Visit to Cork Public Museum with a class

I am teaching an undergraduate module on 'France and the Great War' at the moment. It is a classroom based module but I thought it could be helpful for the students to look outside of the classroom for an alternative for one of our seminars - so I contacted the Cork Public Museum. 

The responsive to my initial approach to the museum was very positive and as a result of their work, we had a successful visit. It is great to actually see and feel items from that period (or authentic replicas) instead of just reading about them. 

 

Photograph of Cork Public Museum in Fitzgerald's Park. 

Thanks to the curator Mr Daniel Breen and education officer Ms Jessica Cull for welcoming us to the museum and presenting relevant items that they took out from storage for us.

 

Twitter

This is a worlde of my blog as it stands at the minute. Yes you read that right. I only heard about Wordle for the first time today and think it is a very effective tool to give you a snapshot of the frequency of words appearing in any given space. I just pasted the URL of this blog into the create box on the Wordle site and it gave me a picture of the most commonly used words in my blog.

The word Twitter seems to be the most prominent word there at the minute - I suppose I have written a good deal about the uses of Twitter in my research. I will be writing a small bit more over the next while. So keep checking the blog for updates.

Getting answers on Twitter

I sent out my first question into the vast universe of Twitterland and had no idea if I would get an answer, or if I would, when?

Firstly, I did not know how to ask a question. Who would even receive my question, I wondered? I found out by trial and error that my followers would receive the question. I also found out that if I used someones name using the '@' symbol, they would also receive the question.

In total I received three answers to my questions on Twitter. All of the answers were relevant. They gave me the titles of three books that they thought could help me to understand Ireland's history from 1900-22.

I was really amazed when I received these answers. I have changed my opinion of Twitter now that I can see that people can communicate in a positive way on it.

Personalising Twitter

So, without too much difficulty my new Twitter account was set up. As I said earlier, it was a relatively easy process. I have listed below some of the steps I followed to personalise my account.

First of all, I decided that I would use this new Twitter account, not for personal, but purely for research purposes. I wanted to create a profile for myself on the internet, so that others would know of my PhD research.

I began with the 'profile' section and I added a short biography that, as simply as possible, describes my research. I then added a link to this blog, so that visitors to my Twitter account could see what I am writing on the blog. I also plan to add a link on this blog to my Twitter account, if that is possible, to create another connection. For a number of weeks I didn't have any photo in the photo section of my profile, and the default symbol of the 'egg' came up instead. I decided that a personal picture would add to my profile, so I added an unusual picture so as to grab the attention of Twitter users (it's pictured at the top of this post)

Who to Follow?

I searched websites that I use frequently in my research to see if they have a Twitter account. This included media organisations, such as newspapers and magazines and radio and television stations. I also decided to follow local, national and international libraries - so that I could be kept up to date with any new developments in my research area. I am also following universities and colleges to see what's happening in terms of research trends in my area.

45 - that is the number of people and organisations that I am following at the moment. They are mainly based in Ireland and others are in the UK, USA and France.

When I signed up to 'follow' a particular Twitter account, I was advised of similar users and urged to 'follow' them too. In some cases I did, and sometimes I decided not to, as it was not necessary, because the user that I signed up with initially was sufficient to keep me up to date in that area.

Who's Following me?

At this stage there are some 8 people following me. I have not figured out how they found me, or why some of them are following me. Some have similar research interests to me, so I can understand that they would 'follow' me, but some are in no way related the area that I am studying.

First Tweeets

The first tweet I sent out was very short. I was letting people know that the Toastmasters conference was taking place. It has nothing to do with my research, but I am a member of the organisation and wanted to help get the message out there and promote them.

I'm in the middle of researching a French journalist who visited Ireland in the early 1920's. I need to be able to understand what was happening at that time to fully appreciate what she wrote at that time. So my second tweet asked the question: 'What is the best book on Irish history 1900-1922?' I included the hash tag Twitterstorians on my tweet, so that I could catch the attention of historians on Twitter.

My third tweet asked the same question, but this time I used the @ symbol to send my tweet to specific people.

In my next post I will examine the responses that I got to my tweets.

Benefits of Twitter

This little graphic called 'The Four Stages of Getting Twitter' perfectly explains how Twitter works. I found it on a website and couldn't resist using it here to illustrate the stages you have to go through to understand how Twitter works.

Before I attended the research skills module in college, I never thought of Twitter as a research tool. If I'm being honest, I had a very negative attitude towards the micro blogging site. I think my negative attitude was formed by the mindless comments that people used to write on it. For me Twitter's birth was when people would tweet complete rubbish on their account; things like, I'm drinking a cup of tea, or I'm leaving my house now.

Well, for the benefit of the research skills module and my own research, I have tried to look at Twitter with an open mind and forget what I had thought up until now.

From what I have seen so far, Twitter is being used by all kinds of people and organisations. I have seen mega corporations, small and medium sized companies, non profit organisations and individuals use it. They use it to ask for help, to ask questions, to keep up to date with what ever is going on in the world. Some people do not tweet (send out any messages) but instead use it to keep up to date with the their chosen field, be it media current affairs, the price of gold or even .

I think Twitter is similar to an email account, except that people can see your inbox.

Setting up my Twitter account

It was surprisingly easy to open a Twitter account. I was surprised because some online sites can be very difficult to sign up with. I did use Google to search for forums and blogs to help me with any questions I had about the early stages of setting up the account. For example, I was totally new to Twitter, so I did not even know what any of the terminology meant. And there seems to be a lot of new terminology to get used to, things like - tweet, retweet, followers, following, mentions etc.

My next blog post will show how I personalised my Twitter account and used Twitter to communicate with like minded others and ask for advice to do with my research.

Digital research & referencing tools - help or hindrance?

For the next 10 or so blog posts I will be discussing whether or not digital research tools can help me with my PhD research.

In recent years there has been an explosion in the amount of tools available to do coursework or research online. I am talking about referencing and archiving tools such as Zotero, Evernote & Endnote. I'm also talking about micromedia and social media outlets and sites such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook - where virtual scholarly communities can come together to share information and maybe even help each other and find solutions to common challenges.

I will also examine what has been discovered through empirical studies carried out to judge the effectiveness of digital research tools and also the use of social media sites to aid research.

Can this blog help me?

What is the value of keeping a blog?

I am writing this post to tease out the question of whether writing this blog will help me in my study for a PhD and beyond. In the post I will be commenting on two journal articles about blogs to help me find some answers. The first article was written by Pedro Hernandez-Ramos in the USA in 2004. The second article was written by Karl Steffens in Europe in 2006. References for both articles are available at the bottom of this post.

Hernandez's article deals with using blogs as a tool to promote reflective practice among student teachers. He writes in a clear, easy to read style. Journals are common tools used in most courses to encourage metacognition (cognition about cognition, or thinking about thinking). They can be limiting insofar as we are writing them for a particular audience (tutor / supervisor) and we basically tell them what they want to hear. He says that blogs are good because we write them for a general audience and therefore what we say is going to be more realistic of what we truly believe.

Hernandez quotes other journal articles throughout his article to backup his belief that blogs are a good basis for the student teachers to reflect on their own learning. For example, he says that Nicholson and Bond (2003) found "electronic discussion boards can play an integral role in the development of preservice teachers". Reflective practice is seen by Hernandez as a vital component of learning. He quotes Levin and Camp (2002) who say that "we believe that the habit of mind is so important that we must try to teach all prospective teachers how to reflect on their practice".

In his study, Hernandez found that 53 out of the 56 student teachers that he surveyed had set up a blog. While a large majority found it to be a good idea, some found the experience to be "time consuming and self-aggrandizing". Hernandez tells us that according to the National Research Council (2001), blogs can be used as a tool to measure writing ability, analytical skill and motivation. In conclusion, Hernandez restates the value of reflective journal writing and says that judging by the outputs of the students, "the tools were successful in promoting reflective writing".

Steffens' article deals with 'self-regulated learners' who learn in 'technology-enhanced learning environments' (TELE). It is the longer of the two articles and is more scientific sounding than Hernandez's.

Steffens' article deals with 'self-regulated learners' who learn in 'technology-enhanced learning environments' (TELE). It is the longer of the two articles and is more scientific sounding than Hernandez's.

Quoting Flavell, 1971, Steffens says that metacognition is the concept most akin to self-regulated learning. He also says that university education is a mix of self-regulated learning and partly teacher/instructor regulated. Two types of intervention programmes to support self-regulated learning exist: interventions without modelling and interventions with modelling. As the names suggest, one of the approaches involves a demonstration by the teacher of how to do something and the other approach doesn't involve any demonstration. Steffens says that both of these approaches have been "successful in improving students' academic achievement and self-regulatory skills in learning.

The TELEPEERS Project, which ran from 1 January 2004 until 1 January 2006 involved nine universities across Europe. The aim of the project was to identify Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments (TELEs) that "seemed to have potential for supporting self-regulated learning". The outcome of the project was that cognitive apprenticeship is the ideal model that should be used to encourage self-regulated learning. This is where "learning and self-regulated strategies are first modelled by an expert who then coaches his students when they try to make use of these skills before he finally gives them the freedom to exercise them whenever they consider this to be appropriate".

Summary - Even though only two years separates these articles, so much has changed in the online world in such a short space of time that some of the findings will no doubt have changed also. Hernandez says that some of the student teachers were daunted by having to publish their thoughts to the world at large. Today, this happens every day when subscribers update their profiles on social media websites such as Facebook or Twitter with all kinds of personal information.

From what I have read in these two articles writing this blog will help me in my study for a PhD. Even though both of the authors admit that they used relatively small numbers of people in their surveys, I still believe in the potential power of blogging to help encourage reflective practice and self-regulated learning.

This is a list of what I think are the pros and cons of keeping a blog.

Pros of blogging
Get your message out there
Engage with others in your field and collaborate online
Improves quality of your writing
Builds motivation and confidence
______________________________________

Cons of blogging
Distracting
Time consuming
Can lead to information overload

Journal Articles:

Hernandez-Ramos, Pedro, 'Web Logs and Online Discussions as Tools to Promote Reflective Practice', The Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 3 (2004), 1-16

Steffens, Karl, 'Self-Regulated Learning in Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments: lessons of a European peer review', European Journal of Education, 41 (2006), 353-379