eAssessment Scotland Conference 2013

Posted on 24th August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I spent yesterday at the 5th annual eAssessment Scotland conference at Dundee University.  This is the third year I’ve attended, and it was odd not to be presenting for once (2 years ago Kenji asked me and Steve Draper to present, last year Lorna Love and I were talking about our Facebook groups).  The conference was well-organised, as ever, and it was good to catch up with old friends.  The first keynote, by Catherine Cronin, was called Assessment in Open Spaces and this quote struck a chord in me:

“Individuals with abundant access to ICTs who have habits of effective use of these technologies in information-seeking and problem-solving activities are unable to make effective use of these technologies in [higher] education settings.” David Wiley & John Hilton III The Daily Divide

I’m running our bi-annual “Digital Natives” survey1 again this year (eek, in three weeks time!) and am very aware that students are generally not as technologically able as we might think they are.  I’ve read a couple of pieces about this recently, such as this and this and I’ll be thinking about this more over the coming academic year as I help to support first year BTech Ed students with the wonderful Sue Milne.

easc bag

Another highlight of the day – finding Tunnock’s caramel wafer in my conference bag 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. We refer to it thus but it is actually entitled “First Year Student Use of Technology and their Expectations of Technology Use in their Courses”.

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Facebook, subjective well-being, and use

Posted on 19th August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

There’s been a lot of hype in the media recently about a report that apparently show that using Facebook makes you miserable.  It’s making for sensational headlines, so the appeal to journalists is obvious, but what should we think about it as educators?

sad-smiley-face-computer
sad-smiley-face-computer flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

 

Over the last couple of years, here at the University of Glasgow we’ve (that’s Lorna Love and Shazia Ahmed, with a tiny bit of help from me) been using Facebook groups in order to support students in the College of Science and Engineering.  We’ve spoken about this at various conferences and workshops, including a recent one  in Glasgow – a copy of the paper is here.  Our experience, albeit anecdotal and not (yet!) scientifically researched, is that Facebook groups can help to support learning and help to build “real life” relationships, as we conclude:

“In any case we have been pleased to observe that connections that began online often became real life networks.  We have witnessed students using the groups to arrange meetings for various purposes, such as forming study groups, arranging transport to the Observatory (Astronomy students) and social events.  Anecdotally we know that there are students who are more likely to instigate conversations with others in a large lecture hall if they have already interacted online. ”

We’d be interested in looking into this further, as our intuition is that subjective well-being is going to correlate to how social networks are used.  As Lorna said, there are good and bad ways of using things:

“How about comparing it with alcohol?

Sure – drinking shoplifted superlager on a park bench at 9am with a bunch of “lowlifes” is not the best thing to aspire to in life but discussing the meaning of life with a bottle of wine or celebrating success with champagne…”

Posted in Conferences, Facebook, Social Media | 1 Comment

International Conference on Enhancement and Innovation in Higher Education

Posted on 12th August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I was due to attend this conference back in June, but due to being suddenly signed off sick I was unable to attend.  However, my co-presenters Niall Barr, Lorna Love and Shazia Ahmed did present papers at the conference which I’ve uploaded to my Academia page.

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On Procrastination

Posted on 2nd August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I was in my garden yesterday planting flowers and generally avoiding doing any research on the grounds that the plants couldn’t wait (not true – they’d have been fine till the weekend).  I began to think about the ways in which I procrastinate.  Earlier that afternoon my supervisor had joked about co-habitation being a nuisance (my husband had arrived home unexpectedly early, thwarting any plans I had for lounging around) and this started me thinking about Socrates and Virginia Wolff.

If you google for “Socrates” and “marriage” this quote comes up attributed to Socrates (who, of course, never wrote it):1

“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

I remembered the thought well enough to know to look for it though, so I have read it somewhere, but the point I am wanting to emphasise here is that it is easy to be distracted by the mundanities of life – such as weeding the garden or cleaning the fridge – when there is serious (but maybe not urgent) research to be done.

And. of course, this is Virginia Wolff’s point in her famous quotation from A Room of One’s Own  – a feminist point in the original, but one that I think extends to all of us – we need freedom from the housekeeping and also from the distractions of everyday life if we are to be able to find the time to work productively:

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

 

However, despite my initial procrastination, the telephone call from my supervisor provided a catalyst and this post is the result – this is a post I’d been thinking about writing for ages and had never quite got around to doing – it kept bubbling over at the back of my mind but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

There’s a lovely essay by Poincare on how creativity does not come from nowhere, but is actually the result of hard work, and there’s a nice book here that discusses  this. I may just procrastinate again and read that instead of researching for my thesis. 🙂

Update:  recently I read an article about how Women are significantly better at multitasking than men, which is interesting, and sort of relevant here.

1. Though this is not attributable  to Socrates, it is a likely paraphrase of his point of view, and both Plato and Xenophon tell similar stories about Socrates’ marriage.  See for example Leonard Woodbury Socrates and the Daughter of Aristides

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On Blogging

Posted on 1st August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I’ve been ill recently and not getting around to doing anything – even blogging was too much to cope with.  I say even, but actually it is hard to get into the habit of blogging regularly (finding anything to say, finding the time).

I’ve missed it though, for a few reasons:

  • It’s good for sorting out thoughts;
  • It’s good to practice regular writing, and though it’s not the same as writing my thesis it helps “warm up” for that;
  • It’s nice to get unexpected feedback on my writing

It’s good to be back 🙂

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Intrinsic interest

Posted on 16th March 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I’ve been asked to think about what intrinsic interest is for my PhD cluster* and I thought the best way to stop this topic annoying me and stopping me from getting on with what I am meant to be doing is to jot down a few thoughts here.

As ever, my Wittgensteinian hackles show themselves when I’m given a “what is” question – the idea that there’s going to be a quick and easy answer, that the essence of intrinsicness (intrinsicality?) can be neatly defined in the space of an hour by a bunch of non-philosophers – makes me want to brush it off and I am getting so annoyed about having to think about it that it is blocking everything else I try to think about.  I realise that I want to brush the thought off as trivial – as an annoyance – as a fly buzzing at the edge of my thought, and that’s a very Wittgensteinian response to a Socratic demand. ** However, there’s also a wee bit at the beginning of Plato’s Republic that makes me think that this question is badly formed for a different reason.

In Book 2, Glaucon sets Socrates the challenge of showing that justice is not merely of instrumental benefit.  In so doing, he sets out three theories of motivation:

  1. Instrumental.  Justice is self interest.
  2. Intrinsic.  Justice is good in and of itself
  3. Instrumental and intrinsic.  Justice is good both in itself and because of the benefits to the individual.

Glaucon asks Socrates to show that justice has both intrinsic and instrumental value to the individual.

This got me thinking.  Why am I being asked to talk about the intrinsic value of learning, when surely a more plausible model is going to look at both intrinsic and instrumental value?

It’s not often I agree with Plato.

* A group of PhD students with diverse research interests and little in common other than sharing a supervisor.

** In various places Socrates is described by Plato as a gadfly, stinging folk out of the complacency of strongly held opinions. At the same time, though, he can come over as downright annoying with his constant dialectic of essences.  Wittgenstein, of course, describes the aim of philosophy as showing the fly out of the flybottle, but his method of doing this was decidedly not Socratic.

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Faith, Howp, Luve

Posted on 20th October 2012 by NomadWarMachine

Still on the search for that perfect wedding reading, and out with Scots Lit pals last night.  I’d been adamant about not wanting owt trite at our wedding, such as 1 Corinthians 13 1-13, when Andrew suggested a reading from the Scots language version of the Bible.

1 Corinthians 13 from The New Testament in Scots
by William Laughton Lorimer

Luve is patientful; luve is couthie an kind;
luve is jane jailous; nane sprosie;
nane bowdent wi pride; nane mislaired;
nane hame-drauchit; nane toustie.

Luve keeps nae nickstick o the wrangs it drees;
find nae pleisure i the ill wark o ithers;
is ey liftit up whan truith dings lies;
kens ey tae keep a caum souch;
ie ey sweired tae misdout;
ey howps the best; ey bides the warst.

there is three things bides for ey:
faith, howp, luve
But the grytest of the three is luve.

Now, I wonder if we can find anybody to do justice to this on our wedding day.

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Being Wittgensteinian

Posted on 14th October 2012 by NomadWarMachine

When I did my first degree I also worked in a factory for a couple of days of the week.  This meant that I could guarantee spending 2 hours at a stretch sitting at a machine with nothing to occupy me but my thoughts.

I wondered how to spend this time. I could not talk to my co-workers (the machines were VERY loud), so I was left with my thoughts.  The obvious solution was to read and remember enough on the bus each morning to take me through the day – to find a wee bit of writing that would keep me going till the next break.

I’ve always had a fairly good memory, but this really helped me to embed certain bits of writing in my mind.  The main book I read at the time was Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, and bits of that still float into my head and DEMAND to be understood.  Others tap me on the shoulder as I am thinking about something else and help me to put things together and make more sense of them.

wittgenstein understand

I was reticent, for many years, of using these in public lest anyone challenge my credentials.  (Who am I to say what Wittgenstein really meant about a given topic?)  But I think this reticence was unfounded.  If the point of an aphorism is to provoke thought in the reader, then the intention of the writer is of no relevance, surely?

So I will make no apology for my use of Wittgenstein to inspire my writings.  As Wittgenstein says:

“Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination”.  (Philosophical Investigations Section 6)

I’m not arguing that there is no place for a careful examination of what an author meant, or intended, of course I’m not.  I am saying that this is not the only way to use a writer.

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On the difference between philosophy and dishwater

Posted on 13th October 2012 by NomadWarMachine

I’ve been chasing a half-remembered quote of Wittgenstein’s for a while now.  As ever, when  I found the text it was not saying exactly what I thought it was saying, but something even better. Here it is:

Wittgenstein wrote to Moore, “One can’t drink wine while it ferments, but that it’s fermenting shows that it isn’t dishwater . . .You see I still make beautiful similes” (Monk, Duty of Genius 363).

Fractal Bubbles
Fractal Bubbles flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

I think that there’s so much going on in those few words.  Here’s a few thoughts they evoke in me:

  • You can’t force philosophical writing.  A thesis needs time to ferment until it is mature.
  • However, there are ways of checking whether philosophical thought is going on.  As long as there is the occasional bubble of thought, there’s hope.
  • Sometimes thoughts can be left for too long.  There needs to be some stimulation to help ensure that fermentation does not become stagnation.
  • How do we ensure that a particular thought is in fact fermenting, and not stagnating?
  • The above quote is not, imo, a simile, though it could be formulated as one.
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Appropriate love

Posted on 11th October 2012 by NomadWarMachine

Niall and I decided recently that we want to be married, and I am gradually realising just what this means.  We saw the Minister today, and we have a date for the wedding – eek!  So I’ve started thinking about hymns, and readings, and the like.  This is definitely on the shortlist:

“If thou must love me, let it be for nought…”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

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