screen on life on the screen on the screen.
Calling on and repeating a previous quoting from Max van Manen (1990) "... realizing that the meanings we bring to the surface from the depths of life's oceans have already lost the natural quiver of their disturbed existence. (p. 54)
In bringing to the surface, making whatever 'it' is more overt, I dont think that there is a loss to a natural quiver, there is something quivering, altered definitely, but I am not convinced that it is an unnatural quiver, though different- and it does disturb.
It is these moments of insight into the human condition that provide reason for my doctoral studies- how are we both shaped and shaping? What influence do we bring to communicating and how are we communicated with, and altered by, the technologies we choose to use.
You can view this at youtube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueRqGzwMjEI
Bebo: The Movie

small (a)musings for a doctoral student

While staying on the theme of how I am bumped and bumped back in the use of IT, I am amused by the God(dess) of small things: trying to put Donna Haraway's book
Modest-Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan©_Meets_Oncomouse™ into my endnote library involved at least half an hours concurrent meditation on the subtlety of how come she didn't give up on a title that was so difficult to type in to software that was less than pliable? How come I didnt? And on this software associated with Blogger, i cant make the script fot the copyright symbol behave but rather than place more time on the trivia...
These are the very small pleasures that put a smile on my face- success at making something I could have written by hand in 2 seconds, can be produced by the wonders of technoscience in 1800 seconds!!!!
How I am shaped! I smile when i can make an un intuitive package behave! I smile when my own obedience to form entices me into trivial successes, and then I'm left wondering, how much am i shaped when i think i am the creator...and then i get very humble and realize being a modest witness is important (and there's another tautology in the making...)

AND THEN BLOGGER ALTERS ALL THE LITTLE HIEROGLYPHS ANYWAY! There are always translation, I just didnt expect this literal lesson today... got to laugh....back to work...