This blog, which begun on 14 January, is now to be the springboard for my Masters dissertation research project. There are 15,000 words to be handed in by 5th September. My marks and assignment feedback on this MA started reasonably high and have improved recently. I have had to learn how to be more coherent in my academic writing, use more signposting and make radical alterations to how I reference other material and what to include in my word counts.
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My working dissertation title is:
Technophilia or Technophobia: Exploring teacher autonomy in learning
ICT tools in (and outside of) the ELT classroom.
I have already begun the process of doing a literature review (for the first section), the draft of which needs to be handed over on 11 June. But I also need to simulatenously begin the process of collecting original data (for the second section).
I will host my first webinar, hopefully featuring a minimum of 6
participants, which will act as my focus group. The focus will be 'what
technology (tools) teachers are currently using and how they go about
learning these'. I will then disseminate a questionnaire on the back of
this, hoping to receive a minimum of
100 responses from EFL teachers around the world. With the old adage
about it being 'not what you know, but who you know', I will use my
growing PLN to do this, and tap into their own experiences. This is the
second
stage of my data collection. The responses from these two processes
will then direct my further
data collection and focus my attention onto a specific area. I will be
hosting a webinar for the IATEFL LTSIG (Learning Technologies Special
Interest Group) later this year, although that will come too late to
have any bearing on what I write for my dissertation.
Any
advice or contributions that anyone who is a current EFL
teacher/educator has, or who has specific knowledge in this area, is
welcome to comment. Please do. I can credit or acknowledge you in my
final work.
I am looking for EFL teachers who are able to take part in the aforementioned webinar, due to take place
at 1800 HRS (17oo UTC/GMT) on Thursday 7 June. It will last around
40-45 minutes. If you are interested please comment below, send me a
direct message to teacherphili on Twitter or email me at: <address removed>. Before I host the webinar I have to quickly learn about the WiZIQ conferencing tool myself.
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CRITICAL REVIEW
I have already completed a critical review of one relevant piece of 2011 research already, by Zhiwen Hu and Ian McGrath, saving the rest of my reading so far for my literature review. The critical review comes in the form of a double-sided handout and a screencast, as embedded below. I will present this on 23 May to my peers and my dissertation supervisor, who is very knowledgable and influential in this particular research area, given that the high level of 'teacher training' in ICT tools that is likely to be required. This issue forms part of my hypothesis, although I will see how the research develops over the next couple of months.
For full screen video press the square button above ^
