The Final Answer

I'm not real sure what to write here. I've been using Google Notebook for a class and have been happy with it, although it will require some discipline to keep up with it, and I'm awfully short on discipline sometimes.

I'm glad to be a blogger at last, but how does one promote a blog? I can tell people I know, but what about people outside of my community? Maybe you could include some material on how to pick good keywords so Google will notice us.

I'm very happy with the utilities that came along with Switch - I downloaded a sound editor if you recall, and I'd been looking for one ever since Vista stomped out the one I used to use.

The transcription software would have REALLY come in handy for my Masters paper, and I am definitely going to keep a copy on my desktop.

I think I'm pretty competent on the video stuff, but having seen some other people's videos, it might be helpful to include some material on how to shoot with a video camera (basic framing, lighting considerations, etc.) It doesn't take much to make a video look professional (or unprofessional). Film producer Roger Corman, who trained directors Ron Howard, James Cameron, Martin Scorcese and John Demme, among other, used to say that if you would take him to dinner and bring your notebook, he could teach you everything you needed to know to direct a movie in two hours.

Thanks again for a great class, and for not assigning ten hours of reading every week!

Getting stuck by a CAQDAS

This assignment exposes my greatest weakness as a researcher, that is, reading technical data and descriptions. Somewhere between the third and fourth paragraph, my eyes start to glaze over, my gears start to grind, and I start to wonder what might be happening on YouTube right now. Still, an assignment is an assignment, so I'll talk a little bit about QDA Miner v 1.3.

This looks to me like someone's attempt to be all things to all people - its is touted as combining numerical and text analysis tools such that the researcher can utilize multiple methods of analysis without having to switch between programs. My past experience with programs that try to "do it all" is that they do a lot of things, but none of them particularly well. But let's put that aside for now and just focus on the QDA Miner documentation.

Evidently, this software requires/give you the option (depending on how you look at it) to define your own variables. That gives me the idea that it might be important for me to know what the variables are and how they're being used, which means I need to know something about what the program is doing when it analyzes my data, which means I am probably going to be pretty lost when trying to figure out how to define the variables. There is an add on word analysis module that can be set to define variables for you, and I'll bet that's what I use. Of course, that becomes problematic if I later need to know what the variables are.

Text data can be imported directly from word processing documents, which is nice, but if I understand what I'm reading correctly, the documents are converted to rich text format before they are analyzed. The program also allows in-line editing of the documents, but I wonder if the original document format is preserved, or if what you get back is .rtf, making it necessary to reformat the text if you want to use it for presentation?

The reviewers quoted at the end seem to like it, but then they also seem to know what something about what this thing is actually doing. I hate to seem so negative, but the fact is that I'm very uncomfortable trying to interpret technical data in a regime where I really don't know what I'm talking about.

By the way, does it work on Vista? The specifications don't say so, and if they don't, you are taking a chance.

WavePad Review

I'm going off the board with my review this week and looking at WavePad, a sound file editor that can be downloaded along with Switch, the audio file converter (and its also free). The program displays the waveform in a very large format that makes it easy to spot where the sound drops out (good places to make edits).

There are a number of effects features - my favorite is the normalizer, which brings the foreground (speaking) and background noises into balance. I tried it on a recording of an interview I did some time ago, and it was much easier to make out the words. You can also de-hiss, fade in and fade out, crossfade, and lots of other stuff that would make the sound better for presentation.

Google Notebook Update

I've been using Google Notebook to collect webpage "clippings" to use in a presentation this week (tomorrow, actually). I have found it very handy to have all of these things collected in one place. The assignment is to find a current news event that informs our conversation on writing in the community, which I take to mean writing as a community activity. Here is a link to one of the articles I'm using.

Digital Video sample

I'm interested in the potential of digital video for storytelling and for expressing marginalized viewpoints. I made this video in 2007 about OSU-Mansfield art professor J. T. Thrasher. A simple interview about his curriculum and facilities opened a window into the life of this fascinating man. I shot this on a Panasonic digital video camera and edited it on Pinnacle Studio 10. I see that Blogger didn't reproduce the 16:9 aspect ratio of the original video, so J. T. looks even taller and skinnier than he actually is. If you want to see the video in all its high-quality glory, look here:

Google Notebook

As a class assignment, I took a look at "Google Notebook" to see how it might be useful in my research. I found it to be intuitive - I figured it our fairly quickly without having to rely on tutorials (I only read directions as a last resort!). I was able to access my notes from three different computers, 2 PC's and 1 Mac.

I posted a series of entries and was able to add keywords to select and sort them as I wished. I cut and pasted web content directly into posts with no problem. There is a Browser Tool add on that automatically adds a hyperlink of the original source to the post, saving me the trouble of doing it manually (and that can be a lot of trouble - web addresses can get very long). Google Notebook does not have any bibliographic tools as far as I could tell.

I like the fact that I can access my notes from any computer, and I don't have to download software to my computer unless I want to use the Browser Tool. Portability was mentioned as a concern in class, and I share that concern because I do most of my work on public computers, where downloading software is verboten. I agree with Oracle's Larry Ellison that the whole idea of putting a separate copy of each bit of software on each separate computer in the world is bogus and inefficient, and share his vision of accessing computing and applications over the Internet by subscription.

The Beginning

This is the first blog entry of my life. I'm doing this for a class assignment. My hope is that others will join me here to share in and add to my PhD research.

My undergraduate degree is in engineering, and I worked in industry for 14 years. I then worked as an English teacher for four years, working with teenaged boys in a drug rehab facility. My major interest outside of work was amateur theatre - I appeared in over twenty plays and directed three.

In 2006, as part of my Masters project, I had the opportunity to direct Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" at OSU-Mansfield. This inspired me to continue my studies with an emphasis on how drama can be used to present controversial social justice issues to a public that might be unwilling to accept these ideas when presented in other ways.

My major research interests are:

Using drama and film to present controversial material with social justice implications
Censorship in school curricula
Controversial, subversive, and reactionary literature used in (or excluded from) curricula

If any of this rings any bells, I'd love to hear from you.