Becoming a Writer

Today, I attended a course on Academic Writing as part of the University’s staff development festival. This was an excellent day. The course was thought provoking with a lot of ‘hands on’ practice, especially the critiquing of our wring by the group! The one problem, the day was not long enough apparently they were cramming five hours into a two day workshop!

Planning Day

Planning day really – I spent the afternoon looking through the Ethics from that has to be submitted prior to my conversion viva (still no date set but, but I don’t feel confident!). I also spent some time reflecting on developing my research questions. Not sure if I have the correct for here because this one looks a little complex!

Staff Development Festival (and Dastardly Learning Styles)

The University is organising a whole range of staff development workshops over the next couple of weeks.

Today, I was booked on to two sessions. One entitled Dastardly statistics—the less said about the session the better—a case of sounding relevant at booking.

The second session was a called ‘A Critique of Learning Theory.’ This was an interested discussion based workshop were I managed to get a discussion going on one of my hobby horses—is far too much attention given to so called learning styles? Are learning styles infract just a modern pedagogical fad? I think so!

From the Mind’s Eye of the User

Dervin and her Sense-Making methodology is an area which I am looking into. I first came across Dervin’s work through reading an article by Ross Todd (see posting 28^th June). The sense-making approach is a methodology that tries to understand research from the user’s perspective. I will make further postings in the near future when I have manager to get my head into this one!

Misinformation on the Internet: Applying Evaluation Skills to Online Information

Fitzgerald, M. A. (1997). "Misinformation on the Internet: Applying Evaluation Skills to Online Information." Emergency Librarian 24(3): 9-14.

This is a very readable and accessible article which deals with the practical issues of critically using the internet. The paper is essentially divided into two sections. Section 1, provides a comprehensive (for an article) set of reasons why the internet contains misinformation. Section 2, develops practical methods for assessing web based information.

Information Needs and Information Sources of Homeless Parents

Hersberger, J. (2001). "Everyday Information Needs and Information Sources of Homeless Parents." The New Review of Information Behaviour Research 2: 119 - 134.

From my perspective, this is a very useful paper; especially with view its design and methodology. It has two research questions:

1) What are the everyday information needs of homeless parents?

2) What are the everyday information sources of homeless parents?

The research is based on works done by Dervin on the information needs of citizens.

Methodology

Interview based on Dervin and sense-making was used, with data analysis from the interview transcripts. The findings were very useful in that there were several areas:

• Finance
• Child care and relationships
• Housing
• Health
• Employment
• Education
• Transportation
• Public assistance
• Shelter

Thinking critically about the internet

Martland and Rothbaum – Thinking critically about the internet

Martland, N. and F. Rothbaum (2006). "Thinking Critically About the Internet: Suggestions for Practitioners." Child Welfare 85(5): 837-852.

This is an excellent paper aimed at helping US parents use the internet. It starts off my stating that a majority of US parents use the internet and provides a wide range of sources for this. The paper lists specific skills:

1. Searching

2. Judging and trustworthiness.