This study as described in the abstract ended up being more and less than anticipated. In its current state, this naturalistic inquiry is less than a formal study, certainly not a quasi-experimental framework. As a pilot study and field test, it is less than the form it will take when it is presented at The Eleventh Annual Conference on Ethnographic & Qualitative Research in Education at Teachers College, Columbia (June 12 & 13, 1999) or at at The Fifth Annual Conference of the Asynchronous Learning Network (ALN) at the University of Maryland (October 8 - 10, 1999). In those presentations, these results will be augmented by: (a) a complete array and analysis in the data displays (vs. the present incomplete state), (b) a more traditional workup of the study for publication formatting, and (c) tied into the research conducted in ETAP715/ERDG715, a course investigating the tools and techniques of Critical Discourse Analysis.
As a naturalistic study, it is more than what I had hoped. I had initially thought to more clearly identify the environmental factors and instructional pedagogic techniques essential in developing voice, presence, and identity in these spaces and how it is that these factors, as well as academic growth in the curriculum might better be assessed in the portfolios developed by students and the instructor. What this study represents in its present form is a vision of a way in which a dialogic assessment and evaluation of student and small groups might be had. That is, it is hoped that by browsing across this study while on-line, the reader might actually be engaged in a dialogue with the correspondents through this medium. Across this dialogic tour de forc, the reader will meet the study in as close a form to the original data as possible. The reader is given as much of the real data, in situ, in the form in which it was originally expressed. I do not seek to represent an objective analysis of the student work, nor their presence.
Rather, it is hoped
that by spending as much time as the reader has to offer, a pretty good
idea will be obtained by you as to these factors with as little
intervention and interpretation as possible on the part of me, the
reflective practitioner presenting this study. Most of me
that you will see is in the design of the structure and networking of the
representation in its present WEB-based form, and selection of the data
samples and the displaying of them across my data matrices in their arrays.
Hopefully, this experience will leave you, the reader, with more than an
objective report, even that of an ethnography or more traditional case
study might offer. In this fashion, I hope to have effected a representation
that is both more authentic and more trustworthy
than more traditional genres or frameworks might.
Suggestions to you, my reader... GoTo Top of Page
The reader is encouraged to browse liberally and according to the state of their own Internet browsing habits and skill. This is, after all, one of the course objectives for the student and it is assumed that only rudimentary skill be needed for a good reading, herein. I only suggest that a superficial, linear scan of the whole framework from off the Study Map for an overview and context which will better situate you, my reader and fellow evaluator. Where there are two links offered [ (on-line) (text) or (off-line)], please select (online) while on-line. The other link is offered in case the reader wishes to avail themselves of my offer to receive the whole material as a self-executable Zipfile which will automatically install the study to the reader's hard-drive (sorry, PC only at this time...), locally. In that case, the reader might more leisurely peruse the materials while not tying up a modem line or while away from the network.
The reader is asked to e-mail me their assessment and evaluation from the Study Map when finished. Additionally, the reader might wish to: (a) download either or both data array pages for Sheila and/orMasi, (b) open them from your browser's Page Composition Module, (c) erase the data I submitted, and (d) resubmit them to me by sending them to me @ rparkany@borg.com as browser pages for my review and integration. This will result in an even better dialogue between you and our class.
I have taken great care to so structure this study such that the final nodes to each link will be raw data; data either from the student portfolios, themselves, of original sources and resources of information, rather than my reworking or synopsis. So, rather than a summary of Bakhtin's influence in this study, I have offered a well structured article from the Semiotic Review of Books for your interest and use. Though at first, this might seem like a rather lengthy and cumbersome technique, I have found it to perhaps be better for you, the reader, to get as much (or as little) as you need from the data. Correspondingly, the reader might think the Resources Shared by me and/or the students in the class as much, much, too long. Instead, I submit that by simply browsing and reading the links, much might be had concerning the context, content, and nature of the work engaged by us across the syllabus. Of course, these links are offered the reader as resources shared and available for your own use, again, by saving the page to your disk, or by bookmarking these sections in your own browser.
Indeed, were this study to be downloaded and printed (you are welcome so to do, keeping fair use in mind) in a real-world, real-time, linear fashion, it would be a bit too much, as one of my seminar mates at first suggested. But, it is precisely due to the fact that a reading is intended on-line, in-situ, that I feel rather that there is just enough data and material for any given reader, you included, to arrive at a pretty good assessment of not only the intent of my design. In short, it is the ultimate aim of my inquiry, for a reader to be able to dialogically assess for themselves the integrity of the design and the student work and presence, as well.