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This work is released under the Creative Commons license:Attribution -Non-commercial -Share-Alike 2.5 Scotland
Online Personal Learning Networks of Professionals: Grounded analysisof talk from the edonis project
.EdD Progression Board paper
(draft)
 – August 2011David Noble, EdD student, University of Edinburgh(dafc1885@hotmail.com)OverviewIn this paper, I establish the basis for my empirical doctoral research intoaspects of the online social learningof professionals. My study predominantlyfeatures Grounded Theory analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of interview talkfrom around seventy participants in theedonis project(Note 1), which ranbetween October 2008 and April 2011.Ibegin this paper by providingcontext for much of my work across education. Iillustrate how I perform roles which enable me to have professionalrelationships with educationists across the world, from classroom teachers,tosystems managers,to ‘thinkers’oneducation and the Web.I refer to myproximity to discourse around teacher education in Scotland and illustrate howthe policy document Teaching Scotland’s Future (Scottish Government, 2011)increasesexpectations around the use of ICT in professional learning.I then briefly explore the contested nature of learning and professional learning,before showing how new supportive Web technologies enable professionals tosense that they are able to construct, manage and thrive within what someeducational technologists have termed a ‘personal learning environment’,comprising in part a ‘personal learning network’(Haskins, 2007; Wilson, 2008).In examining the assumptions and language behind these terms, and theconcomitant connectivist ‘movement’, I conduct an exercise in reflexivity,wher-Note 1 –Early in my EdD I set-up the edonis project to attract educationistsfrom around the world to the early iteration of my research question. edonisstood for Educators Online Impact Study, though only the acronym is used.
 
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This work is released under the Creative Commons license:Attribution -Non-commercial -Share-Alike 2.5 Scotland
eby I pursue objectivity in my interpretivist study, prior to coding research data,by becoming aware of dominant discourses and their alternatives.By briefly examining current challenges to digital determinism, I establish thatwhen coding data, I will use terms which are applicable to all areas of the socialworld and not only online.I contrast the use of the computer network metaphor with humanisticmetaphors, such as the ‘agora’ (Walton, 2007) and social capital(Bourdieu,1985b),relating to dialogue and other human interactions.I drawon earlier work on the emergence of an online teacher habitus, in which Iconsider its relationshipto teacher identity, restrictedness and newperformative action(Noble, 2010).I argue that as I am researching the socialworld of ‘knowing agents’ (Reeves, 2007) and analysing the talk of actors in thefield, my interpretation and eventualiterative framework should embody thecomplexity of human action and interaction,and eschew computer networkrepresentations.I go on to argue that there is a methodological gap in research intoprofessionals’ activity in new online environments. This allows theories todevelop without being exposed to data from the social world.This has led to,for example, the notion of ‘personal learning network’ being inextricably linkedto communicationthat is mediated online.The methodology of the edonis project, Grounded analysis of data, andmethods of data collection,are then covered in depth. I chart the developmentof the study;from attracting participants, to early research activity around onlinequestionnaires, to recording and broadcasting live semi-structured interviews. Ibegin this section by examining the epistemological basis of my research andmy ontological position.I establish that it will be my role to interpret the social world and that knowledgeclaims will be tentative.I go on to outline the process of Grounded Theory
 
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This work is released under the Creative Commons license:Attribution -Non-commercial -Share-Alike 2.5 Scotland
analysis, recognising that it will not operate in its purest form due to my‘bounding’ of the research interview, the involvement of participants inexamining emerging concepts and categories, and my use of an establishednotionof social capitalin the second part of my research question.Having established my methodology, I then discuss research ethics. Here, I‘look back’ over my research activity thus far and focuson issues arising fromwhat might be regarded as innovative data collectionpractices.To conclude the paper, I show how I intend to make a contribution toknowledge and expose my constructions to data from one other area of thesocial world.I establish that my emerging concepts and categories may bedeveloped into the future..My Journey, Roles,and Values: from collegiality to criticalityI feel I am uniquely positioned within Scottish education as a direct result of myrecent history as an educationist. In playing severaldistinct and visible roles, Iinhabit several spaces, create and consume avariety of data, and sustaindiverse relationships. Active across educational discourses, I am continuallychallenged as to my politics, assumptions, stances, and values.As Vice Chair and now Chair of the Association of Chartered TeachersScotland (ACTS), I have worked with my committee to position charteredteachers as active, autonomous, enhanced professionals who collectively havea vision regarding future professional learning, that is, one in which there iscoalition with other ‘players’ around the Teaching Scotland’s Future agenda.As a classroom-based teacher of general subjects in a residential specialschool in Fife, I have striven over the last ten years to fashion my pedagogiesand curriculum,such that learningexperiences, processes, and outcomes aresatisfactory to the young people, purchasers of places at the school, ‘locoparentis’, and inspectorates.
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