4 Comments to 'Blogging and Research: Part 2 or “the Chart Part”'
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Blogging and Research: Part 2 or “the Chart Part”
Posted By Terry
Olivia had come up with the most intriguing chart to add to our presentation last week. It fits so well with what we saw about the students’ research problems. The professor who created this chart, Carol Kuhlthau, has a very informative page which further explains her model which she calls the “Information Search Process or “ISP.” What I find fascinating is that she addresses the emotional or “affective” aspects of what we traditionally think of as an intellectual process.
I found myself saying to my students : if your research process feels uncomforable and messy, then you are doing it right! This was a hard sell. Kuhlthau says “…we have no way of knowing just how many people give up after initiating a search because they become uncertain and feel incompetent to continue.”
She describes a “Zone of Intervention for Information Services” (yes, related to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development). She then makes an interesting point:
The zone of intervention is that area in which an information user can do with advice and assistance what he or she cannot do alone or can do only with difficulty. Intervention within this zone enables individuals to progress in the accomplishment of their task. Intervention outside this zone is inefficient and unnecessary, experienced by users as intrusive on the one hand and overwhelming on the other.
So: Olivia and I have our work cut out for us. I am wondering if our intervention through the blog helped us to get inside that crucial zone. Indications are good that it did. And now I have outlined my research project for the summer. That’s what summer is for, right?
May 14th, 2007
You bet. Eager to see the work–and the blogged narrative.
See you in a couple of days, I hope.
I am blogging here because I can’t seem to get in any other way. What a weird day. I brought my old mac from home whose battery is defective. I borrowed a laptop (thanks UMW) but it is a pc and has different browsers and I can’t find a way to get my blog to give me the admin link! So–I don’t want to lose my ideas, so I’ll put it here for now.
Alan Levine is talking about the NMC new site, which is developed through Drupal. Gardener is in front of me and he is Twittering. Levine talked about Second Life being playful. This is interesting because Gardner said he is always trying to find a way to marry scholarship and playfulness. Could Second Life be a useful way to do this with a class? The NMC Teacher’s Buzz is held every two weeks and it would be interesting to go and hear what people are doing with this. I’ll bet Kevin has been to one already!
Finally, he is talking about Pachyderm http://www.pachyderm.org/
that is something to look into! How is it different from Drupal?
americanimage.unm.edu/collection.html
“propaganda filmmaker”
Terry,
Getting back to your original post - I’ve not done much reading on zones, but do learners eventually eliminate their zones? I think intervention is necessary in the beginning, but how do you set up an information service zone that 1) helps the learner through the zone while 2) building the skills for the learner to become self-sufficient?
Is it simply repeating trips through the zone that builds the necessary skill sets?