Posts Tagged ‘Grad School’
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on March 20, 2008
While in Memphis I will also be co-presenting a paper with Christina Wasson about our online-on-campus research that we’ve been working on for just over a year. The session is on Friday morning (F-10) 8:00-9:50 am in the Nashville room and is entitled “The Scholar-Practitioner in Organizational Settings.” Our paper is titled “Theory and Praxis in an Educational Setting: Building Community Online.”
Here is the session abstract from Crysta Metcalf
“In this session we introduce and model the concept of the “scholar-practitioner,” practicing anthropologists who explicitly draw on theory in their work and contribute to theory development. Although such an integration of theory and practice has long existed, it has been gaining greater recognition in recent years, especially as more and more anthropologists are applying our discipline in organizational settings. The members of this panel draw on their experiences in both academic and organizational settings, presenting case studies and examples in order to explore the challenges and opportunities inherent in working toward the advancement of anthropological theory in applied practice.”
I’m excited about this session because I am co-presenting with my advisor and many of the other women on the panel are the ones that I’ve followed their work for the last four years. It’s quite an honor 
I’ll upload a copy of the paper post-conference but I can let you in on a little secret…
it will be recorded for the SfAA Podcasts. I guess I’ve done a good job in finding my way into cool panels because this is the second year that my session was selected for the podcasts. I do oversee the selection of sessions but the sessions are picked from suggestions submitted by lots of people.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, applied anthropology, Grad School, linguistic anthropology, online-on-campus research, Practicing, Research, UNT Online Master's | 1 Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on March 19, 2008
This blog is two years old today! A year ago today I wrote a blog post reflecting over this blogs first year, so I thought it would be fun to do another “52 weeks, 84 posts later” post.
I’ve been some what inactive with posting the last two months, but I actually miss blogging so I’ll be making an effort to do so after the SfAA Annual Meeting next week. That’s something that has changed for me in the last year- I really enjoy blogging and feel like I have stuff to write about.
When I started this blog I really wasn’t sure what to write about. I was living in Southern Georgia working as a textbook manager at a college bookstore during my year off in between undergrad and grad. I was about to attend the Annual Meeting of the SfAA in Vancouver, Canada and with the strong encouragement from my boyfriend I started this blog in the hopes of the SfAA giving me something to write about. When I left for Canada I hadn’t really thought about grad school and I came home with the idea of applying to the University of North Texas.
Now, I’m in the middle of my fourth semester at UNT and applying for summer internships. UNT requires students to do a practicum in lieu of thesis, so I’ll be looking to do my practicum during the rest of 2008 and graduate in 2009. It’s fun for me to look back through old blog posts to see the evolution of my focus, building of confidence in my posts, and to remember the places I’ve been and things I’ve done. When this blog started I didn’t even know I’d be in grad school. I had NO idea that I’d start the SfAA Podcasts. I’m not even sure I knew where I’d be living.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Blogging, Grad School, Life | 1 Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on December 6, 2007
Since I’ve never attended graduate school in an on-campus program, much of what I see as the “graduate experience” comes from hearsay and others’ experiences. Part of my hesitation about enrolling in the online master’s program was about if I’d get the “graduate experience” (whatever that is).
Well, a year and a half into the program I feel like I can say I am getting it- at least a part of it.
As I’ve written about in the past, I’m a research assistant for my advisor in the department. I’ve had two opportunities to present at conferences so far from this research and publications are in the works. So, this is part of the “experience.”
UNT and the department of anthropology have made efforts to extend other parts of graduate school to the online students also though. Many on-campus students are presenting their practicums this week and next. At UNT students do a practicum (applied project with a client) instead of a thesis. The department is recording these presentations and will upload them for the online students to view. Some presentations will also be available in real-time via a teleconference line and Live Classroom (which is sort of like a desktop sharing app). I thought this was a neat idea.
Another thing that the on-campus graduate students have done for the online is to hold the graduate anthropology club meetings in a room that has a speaker phone and Live Classroom. The online students can attend the meetings virtually along side the on-campus students. This is cool because most of the time students will do short presentations about topics and discussion will follow.
Lastly, the Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) at UNT makes presentations available in real-time via Live Classroom. In about an hour I will be attending a talk by Darrell Hull from the College of Education speak on this topic:
“An experimental design study was conducted to examine participant interaction toward social knowledge construction and negotiated meaning in asynchronous online discussion. Different instructional methods were examined that show significantly enhanced group discourse processes. The presentation will focus on the measures used to examine this phenomenon and a Vygotskian theoretical framework that supports the interventions and measures used for the analysis.”
(I’m attending because of our online-on-campus research)
I’ve been rather impressed by UNT’s and the department’s efforts to include online students.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, favorite, Grad School, UNT Online Master's | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on November 16, 2007
We are now in the analysis phase of our research that explores the similarities and differences between an on-campus and online graduate level seminar. The course was taught at UNT and both on-campus and online were taught at the same time, by the same professor, with the same readings, etc. Our data now consists of interviews with all of the students in the course, three weeks of discussion board threads for online, three one hour teleconferences that were part of the online course, and three weeks worth of video recordings of the on-campus class meeting. We chose to focus on the same three weeks in both courses.
From what I can tell so far, there have not been many (well, I have not found any) studies that have focus on both on-campus and online courses taught at the same time by the same professor. I have found a lot of articles in my extensive literature review that compare asynchronous and synchronous elements of an online course.
While the study was met to be more of a pilot (due to only being able to focus on three weeks) it’s turning out to be much more fruitful than a pilot! I would have never imagined we would end up with so much data!
We’ll be presenting Saturday, December 1, at 8:00 am at the AAA conference. Thus, we are working on the paper and presentation now. Much like it has been for the last two months of analysis- we’re finding that it’s difficult deciding what to focus on! There is so much to say, frameworks to use, etc. It’s been a good experience to have to help decide what to focus on, and there has been a fair amount of back and forth about it.
The analysis is somewhat interdisciplinary project in that we are drawing on distance education, education, computer-mediated communication, language ideologies, and of course, linguistic anthropology. This has also been a good experience.
The last important lesson I’ve learned is how quickly data can become overwhelming, both in quality and quantity!
The project is applied in nature and thus we’ve started making design recommendations from the data to inform both course development and the electronic learning software. I think our recommendations are great and when we presented preliminary findings to the department last month, we got some valuable feedback about the recommendations.
For AAA we’ll likely narrow our focus to ‘presence’ (as defined by Garrison and others) online and on-campus. I’ll post more about the actual findings after the conference, but I can tell you that we are finding that both on-campus and online have their strengths and weaknesses
We’ve been doing analysis
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Grad School, NaBloPoMo, Research | 2 Comments »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on November 15, 2007
My classes are winding down and the end of this semester will be much easier than the last two. I’m taking Organizational Behavior (elective) and the UNT department’s required pre-practicum course.
The pre-practicum course is meant to prepare us for our practicum. Master’s students at UNT are required to do an applied research project for a client in lieu of thesis. I like this approach because it provides far more practical experience than writing a research paper. The course has finally got to the point where we discuss our practicums, etc. Up until recently we’ve focused more on professional development (resume, networking, etc.) This has been helpful, but I have to admit I would have preferred for the course to focus more on our practicums. The course is being taught by someone who is not part of the faculty because the usual professor for the course is not teaching this semester. I’m not sure how different the course would be if we had the UNT professor – my guess is that it would focus more on the practicum.
I have to write a practicum proposal as the final assignment for the course. I wrote a project statement for it last week (think 30 second elevator talk for your project on paper).
I think the project proposal will be a bit difficult because the very idea of doing this without consulting with the client is absurd to me, but this is more for practice than for us to actually use.
I don’t have an organizational behavior exam, just our typical homework assignment, group work, and multiple choice test. Having just the one project due will be a refreshing change from the last year!
And, my project over winter break is to go back and tag old posts about UNT as such because I’ve since learned that people find those posts interesting and/or find them while doing searches about the online program.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Grad School, Life, NaBloPoMo, UNT Online Master's | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on November 14, 2007
With much encouragement for my pre-practicum professor to decide what area of design anthropology I’d like to go into, I’ve declared that I will be entering into the tech industry. My focus in school has been design anthropology for the last year (or so), and I will be taking this knowledge with me in hopes of being able to inform website, web applications, and perhaps software designs through user-centered research.
The decision to go into the tech industry is probably not shocking to many people that know me. I’m making the move because the industry is not completely unfamiliar to me, I tend to like tech geeks (I know that’s stereo-typing, but I’ve found it to be true), I have a knack for picking up tech (especially web) knowledge quickly, and I have a genuine interest in technology.
We’ll see how the move goes for me. I’m looking forward to it and I have to admit that it’s comforting to have a destination in sight. I’m currently looking for an elective to fill and hope to find a web design type course. I’ve spoken to other design anthropologists in the tech field and it appears that you do not have to have “tech knowledge,” but it seems like it would make research easier.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Grad School, NaBloPoMo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 8, 2007
This is part 4 of a 7 part series about software and internet resources for research. Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea,” can be found here and part 2, “Literature Review,” can be found here, and part 3, “Research,” can be found here.
After you conduct your research, the next step will likely be transcribing your interviews and/or focus groups, etc. I only have experience with transcribing one-on-one taped interviews and taped focus groups. I’ve tried a few different transcription software programs and Express Scribe is by far my favorite. It’s free software that is compatible with both Mac and PC (so the free part is a benefit). The reason that I love Express Scribe is the features it offers. It’s compatible with Microsoft Word, so you can set up “hot keys” (or short cuts) that allow you to play, pause, rewind, and fast forward while in Word i.e., you’re typing in Word and without switching back to Express Scribe you use “control+d” to pause. It makes the process much easier and you save a lot of time by not having to switch back to Express Scribe. Two other great features are playing in slow motion and automatic rewinding of 5 seconds upon pause.
I do not have any experience with transcribing video, but the other RA in the online-on-campus comparison research project used Transana to transcribe the class discussions in the on-campus class. I don’t think it was her favorite software, but it worked well enough. Transana is no longer free, but you can download an older version from their website for free. You can purchase a copy for $50 and it is compatible with Mac and PC.
I also like to make a few notes about possible themes/hunches while transcribing and to do this I usually use a mind map. I’m always super careful to make these notes because it’s really too early to be thinking about themes- but I always “test” them against the data once it is available.
Related post: My first experience with Express Scribe
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Research, Software & Applications | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 4, 2007
I’m a huge fan of Piled Higher & Deeper Comics, it’s such good stuff!
Their latest comic, is about the new humanities character and it is especially funny.
It reminds me of my favorite quote:
“Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities”
- A.L. Kroeber
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Grad School, HaHaHaHa | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on August 30, 2007
This is part 2 of a 7 part series about software and internet resources for research. Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea” can be found here.
I started off part 1 by saying this series would be better as a wiki and I’ve already proven that to myself, I made several additions to part 1 yesterday and will make a few more today. As I flesh out the notes I’ve written for the stages I keep thinking of new things and finding new links.
Now that you’ve spent some time cruising the internet and thinking about what sort of research project you’d like to do, I’m sure your inspired to pursue your project. What should your next step be and how will the internet and software help you? Well, if you’re following a traditional approach to your research, your next step is to do some review of existing literature.
Organization
If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time then you most likely know that I am hyper-organized. It’s very important to be organized with your research from the get-go and if you didn’t start to do this while you were seeking inspiration now would be the time to do it. There is a sea of electronic articles and even if you’re interest lays in an obscure topic, you’ll have many articles to keep track of.
My recommendations for organizing literature are bookmark the articles and to store the downloadable PDFs in a PDF data software program, such as Yep. I’ve also hear of using EndNote to keep track of bibliographies, etc. I have no experience with this software (I tried it and lost interest quickly) but it comes highly recommended.
If you start this early you’ll thank yourself in the long run!
Now is also a good time to consider maintaining a wiki or a mind map to organize your thoughts.
Literature Reviews
One of my favorite parts of anthropology is the fact that its work is best when complimented by another discipline. Many (American) anthropologists specialize in a more focused topic within one of our four sub-disciplines, i.e. public health, policy, environment, etc. Remember when your searching for literature DO NOT limit yourself to articles, etc. that say “anthropology”- think of what other disciplines might have something to offer.
Where to find literature
Don’t forget about the places where you found your inspiration in the first place, look for their recommendations, bibliographies, etc.
Amazon.com typically gives really good book descriptions and most books have customer reviews.
Look for people that work in the area you’re interested in. Some professors share their syllabi online and if they don’t, you can always email them and ask if you can have a copy.
Del.icio.us
Search the bibliographies of related articles.
Anthrosource
AnthroBase
Anthropology Review Database
Open Directory Project
List of anthropology journals here.
Open Access Journals here, here, and here .
This list is by no means exhaustive, so I’ll continue to add to it and I am interested to hear about other resources you all are using.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Literature, Research, Software & Applications | 1 Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on August 29, 2007
Again, this blog post would be better off as a wiki and I’m still working on that.
I’m currently working on my fifth research project, and while that by no means makes me an expert I have collected quite a few software & online resources that I use to organize, inspire, and manage the elements of my research. I’m organizing the resources in the traditional research outline- having the idea, literature review, research design, transcription, analysis, write up, and “publishing” findings. Depending on your approach to research i.e., grounded theory, etc. and the scope of your research i.e., project vs. paper, you may need to re-order the outline or you may want to pick and chose from the list.
I’ve decided to break the list into a seven part series to avoid the posts being 20 pages long. Here’s part 1
Be sure to bookmark all of the webpages that you find of interest so that you may reference back to them! I prefer del.icio.us, but there are many social bookmarking websites and you can also use your browser to bookmark.
I find wikis to be particularly useful in keeping track of my thoughts, websites, etc. Learn about wikis here.
Mind mapping software is also a very easy way to keep track of your ideas for a project. Learn about mind mapping here.
Inspiration for a Project
Here are my recommendations for places to get inspirations for projects- it’s important to note that you should not copy others’ ideas, but expanding your horizons about your knowledge of what others are doing, and your knowledge in general, is a great way to get new ideas.
Podcasts & Videos
SfAA podcasts (not up right now, but will be after the 2008 Meeting)
Other anthropology podcasts
Google video search for “anthropology”
Bookmarks on del.icio.us for “anthropology+podcast“
Blogs
Bookmarks on del.icio.us for “anthropology+blogs“
Anthropologi.info’s list of anthropology blogs
Four Stone Hearth (anthropology blogging carnival)
Listservs
This website has a good list of anthropology listservs
This is the AAA (American Anthropological Association) list of listservs
Forums
MySpace anthropology-related forums via Moving Anthropology Student Network
Social Networks
Twitter
SfAA ning network
Facebook
Linked In
Moving Anthropology Student Network
Online Journals
a list of online social science journals
Another good list of online journals
I find reading (be it online, books, articles, etc.) and engaging in conversation (virtual and face-to-face), specifically with people whom have different views/interests, to be my inspiration for both research and live in general- the above ways are the places that I do this online.
What are the ways you find inspiration online?
Related post: How to Network Online
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Research, Software & Applications | 3 Comments »
