Thursday, January 13, 2011
Why a Dissertation Blog???
One of my professional goals this year is to branch out of my comfort zone and try to incorporate new technologies into my courses. This is the first year I have been on a faculty contract since 2007. Having had numerous other full-time duties, teaching was always an overload for me. Consequently, I rarely had time to advance my teaching style and courses by incorporating new technologies. I have been brainstorming ways to incorporate advanced technologies into my research and stats courses (not always an easy thing to do; and I am certainly open to any ideas!!). This semester I plan to have students create a Dissertation Blog. The Dissertation Blog will contain information related to their dissertation, whether it is an article review, a description of the problem statement, ideas for data collection and potential participants, information from discussion posts, essentially whatever they want. This will give students a place that contains all the information related to their dissertation topic. I am going to require that students publish their blogs and update them as often as possible. It is hoped that by publishing the information, others will comment on the blogs, and provide valuable information on the topic. What do you think???
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I agree, I think it is a great idea. My superintendent recently placed me in charge of developing a SharePoint site for our district's special education department. I plan to also post my blog to that as well to help gather even more info...
ReplyDeleteI think that dissertation blogging, especially for those in a distance program, is an inspired idea. Thanks! I will certainly follow my classmates' blogs this term and (hopefully!) beyond and will create one myself at the point at which I begin planning a dissertation.
ReplyDeleteI take it that this blog (yours) has been created not only for the purpose of modeling, but also as a sort of "class blog". Any idea about how it may end up functioning as a complement to Blackboard?
Greg, what an excellent opportunity for you to get more information for your dissertation topic! I like it!! I hope that other students can find a similar place to post their blogs!!
ReplyDeleteRobert, yes, this will also serve as a class blog. I encourage students to ask questions on my blog with regard to the research process in general or on their dissertation topics. In future terms I will have students create the blog in lieu of Discussion post 1 (in essence DB #1 will be their first blog). It is also hoped that the blogs will increase academic dialogue among faculty and students (part of our Quality Enhancement Plan). I am still brainstorming ways to incorporate this into the course more fully.
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