| Fall 2008 |
EDLI 7830 Culture and Critical Theory
EDLI 7712 Learning Theory and Learners
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James Clifford and Culture for a Cyber World
Example of Critical Commentary
Book Review of Casronova’s Synthetic Worlds
Virtual Entrepreneurship Class Syllabus
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Semester Reflections: This semester represented both challenges and affirmations to the lens I view the world with. Culture and Critical Theory was a difficult class for me because it challenged the idea of how I viewed “subaltern” and “oppressed” classes. Basing discrimination on color ignores entire groups of people who might be oppressed--the handicapped, the abused, and people such as Japanese-Americans who were interred during WWII for the “good of the nation.” This caused me to realize that some of these very groups migrate to virtual worlds to escape those oppressions, and the boundaries that separate the physical from the virtual are dissolving.
Learning Theory was a memorable class because I was able to accomplish two relevant objectives: Submit an article for publication (to my journal of choice) and the course I developed on Virtual Entrepreneurship has been accepted by UCD for summer, 2010. |
| Spring 2009 |
EDLI 7300 Psychology and Practice of Individual and Organizational Change
ANTH 6103 Current Theories in Ethnography
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The Big Assumptions
Big Assumptions: The Sequel
Visual Ethnography
Who Am I? |
Semester Reflections: In this semester I not only began to see the “finish line” in terms of my classes, the classes that remained were actually applicable to my research interest, making my remaining classes delightful to take. My Change class was a breakthrough for me in terms of self-reflection and realizing how my “Big Assumption” had colored much of my self-perspective and worldview. Writing two of what I considered to be very retrospective papers caused me to examine some long-held perceptions and make positive changes. This class couldn’t have come at a better time.
I was given the approval to take an ethnography class in place of one of my methods classes and it was one of the best decisions of my program. Before this class, I have never taken an anthropology class, and what I learned about ethnographic methods greatly influenced my choice of an ethnographic case study for my dissertation.
My professor, Marty Otanez, gave me the latitude to create multimedia pieces for my assignments, as opposed to writing papers. It was an incredible creative exercise and caused me to focus on using video as part of my data collection process and also to create a multimedia story as part of my dissertation defense. Marty was wonderfully supportive of my virtual world research and if it is possible, I would love him to become part of my dissertation committee. |
| Fall 2009 |
EDLI 7100 Advanced Methods of Qualitative Inquiry
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Conceptual Framework
Expanded Draft Proposal
Identity Literature Review |
Semester Reflections: This is my last class!!!! My expectation is to build on what I had done in the summer, and not only have something close to a dissertation proposal completed, but also have my dissertation Chapter 3 completed. At the same time, I have been working since summer on Chapter 2 (lit review) and my goal is to be ready to present my proposal by the end of 2009. There is still a lot of reading to do (mostly in methods) and much of what I have read needs to be reviewed and compiled. |
