Blair artilces/Questions for Blair

I love the discussions the authors ignite in expanding scholarship not only in who can participate (leveling the playing field for students, allowing them to collaborate), but also the types of scholarship that are acceptable (i.e. digital communication). I think Blair's insights on offering a more feminist approach to scholarship, particularly concerning their students is intriguing. I'd like to know more about any opposition, if any, Blair faced as she tried to implement this type of paradigm at Bowling Green.

Also, where does Blair see other modes of communication, particularly video games, fitting in to this type of paradigm.

Computer Mediated Research

Some components/Class Discussion:
- Technology
- Interaction
- Community Spaces - social norms
- Tech changing how we live
- Identities created in these spaces - multiple identities maybe even more intended in online choices
- access
- Consent
- novelty of these spaces and institutions co-opting them
- generalizability - there seems to be a big push to generalize these online spaces as similar, when they are different discourse communities - ex: My Space - made up of several discourse communities

Online Research

Virtual research certainly offers an abundant amount of potential research subjects and potential for easy collection of data. For many audiences, it's a convenient way for the to participate in studies because they already know the medium and tend to be "online" anyway according to Thurlow and McKay, especially younger audiences.

However, there are many ethical considerations that the spaces prompt researchers to think about. Especially, who are we researching and should we get consent from them, even if their identities are concealed? I'm thinking about your research in particular, Jen, with the adolescent females. Did they know they were being studied? I don't believe they did, but on the other hand, would they have acted differently than they did if they didn't know? I'm not taking any particular side on this yet, as I need to still figure this out in my own head, but there are certainly important considerations regarding our research subjects we need to think about.

Thurlow and McKay also bring up an important topic of access to technology. If technology, particularly computers and Internet connection, are available to select groups of people, then accessing disadvantaged populations through this medium, would fail and their voices would remain unheard. This is an extremely important consideration that has occupied many of my thoughts since I started my Masters 4 years ago and really became interested in "the power of technology."

Possible Research Proposal

I am thinking about doing something related to young females and technology, specifically looking at the role of exergames and their impacts, if any on self-efficacy, self-esteem, identity and social practices. I will likely use a case study approach, with about 6-8 adolescent girls. I would like them to be middle school age, but am also open to possibly high school as well. For data collection, I would like to use observation, interviews and gain feedback from participants using a blog and video closet - in which participants will answer specific, open ended questions on camera and on the blog. I would likely collect this data in a 2-3 week time period, in NMSU's Learning Games Lab. I am a little worried about recruiting participants, but will reach out to the NMSU community and parents of former Lab participants.

Surveys

I know I have come a long way in my studies, when I can recognize that it is almost impossible not to hold biases and pretty much impossible not to allow those biases to influence your research. However, the simple fact of knowing that biases do and will influence data collection and analysis, is not an adequate cop out not to do research. Instead, it will help me to understand the control my biases can have on my research, and will force me to share my work with colleagues and mentors so that they can help me navigate through the potentially negative influences of these biases. I also believe that if one goes into a study with some general questions and maybe assumptions, rather than that one thing they WANT to prove, can help to broaden the scope of the research and the impacts of biases. I don't think any of these methods eliminate the biases completely, however, they are good places to start to open up the research to other possibilities. With all this being said, I am still fairly weary of surveys, definitely as the sole method of data collection. I do believe their value can increase with the use of other data collection methods to ensure a broader picture of your research topic is being captured.