Wednesday, September 27, 2017

My PhD Journey - Musing #4 - Things I do that 'get in the way' of my study

It is still Tuesday somewhere in the world - so here I go - another PhD Journey blog post. I have 15 minutes before my next online meeting......

BTW - my husband is continuing to refine his bird pictures - now he has found the Canon lens he bought 6 years ago - and worked out how to use it.

Blue-face Honey Eater
Butcher Bird
I was just thinking about all of the things I do besides my PhD work and how fragmented my days are sometimes......oh and on top of that our upstairs bathroom is being renovated (just above my study) so there has been noise, tradies coming in and out, and dust/dirt! I have given up on housework for now - but it is hard when you work at home and have to look at it all the time.

In the past week I have created two online newsletters:
Finished marking and grading work from 39 students at the Masters degree level, run a student Tweetchat, and 2 other online meetings in the evening. I have created and delivered 5 presentations online:
  • Twitter and hashtags (CSU)
  • The Voice - Voicethread for interactive learning (CSU)
  • Global Collaboration - Let's talk tools, let's talk learning design (for Global Collaboration Day Sept. 21)
  • Flat Connections Global Projects - Teacher kickoff
  • Collaborative teams (CSU)
So....some of this is on top of my day-to-day work with Charles Sturt University where I support online learning across the Faculty of Arts and Education and work with the uImagine team on innovation and the new initiative 'Transforming Online Learning'.

Why am I doing a PhD....did I hear you ask that? I tried to justify this in a previous blog post - and recently after discussion with family it has become clearer - I am an over-achiver! That's it! Now I know - I do a lot, I do too much, most of it is important to me....but the reality is there are not 48 hours in a day.

How many of you out there completing a PhD are also over-achievers? I bet statistically most are?

Heading into a Qualitative Reasearch workshop with Kathy Charmaz end of this week - so will have LOTS to talk about next week. Hang in there with me..... 

Julie Lindsay
PhD student - is it over-achieving or not?


Sunday, September 24, 2017

Global Education Highlights (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Case Study 4.1: The Global Education Conference - Lucy Gray & Steve Hargadon

The Global Educator - Case Study 4.1

The Global Education Conference

Lucy Gray and Steve Hargadon



It feels like I have known Lucy and Steve forever as we continue to collectively and globally build understanding about connecting with the world for deeper learning. The work that Lucy and Steve do together through The Global Education Conference is inspirational and transformative.

Connect with The Global Education Conference
Twitter: @globaledcon and #globaled and #globaled17
Lucy Gray: @elemenous
Steve Hargadon: @stevehargadon

DOWNLOAD the full case study 

Of the many and varied online spaces and artefacts created by Lucy and Steve and by the numerous participants in live and virtual events over the years, this is one I encourage you to explore: 

This was compiled by GEC participants and presented at the 2013 Global Education Conference. The final statement shares:
We declare the critical importance of helping our students, teachers, administrators, parents, and all others to connect globally and to learn from each other; we express appreciation for those who provide opportunities for such global learning activities; and we devote ourselves to furthering the cause of global education.


Just as this blog post becomes public, the 2017 Global Collaboration Day in conjunction with the Global Education Fair is being launched. These events take place on and around September 21. This is another authentic opportunity to connect with global educators and organisations, to share experiences and opportunities and to learn from and with each other. The Fair is designed for you to find the BEST global education resources for your school.
The entire event is virtual, which means you can come and go to suit your own schedule. Make sure you participate in something!

Watch this video and learn more about how to participate! See you there!

 


This is the 11th post in what will be a 36-week series featuring the 36 case studies from my book, 'The Global Educator: Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Learning and Teaching'. This book was published by the International Society for technology in Education in July 2016. The book contains contributions from over 100 educators and case studies featuring over 50 educators.

Read more about The Global Educator and find out where to purchase the hard copy and eBook/ePub versions. In addition, access other Case Studies in this series. 

Flat Connections is proud to be an exhibitor at the Global Education Fair 2017


Julie Lindsay is the author of The Global Educator, and of this blog. 
Connect with Julie
 - Twitter @julielindsay
 - about.me/julielindsay

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Global Education Highlights (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Case Study 2.3: Ed Gragert - Global Connections

The Global Educator - Case Study 2.3

Ed Gragert - Global Connections


I am privileged to have been connected with Ed for over 20 years. What I find inspiring about Ed Gragert is that he never stops working towards a better world where global/international competency and intercultural awareness objectives are normal and prevalent across all levels of education. 

When you review his LinkedIn profile you will see the leadership he provided for iEARN (1990-2012) as Executive Director, and then Interim Executive Director 2015-16. As he states, 
"Had the privilege of serving as the Founding Director of iEARN and worked with a fantastic staff to grow the K-12 network from two countries (US and USSR) in 1990 to 140 countries, making it the world's largest online educational network for collaborative project-based learning."
Ed's passion for building communities around collaborative goals is infectious - and it is initially because of him and his influence and encouragement to join iEARN that I am here today able to write with some authority about global education and collaborative learning.

Connect with Ed
Twitter: @egragert

DOWNLOAD the full case study

Ed is featured through The Global Educator for his wisdom and insights. This quote from Ed about global collaboration is one I use often when sharing with other educators.


Recent updates from Ed

In a recent email exchange, Ed shared these updates......
  • I’m exploring the launch of something I’m calling “Virtual Volunteers for Education,” an initiative that seeks to address the power of technology to facilitate one-on-one connections between the large number of educators (retired, current, future) around the world with young people who do not have access to a quality education (due to class size, isolation, gender bias, disability, difficulty with a particular part of the curriculum (“calculus isn’t my thing”), etc.).  I wrote a Huffington Post piece on it at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/ed-gragert  I had a chance to share this idea in a keynote presentation at the July 2017 iEARN Conference in Marrakech, Morocco—and received very positive feedback from educators globally.
  • I’ve been working to internationalize teacher education programs at several universities, using virtual exchanges among faculty and future teachers as a Board member of the GlobalTeacherEducation.org organization.
  • I also have been active on a number of other issues — as reflected on my pieces on Huffington Post (see above). 
  • Finally, a fair amount of my time has been involved in local political organizing and activities here in NE Pennsylvania.  We’ve put together a rather large group working to oppose and reverse the current agenda in Washington, DC. 



This is the tenth post in what will be a 36-week series featuring the 36 case studies from my book, 'The Global Educator: Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Learning and Teaching'. This book was published by the International Society for technology in Education in July 2016. The book contains contributions from over 100 educators and case studies featuring over 50 educators.

Read more about The Global Educator and find out where to purchase the hard copy and eBook/ePub versions. In addition, access other Case Studies in this series.

Julie Lindsay is the author of The Global Educator, and of this blog. 
Connect with Julie
 - Twitter @julielindsay
 - about.me/julielindsay

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Global Education Highlights (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Friday, September 08, 2017

Case Study 3.7: Global Read Aloud - Pernille Ripp

The Global Educator - Case Study 3.7

Global Read Aloud - Pernille Ripp


We are jumping into section 3 of the book which is specifically about 'Online Global Collaboration'. Case studies featured in this section feature educators who are building and/or participating in collaborative projects that are changing the paradigm of learning.

Pernille Ripp won the ISTE Award for Innovation in Global Collaboration, 2015 for Global Read Aloud (see pic of Julie and Pernille at ISTE). Before and since then the project has continued to grow, attracting participants from across the world. As Pernille states on the website:
The project was created in 2010 with a simple goal in mind; one book to connect the world. From its humble beginnings, the GRA has grown to make a truly global connection with more than 2,000,000 students having participated.
Pernille has a canny insight into why global collaboration is so important in education, and once again on the GRA website she states:
Global collaboration is necessary to show students that they are part of something bigger than them. That the world needs to be protected and that we need to care for all people. You can show them pictures of kids in other countries but why not have them speak to each other? Then the caring can begin.
Connect with Pernille and Global Read Aloud
Twitter:  @pernilleripp 
Website: Pernille Ripp
Global Read Aloud: https://theglobalreadaloud.com/

DOWNLOAD the full case study

In Pernille's words....






UPDATES
Pernille has authored a new book, "Passionate readers: The art of reaching and engaging every child" - this book is getting excellent reviews and provides guidance and support for many educators, as well as parents.

The Global Read Aloud project kicks off again in October, as it has for the past 6 years - and the sign up form is located right on the front page of the GRA website. Maybe it's time you and your students jumped into this project? You will be put into a small group opf classrooms (4-5), and then communicate with them, reading the chosen book at the same pace across the 6-week project time. Activities such as Skype calls between classrooms, online blogging and other ways to build empathy amd understanding are suggested ways of moving through the project. 

 




This is the ninth post in what will be a 36-week series featuring the 36 case studies from my book, 'The Global Educator: Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Learning and Teaching'. This book was published by the International Society for Technology in Education in July 2016. The book contains contributions from over 100 educators and case studies featuring over 50 educators.

Read more about The Global Educator and find out where to purchase the hard copy and eBook/ePub versions.

Julie Lindsay is the author of The Global Educator, and of this blog. 
Connect with Julie
 - Twitter @julielindsay
 - about.me/julielindsay

Tuesday, September 05, 2017

My PhD Journey - Musing #3 - Coding adventures

I spent the weekend buried in Saldaña's book on coding. Yes, I had browsed it before, but for some reason this time it really started to make sense! Just realised I have the 2009 edition from USQ - wondering if I should chase up a more recent edition....?

My PhD research - a summary
  • Paradigm - Post-positivism
  • Methodology - Interpretive
  • Method - Qualitative
The strategy chosen for qualitative research is a case study, the design of which is a single case study bounded by the phenomenon of online global collaborative experience (Yin, 2014). The context is K-12 education, with embedded multiple units of analysis being global educators.

So.......my interview data was collected in 2016. I did preliminary coding in that year and have been working on moving data into NVivo this year to be able to see connections, themes, and key concepts more easily. This initial coding used colour highlighting of transcribed text to reflect structural content based on research and interview questions.

Reading 'The coding manual' again has been a breakthrough in that I now appreciate that 'coding is not a precise science, it is an interpretive act'. I need to approach coding as a heuristic (enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves) and as an analytical tactic.

So.....taking Saldaña's suggestions on board I have started the time consuming task of recoding all data. Apparently that is what qualitative researchers do - round 2, even a round 3 may take place...oh! Anyway, what a surprise! I started with an interview I am struggling to 'write-up' in chapter 5 (the chapter where all 9 interviews are presented...and I am almost finished!). This interview has not inspired me - not sure why - data fatigue maybe? Anyway, taking an analytical approach and using the following techniques ideas, concepts, practices, beliefs now seem to 'pop' off the page!

Of the many ways that data could be coded, according to Saldaña, I am focusing on these approaches:
  • STRUCTURAL - reviewing past coding, with a focus on alignment with research questions (given a highlight colour in my transcript based on round 1 coding)
  • DESCRIPTIVE - one word to summarise a topic
  • IN VIVO - single key words of importance (underlined in my transcript) using the interviewees language
  • PROCESS - the use of '...ing' words
  • VALUES - codes to reflect a participant's attitudes, values and beliefs (indicated by * at the start of a phrase, and then an A, V or B followed by the description)

Here is a very short example from my data.....maybe I am overdoing it? Too much coding? 




 What I am really struggling with is distinguishing 'VALUE' codes - it seems that attitudes, values and beliefs often overlap and the natural flow of speech in an interview blends or blurs this even further. The example above, the interviewee stated "I have that kind of flexibility where if I need something opened up.....", I have coded as V: Flexibility to control learning environment. I see this as a value the person holds. But maybe it is an attitude....hmmmm.

Looking for further reassurance.....this is what I found...


Qualitative codes and coding by Heather Ford - on Slideshare

This more recent article by Nick Hopwood, 'How do I know I'm coding well in qualitative analysis?', provides these key points (and I am thinking hard about all of them!)
  1. Good coding relates to how hard you’re thinking (and helps you think harder).
  2. Good coding means you are seeing new things in the data and these new insights are progressive.
  3. Good coding settles towards a parsimonious set of codes/categories/themes.
  4. Good coding opens up as much as it closes off: coding rarely, if ever, provides the answers to your questions.
As Nick shares, good coding is about being able to take steps into good analysis and synthesis of ideas. If it is not supporting this, then coding is a waste of time. I am still wondering if I am 'over-coding' but feel comfortable with my new approach so far. The In Vivo codes are growing - so many 'important' words, and once I redo the Nvivo data this manual list will be a key resource for searching all interviews via that tool.

Ok....back to it....

Julie Lindsay
Coding, coding coding....PhD Student

Saldaña, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers: Sage. 

Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: design and methods (Fifth ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.
 

Sunday, September 03, 2017

Global Education Highlights (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.