Research in Practice
With the proliferation of feature rich social software, the choice of tools is a frequent conversation when talking about teaching and learning. There has been less attention paid to the use of social software for research. So much so that I frequently find that even researchers in Technology Enhanced Learning are not using – or even aware of – basic tools like Skype and Video conferencing for communication and collaboration.
Why should this be so? It seems to me that excepting explicitly collaborative projects – such as those funded by the European Commission – most research is trundling on in a traditional way – individual offices, individual researchers, small geographically based research teams, papers in refereed journals, dissertation defences etc.
Maybe such traditions are good. Perhaps they promote research values and scholarly endeavour. But I think it would be worth re-looking at some of these traditions and considering how the changing practices in teaching and learning – and particularly the use of technology based tools for collaboration – might impact on how we undertake research in practice.