Category: LRNT 522

Reflections on copyright

Melanie Wrobel’s presentation on copyright was an informative discussion that shed some light on legal grey areas for me. Of particular interest was the discussion relating to blog posts from this course. I had, incorrectly as it turns out, assumed that “if you cite its alright”. It seems that is not necessarily the case, and use of more than a small percentage of an author’s work requires you to seek permission. I don’t expect I will ever need to post more than a few lines at any one given time, but it is good to know the reality of the situation.

Thesis publication, which seems light years away, seems to have a lot of headaches attached to it and I must confess, I am not looking forward to the process if I decide to go the research route especially. In this journey, I am thankful that people like Melanie Wrobel exist to help navigate the murky waters of publication and copyright!

Reflections on Research

I had often wondered what prompted researchers to pursue research as a career, and while that question was not specifically addressed in George Veletsianos’ podcast, I did appreciate the exploration of the process of getting started, something I will have to at some point become familiar with.

I found it interesting, in that it reaffirmed much of what I thought I already knew about the process of researching. In particular, the discussion related to formulating the question and then determining who has already asked the question and what answers they arrived at and then looking at ways in which the questions can be improved upon. I appreciated also, that there was not a singular way to begin a research project, or that at least that Mr. Veletsianos acknowledged a variety of methods for starting depending on the project. I found this to be comforting as my mind is always scattered and has many things going on at any given moment. To realise that there is not a definitive “way” to begin, and then conduct a research project is heartening. But, then at the same time, my type-A personality craves structure and direction at times and may find the open nature of research a challenge.

The fact that the journey becomes the research I also found interesting. I had always assumed that academics entered into all research with a pre-formulated concept of what they were going to do, and how they were going to do it, and that research projects don’t get started in a vacuum, but rather are ideas that are tossed around the research will change as new knowledge and understanding is achieved (Veletsianos, 2017). From this I will take away a new understanding of how I will approach my future research projects for this course, as I have already started to narrow my focus of interest. To prepare for this, I will endeavour to do as much reading as possible on the topics I am interested in, s that when the time comes, I will have a good foundation of knowledge to start from.

 

Veletsianos, G. (Author). (2017, August 10). George Veletsianos on Research [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://moodle.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=245247

 

Another Useful Academic Citation Tutorial: Colwiz for Google Docs

Hi fellow MALATers, I have created another brief tutorial on how to use what I am finding to be a handy citation tool, if you are composing and working on Google docs, which I am with group for our current assignment. It was ridiculously easy to set up, and I hope that you will find this video to be to the point, and helpful. Happy researching!

Reflections on Academic Writing

After being out of the higher learning sphere for nearly a decade, it did take a bit of time to hit my stride as an academic writer. It is probably more accurate to say that I have not yet hit it, but am stumbling toward the straight direct line that such writing requires. In my writing for LRNT 521, I had a tendency to wax poetic in my blog posts, and be more philosophical in my writing. I suppose I had hoped to distil some profound understanding of the world of e-learning networks that no one had ever considered in quite the same way I had. Ultimately, I discovered, I was mostly rambling along the same lines as everyone else. It is hard to be original. It is more difficult still to be a quality content creator. I found the feedback from my various cohort members and my instructor for LRNT 521, Elizabeth Childs, to be especially helpful and encouraging in the development of my writing. My cohorts because of their complimentary comments on my blog posts, and Elizabeth because of her pointed critique of my academic assignments that both pointed out strengths and highlighted areas for growth in a way that made complete sense, and I hope from assignment 3 to 1, made for slight improvements to some aspects of my writing. Writing is a journey, and in just nine weeks I honestly do feel like I have come a long way. Continue reading Reflections on Academic Writing