Assignment Cover Sheet for
Andy Roberts
Student Number: xxxxxxx
Year of Entry: 2003/4
Full Title of Award: BA Learning Technology Research:
ASSIGNMENT DETAILS
Module Title: Action Enquiry
Module Code: UND2603
Title of Assignment:
Marked by: Gina Revill
Submission Date: 21/3/2005
Select and negotiate appropriate tasks. Meet learning objectives.
Excellent – You have met all learning objectives for this module to a
high standard.
Ability to take responsibility for own learning.
Excellent – you excel in this also.
Ability to relate theory to practice.
Excellent – I can see clearly how you have absorbed the reading you have
done into the work you carried out in creating a wiki. I can appreciate the time
you have spent in expressing your thoughts and emerging ideas in different media – I
find this at times a challenging way for me to piece together your thoughts-
I’d venture to say it’s easier for a reader to take in an author’s
ideas if he or she doesn’t have to visit many places to read those ideas.
Having said that, when I come back to your work for the second time, I come with
a sense of seeing your ideas unfold and develop. I’m always going to waver
on this point – should your ideas be in one place with clear headings in
a more conventional format, or is your work a valid way of using media in a fresh
and more accessible way? I can’t answer it. I’d just like to work
less hard sometimes when taking on your ideas. It would be good to have a continuing
dialogue about this- perhaps assessment ought to be more of a dialogue that a
one sided judgement. I’d be interested in how your very capable peer
reviewers found reading your work.
A note about style – this is nothing new to you but I feel it needs to
be noted. Sometimes I feel you write in a way that isn’t in keeping with
a style that is academic. (you might be happy about that) It’s not necessarily
a problem, and it highlights the tension we have between wanting innovation and
needing to conform to university regulations. For example, when you say that
qualitative methodology is what journalists use – I found this to be
a bit simplistic. There are many different types of journalism. Academic style
tends to be more tentative because there is more than one way of interpreting
something.
Some specific points:
I found your model of distributed action research convincing. You clearly evaluated
how the emerging ideas helped you to structure your research. This required
taking on ideas about action research and applying what you found out to your
own situation – something
you do very well.
I also like the way you have continually looked at other sources as your research
has progressed, which has informed how you have interpreted things.
Sometimes I found it difficult to know when you were talking about someone
else’s
ideas and when you were talking about your own ideas- eg on your blog when talking
about Wenger’s ideas on CoP you merely supply a link to his website then
list some paragraphs outlining what CoPs could be – some ideas seem to
be his, some yours. But it’s hard for me to tell. Could you keep this
in mind?
I’m seeing a continual improvement in the way you write about others
ideas and your own.
Evidence of developing analytical skills.
Excellent – again your originality when approaching research is refreshing.
Some points worthy of note:
You approach ideas about research critically – eg logical positivism
(although I thought this could maybe have been explained a bit more?)
You showed analysis of the hotseat discussions. This was explained well.
I found your argument for storing data convincing also.
Not sure if this is the right criterion exactly, but in my opinion still think
you need to focus your work more tightly. I like all the different media and
links it’s not that – it’s the scale of what you are trying
to do.
Reflect on individual strengths and weaknesses.
Excellent – you do this well – looking at your role as a facilitator
particularly.
Targets
A note on focus: sometimes I felt you lost focus – what you said didn’t
fit with the rest of your enquiry.
1. When you discussed your own philosophical stance, you said you may have
made some mistakes but no one seemed interested. What do you mean no one? It
just
doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of your tone.
2. The comparison of the cider wiki with the Ultraversity wiki. I mentioned
this in some feedback to you – it just seems to come from nowhere with no data
to back it up. Your conclusions may be correct but there’s no data and
what has an Ultraversity wiki have to do with your UK Cider one anyway? If you
wanted to use them as an evaluative comparison, perhaps you’d need another
whole assignment to gather the same data for the alternative wiki, and explain
why you chose the one you did as a comparison.
Sometimes I didn’t understand a reference to something – it needed
a bit more explantion, but this one is always hard as we’ve said before,
do you state what is obvious to you or assume prior knowledge. In this case I
wasn’t sure what the new google groups were vs the yahoo groups. What’s
their history – what is a google group?
I found the navigation very good and easy to steer.
I came away thinking this work was very important in looking at the relationship
of wikis to CoP and challenging out definitions of those terms.
Assignment % Mark
72