I’m drawn to the discussion about online ethnography. The
emergent nature of the field and even the debate regarding whether online
communication should be considered text or an extension of one’s persona is
fascinating. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. I
imagine as technology becomes more engrained in our society and the “digital
natives” step into adulthood – thus entering the conversation, and the field of
ethnographic research—there will be significant criticism of early digital
ethnographers. Not unlike how we criticize early anthropologists for some of
their practices or the ethnocentric narratives produced.
I’m also interested in looking more at the writings of
Sacks. It makes sense to observe participants in their space as well as asking
them about the space! This holds true for my own area of research. If I am
interested in informal learning environments anything I produce that simply
reports on peoples’ perceptions of their experience in a museum or historic
site is only part of the story. Sadly this is often the most/only reported part
in research focused on history museums. (Research
in the areas of science museums is more established.)If I want to know how
students lean at informal learning environments, it is essential to include observations
of participants when they are at history museums or historic sites. As a way to
increase the richness of the observations I hope to document the conversations
or thoughts of my visitors as they navigate a museum space. This has been done
in a small sampling of studies, but is not the norm. Typically, researchers ask
the teachers what they thought their students gained from visiting museums –
rarely do they actually ask the students and even more rarely do they
observe/document students voices and interactions during the visits. (The work
of Brenda Trofanenko is a key exception.)
I'm just scratching the surface of this next idea, but as museums and historic sites develop and promote their online resources there will also be the opportunity to look at how teachers and students use online museums and the possible learning gains...more to come, maybe.
I’m thinking how technology will assist with this process
and the best ways monitor and document visitor thoughts and actions as they
navigate these spaces. I’d like to make this my next skill builder as I hope to
iron out this methodology for my dissertation methodology. So if anyone has any
technology ideas I’m open for suggestions!
Sacks has a series of lectures (now in book form) that get at his ideas around naturally occurring and specifically conversational analysis. Silverman has also written a bit around data types.
ReplyDeleteSo, one thing your post led me to reflect upon was the whole notion of 'memory validity'. While I've embarked on several studies that rely upon interview data, I often reflect upon the assumptions of many such approaches (many of which I align closely with). There is one assumption that often pushes me to explore other forms of data, particularly naturally occurring -- and that is the assumption that reflecting back on your initial impressions via interviews is analogous to recording/accessing the 'real time' initial impressions/thoughts. These are two types of data that result in different layers of understanding. Any thoughts?