You also need to realise/remember that observation is slightly more than 'just looking' although it can be that as well. Obviously, if you have questions in mind, observation is more than looking, but if you're looking to identify questions, then that's different. One phrase I always find helpful when observing is that the observer looks to "make the familiar strange". On the other hand, you may wish to make a systematic observation, i.e. be looking for examples of particular instances of things. In this case, you would use an observation schedule.

Hi Sue

Time required will depend very much on what you want to find out. If you are not a teacher in the education sector you wish to observe, you should probably allow longer. As to number of sessions, it depends what you are looking at - a particular topic area, subject, lesson, series of lessons - or whether your focus is more on the discourse space of the classroom (i.e. behaviours, relations, rather than content). Two good books (quite short) to read are:

Using observations in Small-Scale Research: A Beginner's Guide by Mary Simpson and Jennifer Tuson.

Participant Observation by James P Spradley.

Hi o.stoll - not normally a nocturnal owl but sometimes sleep fails me. *laughing* - then I find myself tapping away at the keyboard... usually drifting rather than working, hence this early morning posting. Not western or eastern - totally GMT.

Do you know the people on your upgrade panel? It helps if you know them and their interests - because that can help guide you towards their thinking, I guess.

You might find the info on this site helpful.

http://homepage.mac.com/paulcdowling/ioe/upgrading/upgrading.html

Good luck!

Hi Pineapple

Funny we should arrive back on this thread at the same time. I got my date for upgrading a couple of days ago... and immediately went 'EEK!' even though it's at least 6 weeks away.

Tips on prep for you... know what's in your Lit Review and how it relates to your research questions, think about how it's furthered your ideas and how it feeds into your upcoming pilot study. Think ahead to your plans for the pilot and make some notes to help you talk this through with the upgrade panel if need be.

What I'm planning to do is to read through the chapters I submitted (lit review, methodology and pilot) and make sure I understand and can talk about what I've written. If there's anything I'm not clear on - I'll make a note of my questions and doubts (on the basis that these are things the panel are likely to ask about).

Hi Bluelife

You have mail once again. Ciao for now.

Actually, you don't have mail - apparently yahoo doesn't like this email address and it bounced back. Can you check it?

Hi bluelife

You have mail.

*grin* Me too (well, 45 mins). North or South?

Hi bluelife

I might be able to help you. Two things. (1) Are you anywhere near London? If so, we could meet. If not, (2) Can you give me your email address so we can discuss details?

Ooops - this forum doesn't like html coding... here's the link again.

Wikis in Plain English

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=977cd0cefdafc40175a9

If you want to know what a wiki is and how it works... you might as well start here.

Wikis in Plain English

Basically, a wiki is an 'open' web page which allows multiple users to add, edit and share information. However, you can also password protect the page to limit editing facilities to preferred users. If you were using it to monitor your research progress, you could allow your peers or supervisor to add comments, etc. Doubtful (to my mind) that a supervisor would have time/desire for this, though.

So not always an easy option. Both pbwiki and wikispaces offer 'closed' wiki options for private use but you have to pay. If you want to know more about wikis and the development of wikis for collaboration/research - best place to start is Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb. Ultimately, which option you use depends on (1) your intended users (2) your intended purposes (3) 'external' issues - ethics, etc.

Hi Moomin

There are a number of wiki type interfaces out there that you can use - ranging from wikispaces, pbwiki, twiki, swiki and Mediawiki. The last of these is the one used for Wikipedia and is nice in terms of controlling layout, users, etc. but would not be ideal for novice users. pbwiki and wikispaces are probably the simplest ones to use for novices and short-term projects. There are, however, many issues you need to consider if you wish to use a wiki for research - if it is as a simple 'sharing' domain, fine - not too many issues - if you want to use it as a repository to collect info - lots of ethical and privacy and copyright issues to consider.

I think this is especially true when it comes to Discourse Analysis approaches as there are so many different ways of approaching discourse. Your methodology shows that you understand the different approaches and you understand why the chosen one is appropriate to your needs. I hated working on my methodology chapter - but when I finally got to grips with it, it made much more sense and paid off mega dividends when it came to understanding what I was doing with my empirical work later.