First Monday Evening Educational Conversation of the New Year.
For the Monday group and an invitation to all colleagues:
5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8 9/1/06.
Let's first catch up with each others' news from the last couple of weeks and our hopes for the New Year. After that, here are some contributions for 2006 we could bring into the evening's conversation.
i) Establishing a virtual space for cooperation for living theory action research with Branko Bognar and Moira Laidlaw.
Some of you will already know of Branko's work from the video-clips and visual narrative he contributed to the BERA 2005 practitioner-researcher e-seminar. Having worked for six years as a primary school teacher in the small Croatian town of Cazma, and then later as a pedagogue in the Primary School 'Vladimir Nazor' in Slavonski Brod, Branko has now taken up a post in the Faculty of Philosophy at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, where he has responsibility for the professional education of pedagogues and teachers.
You can enter the Moodle site Branko has established at http://www.e-lar.net/education/moodle/
and log in. In the left hand menu
you will see the spaces for educational conversations, action research,
meetings and using Moodle. Do
please participate in the
conversation started by Branko in the Using Moodle section on How to establish a virtual space of
cooperation for living theory action research. You might be able to access this
directly from:
http://www.e-lar.net/education/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=16
but to make a contribution you will need to log in.
Here is Branko's note:
"Dear friends, I would be glad that we discuss
possibilities of establishing and maintaining our virtual space of cooperation
for living theory action research. I would like that it become shared project
of people who are interested in action research and willing to dedicate time
and energy for cooperation and mutual learning. It also means taking
responsibility for realisation of particular purposes.
In the very beginning, idea was that Moira and
me represent our educational conversation and to allow others to include. But
after reconsidering, I detect real problem which can be described as lack of
communication about action researches on international level. I can see all
around the world (Internet) how people connect and communicate about various
topics. Only action researchers do not do it slackly, permanently and
variously. Surely, motive of my initiative is not in imitating others but in my
own need to be active participant in sharing ideas, experiences and learning. I
suggest that we discuss about following aspects of networked cooperation:
purposes of our Moodle site,
peoples (whom to invite and how, what will be
roles of team members and participants),
process (rules, practice)
technology (how to adopt and manage technology
that it serve to our needs) ( Bruck, 2004 ).
For the beginning we do not need too much
participants but several well motivated who are willing to cooperate. We can
agree on how to include newcomers. Warm regards, Branko"
ii)
The web-site on proprioception Margarida drew out attention to
a couple of weeks ago is at http://www.frappr.com/postureetequilibre
. Jean sent the proofs of Action Research Living Theory back to Sage yesterday
and we are hoping that the book will be published in time for AERA in April.
Jean has organised a workshop on action research in Khayelitsha (near Cape Town
SA) next week. Moira is in Beijing and is having a conversation on Thursday
with VSO to explore possibilities for several more years in China supporting
the development of action research in teacher education. Maggie is coming over
from Ireland for her viva on the 23rd Jan. Marie and Jack have been
working on multi-media visual narratives of their educational enquiries. They
have a DVD, produced using high definition video and the application i-DVD
studio pro that, like the 8 screens of Sky News can bring to life multiple
contributions to educational conversations. They are looking forward to hearing
your responses to see if such multi-media representations can help to
communicate the living critical standards of judgement that are appropriate for
developing our understandings of inclusionality. Namrata has sent us New Year greetings and is continuing her work in the Centre for Microfinance for Women, in India. Irris is visiting Palestinian and Israeli parents and educators to explore possibilities of collaboration. Shelley has sent a copy of film she
has made of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam.
Alon writes: 'The unit of appraisal in my thesis is the story of my self-actualising in my
own learning as I critically, openly, reflectively, re-appraisingly,
reflexively and evocatively ask, research and answer the ontological, ethical,
methodological and epistemological questions that are in my intention at the
time of enquiry. This is in light of, in line with and in the spirit of my
developing an appropriate, pluralistic, understanding of methodological
inventiveness for my present intentions, context and heuristics of human
existence in the course of my enquiry, as pleaded for by Dadds and Hart (2001:
166-7) and Lomax and Parker (1995: 302).'
iii)
Dates and Events for 2006.
6 Feb - Moira will be reviewing accomplishments over the past 4.5 years on VSO in Guyuan and sharing her hopes and intentions for 2006 and beyond.
27th Feb-8 March - Jean, Joan and Jack are giving lectures and workshops on
action research at the University of the Free State, at the University of the
Western Cape and at Stellenbosch University.
7-11 April - Maggie, Jean, Jack and Joan are presenting at
AERA in San Francisco.
19-21 April - Alan, Marian and Yaqub are contributing to the
international conference in the Assembly Rooms in Bath on Unhooked Thinking: searching for the
roots of addiction. See
http://www.unhookedthinking.com/
Moira is organising a conference in May, with her colleagues
at China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign
Languages Teaching in Guyuan. Jean
and Jack have received invitations to present.
Marie is organising a conference on Heads and Hearts in Learning on the 19th June. see http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/learning/inclusionsupport/apex/APEX+teacher+course+Jack+Whitehead.htm .
Our proposals for BERA 06 in Warwick, 6-9 September, need to
be in by Friday 20th January. It's unclear from the BERA website if
proposals for keynote Symposia have to be in by Monday 9th Jan or
the 6th Jan.
Looking forward to our first Monday evening's conversation
of 2006.
Love Jack