In M. Kiley & G. Mullins (Eds). (17-18 April, 2008). Quality in postgraduate research: Research education in the new global environment - Conference Proceedings. Canberra:
CEDAM, ANU.
17-18 April 2008 Page 206
What can be learned from blogging the PhD?
Mary-Helen Ward and Sandra West
University of Sydney Australia
Abstract
As Richardson (1998) points out, research and the production of knowledge are ‘profoundly textual’. PhD students, like all researchers, keep notebooks, lab books, fields note to record the development of the disciplinary project that is the subject of the thesis. However, they generally do not record the process of the PhD itself, the project of the self. In the last few years increasing numbers of PhD students have created blogs to record their own process, and they have the potential to influence in new ways their development as academics. Jill Walker describes blogs as having “…no whole; they are not objects. They are processes, actions, sites of exchanges” (2006, p. 137), a description that closely mirrors constructivist understandings of PhD candidature, such as those of Boud and Lee (2005).
Blogging can foreground the pedagogical relationship implicit in the PhD process by making the relationship between supervisor and candidate transparent. It can be a tangible record of their ‘becoming', of the project of the self that candidates are undertaking in their journey. It can also form a part of that journey, as a place for recording, reflecting and redeveloping understandings of the self as candidates grow through the process of undertaking a PhD.
This presentation will explore what PhD candidates learned by blogging their experiences of academic performances and sharing them with other candidates.
Note: The Powerpoint file with sound and comments is available by contacting the corresponding author
References
Boud, D. & Lee, A. (2005). ‘Peer learning; as pedagogic discourse for research education, Studies in Higher Education, 30(5). 501-516.
Richardson, L. (1998). Writing: A method of enquiry, In N.K. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (Eds.). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Walker, J. (2006) Blogging from inside the ivory tower. In A. Bruns & J. Jacobs
(Eds.), Uses of blogs (pp. 127-138) New York: Peter Lang
Corresponding Author:
Mary-Helen Ward University of Sydney Australia
