FutureMe.org

Have you seen this great site, FutureMe.org?  Write and send an email to your future self...you can keep it private or make it public (either signed or anonymous).  What a great idea since most of our actions are designed to maximize the potential of "future me" now we can check that what we had in mind either came to pass or didn't...because now we can talk to ourselves from today...into the future. 

Interesting research potential here too.  LOTS of it.  LOL

Posted by prolurkr at 12:57 PM | TrackBack

Trackback and comments are currently disabled

Due to a huge hit of trackback spam on this site, I have disabled comments and trackbacks until I get time to upgrade the software and make some serious changes to the operating environment. I apologize for the inconvenience and hopefully it won't take too long to get the changes made...until then if you have a comment let me know via email.

Of course having said all that, it does make the whole concept of blog "community" interesting when non-community members hijack community resources for selfish uses.  It's sort of like having your neighbor jack into you cable system and then get mad at you when the cable company shuts both of you off.  LOL 

Oh well, there is nothing that has been invented in this world has not been used for "unintended purposes" with negative consequences.

p.s.  Unlike my previous host LunarPages , my current host DreamHost was polite enough to tell me there was a problem and ask me to fix it before they took punitive action.

Related posts: 

My last interaction with LunarPages (rant warning)

Prolurker is back from LunarPages hell (long ranting post warning)

Things I learned while moving two websites to a new host

Moving loisscheidt.com and professional-lurker.com

Posted by prolurkr at 09:32 AM | TrackBack

Purple & Gold Converse Chucks look 4.5" heel size 11

Ok I am a huge fan of Chuck Taylor Converse. In my time I have had red ones, and green ones, and white ones, and black ones among other colors...in high-tops or low-tops. Right now I'm bidding on a pair of bright yellow slip-on's on eBay.

But my all-time favorite pair were the purple high-top's I bought my senior year in high school...I throw them out a couple of years ago because I can't wear them anymore.  It's depressing, our feet continue to grow throughout our lifetime...which is not something those of us with big feet want to hear. LOL

Check out the auction notice
Purple & Gold Converse Chucks look 4.5" heel size 11

My love of Chuck Taylor's might have been slightly influenced by Mr. Taylor's time on the Columbus (Indiana) High School Basketball Team...aka my hometown but not my high school.  He was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. Wikipedia has a nice entry with a picture see Chuck Taylor (salesman).

Posted by prolurkr at 06:45 PM | TrackBack

A paid blogging job anyone?

Blogger/Digital Media Coordinator

AARP is looking for a blogger to develop, coordinate and promote the organization's blog presence. The ideal candidate would have 3-5 years experience professionally blogging with a understanding of media and politics, as well as a working knowledge of HTML coding, HomeSite and related web development technologies; experience working in a collaborative team environment with designers and technical staff; and knowledge of Association strategic objectives and stakeholders in order to promote AARP's mission, values, and strategic goals.

This is a new position for AARP in their communications dept. The plan is to go really high profile with this... the blogger will be very visible, do TV and become famous, perhaps. It is a great platform for the right, high energy, charismatic individual!

Mara Covell
Senior Vice President
The Howard Sloan Koller Group
300 East 42nd Street
Suite 1500
New York, NY 10017
212-661-5250 V
212 763-1504 V
212-557-9178 F
mcovell_at_hsksearch.com

Posted by prolurkr at 06:10 PM | TrackBack

CFP - BLOGS, WIKIS, AND SCHOLARSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Blogs & Wikis
MPCA/MACA - Region Conference
October 12-14, 2007
Radisson Hotel and Suites, Kansas City, Missouri

Abstract Submission Deadline: April 30, 2007

BLOGS, WIKIS, AND SCHOLARSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION
The Midwest Popular Culture Association / Midwest American Culture 
Association is seeking papers on the use of blogs, wikis, or other 
collaborative online technologies in higher education.

Possible topics include:
•        case studies of blogs or wikis in the classroom
•        the wiki in academic research
•        the blogging professorate
•        digital publishing and the tenure dossier

Please send a brief abstract (250 words) and a note about your field 
and institutional affiliation by April 30, 2007. Email submissions 
and inquiries to Molly at this address: <mem96_at_georgetown.edu>

For more information on the conference, see http://www.mpcaaca.org/

Molly Moran
Graduate student, Program in Communication, Culture, and Technology, 
Georgetown University
New Media Advisor, U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC
mem96_at_georgetown.edu
moranme_at_state.gov
202.663.0244

Posted by prolurkr at 04:25 PM | TrackBack

A new journal that might be of interest - Journal of Mixed Methods Research

Journal of Mixed Methods Research

Mixed methods research is defined as research in which the investigator collects and analyzes data, integrates the findings, and draws inferences using both qualitative and quantitative approaches or methods in a single study or program of inquiry.

The Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR) is an innovative, quarterly, international publication that focuses on empirical, methodological, and theoretical articles about mixed methods research across the social, behavioral, health, and human sciences. Supported by the premier researchers and practitioners in mixed methods research, including such luminaries as John Creswell, Abbas Tashakkori, Alan Bryman, Michael Fetters, Donna Mertens, David Morgan, Michael Patton, and Charles Teddlie (to name a few), each issue explores

• Original mixed methods research that fits the definition of mixed methods research; explicitly integrates the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study; adds to the literature on mixed methods research; and makes a contribution to a substantive area in the scholar’s field of inquiry.

And

• Methodological/theoretical topics that advance knowledge about mixed methods research, such as:
• Type of research/evaluation questions
• Types of designs
• Sampling and/or measurement procedures
• Approaches to data analysis
• Validity
• Software applications
• Paradigm stance
• Writing structures
• The value and use of mixed methods research

Not only does JMMR offer "the best and the brightest" in original mixed methods research and methodological/theoretical discussions, it also includes insightful reflections by the distinguished editors on important issues in mixed methods research and extensive book and software reviews with practical applications.

The Journal of Mixed Methods Research's scope includes

• Developing and defining a global terminology and nomenclature for mixed methods research
• Delineating where mixed methods research may be used most effectively
• Creating the paradigmatic and philosophical foundations for mixed methods research
• Illuminating design and procedure issues
• Determining the logistics of conducting mixed methods research

You can signup for a FREE ONLINE INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIPTION to the entire first volume of the JOURNAL OF MIXED METHODS RESEARCH. Sign up by December 31, 2007.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:35 AM | TrackBack

The Third International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry

If you are a qualitative researcher you really need to attend the Third International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, from May 2-5, 2007. This is an outstanding conference that is on my "not to be missed" list.

I have attended this conference since it's inception and I find the pre-conference and the conference itself to be invaluable.  While there is not a lot of online work being presented, which makes it a great potential venue for presentation, I normally attend panels that use interesting methods or address topics I'm not overly familiar with...and every year I have come back with a long list of potential research topics that were spurred by the sessions I attended.

This year I am registered for two pre-conference sessions:

State of the Art: The Latest in Qualitative Software Advances - Ray Maietta and Cesar Cisneros

Performative Writing - Ron Pelias

Posted by prolurkr at 08:17 AM | TrackBack

CFP - International Journal of Internet Research Ethics

International Journal of Internet Research Ethics
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS/cipr/ijire.html

Description and Scope:

The IJIRE is the first peer-reviewed online journal, dedicated specifically to cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural research on Internet Research Ethics. All disciplinary perspectives, from those in the arts and humanities, to the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences, are reflected in the journal.

With the emergence of Internet use as a research locale and tool throughout the 1990s, researchers from disparate disciplines, ranging from the social sciences to humanities to the sciences, have found a new fertile ground for research opportunities that differ greatly from their traditional biomedical counterparts. As such, "populations," locales, and spaces that had no corresponding physical environment became a focal point, or site of research activity. Human subjects protections questions then began to arise, across disciplines and over time: What about privacy? How is informed consent obtained? What about research on minors? What are "harms" in an online environment? Is this really human subjects work? More broadly, are the ethical obligations of researchers conducting research online somehow different from other forms of research ethics practices?

As Internet Research Ethics has developed as its own field and discipline, additional questions have emerged: How do diverse methodological approaches result in distinctive ethical conflicts and, possibly, distinctive ethical resolutions? How do diverse cultural and legal traditions shape what are perceived as ethical conflicts and permissible resolutions? How do researchers collaborating across diverse ethical and legal domains recognize and resolve ethical issues in ways that recognize and incorporate often markedly different ethical understandings?

Finally, as "the Internet" continues to transform and diffuse, new research ethics questions arise e.g., in the areas of blogging, social network spaces, etc. Such questions are at the heart of IRE scholarship, and such general areas as anonymity, privacy, ownership, authorial ethics, legal issues, research ethics principles (justice, beneficence, respect for persons), and consent are appropriate areas for consideration.

The IJIRE will publish articles of both theoretical and practical nature to scholars from all disciplines who are pursuing or reviewing IRE work. Case studies of online research, theoretical analyses, and practitioner-oriented scholarship that promote understanding of IRE at ethics and institutional review boards, for instance, are encouraged. Methodological differences are embraced.

Posted by prolurkr at 03:09 PM | TrackBack

CFP - Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular

Posted by prolurkr at 09:00 AM | TrackBack

Spring has come to the farm

Spring has sprung in Southern Indiana, all of the necessary signs are in alignment.  All three happenings must be present for spring to be declared on our homestead.  First, the snowdrops have been in bloom for about two weeks.  Second, we have lambs...I love lambs.  They are so cute and fuzzy and I can see them popping across the pasture from my kitchen window, they are four-legged popcorn springing around...to bad they grow up to be sheep.  Three, the Northern Spring Peepers must be croaking their mating calls:

The loud, peeping chorus of Spring Peepers means winter is finally coming to an end. These little frogs are among the very first to call and breed in the spring, often starting while there is still snow on the ground and ice on the lakes.

So by the power invested in me by no one with any sense...LOL...I declare it SPRING!

Posted by prolurkr at 05:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CFP - Life Writing Conference (UK)

New deadline

The Spirit of the Age:
Debating the Past, Present and Future of Life Writing

4-6 July 2007, Kingston University London

Call for Papers

Speakers to include: Neal Ascherson, Rachel Cusk, John Fuegi, Victoria Glendinning, Kathryn Hughes, Hanif Kureishi, Annette Kobak, Blake Morrison, Virginia Nicholson, Hilary Spurling, Roberta Taylor and Claire Tomalin.

This, the first international interdisciplinary Conference on the Writing of Lives to be hosted jointly by the new Life Narratives Research Centre and the Faculties of Art and Social Science, and Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University, aims to invite debate across these disciplines on the particular issues that have surrounded the writing of lives in the past, and to foster discussion on the challenges and opportunities facing such endeavors today and tomorrow. Hegel famously suggested, "the great man of the age is the one who can put into words the will of his age, tell his age what its will is and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and the essence of his age, he
actualises his age".

The Spirit of the Age conference is seeking to bring about interdisciplinary discussions and debates around the notion of Hegel's model of the making of an age by calling for papers from
academics and practitioners working on life writing in any area of the arts or the academy on the topics listed below.

* Life Writing that defines an Age
* Marginal Lives and Historical Revision
* Witness/Survivor Memoirs
* Writing Lives in the Arts
* The Author as Subject: Writing Literary Lives
* Group Work: Writing on Multiple Subjects
* Writing Political Lives
* Short Lives/The Obituary
* Objects as Subjects: Writing Lives of the Material World

Proposals for panels, papers, workshops, round tables, film and interview presentations by practitioners and researchers should be submitted as abstracts of up to 300 words by Friday 30th March 2007 to:

Penny Tribe,
'Spirit of the Age' Abstracts Administrator,
Kingston University,
Faculty of Art and Social Sciences
Penrhyn Road Kingston
KT1 2EE
Tel: +44 (0)208 547 2000

Email: fass-conferences_at_kingston.ac.uk   

Abstracts can also be submitted via our online form at:
http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/conferences/spirit_of_the_age/

Conference Organisers: Dr Meg Jensen, Dr Jane Jordan and Professor Brian Brivati

Posted by prolurkr at 10:04 AM | TrackBack

Treatment for Email Addictions

Mary McKinney at Successful Academic has a great series on managing email. Now I don't know about you but my multiple accounts are constantly stealing huge amounts of my time. LOL And sadly I seem to give it more time then I should. Email, like any work, will suck up as much time as you give it.

Check out Mary's series:
Email Addictions
Email Addictions - Part II
Email Addictions - Part III

Here's a sample from Part III: 

3) Create clear, firm email boundaries for students at the beginning of each semester.

Set up a schedule, similar to office hours, for answering student emails. At the beginning of the semester, preferably both verbally and in your syllabus, inform students that you receive so many email requests that it typically takes you a day or two to respond. Then try to stick with a set schedule for responding to student emails. Set up a folder in your browser and only reply to requests at set times that you have scheduled in your day planner. This will allow you to be responsive to students but to avoid being at their beck and call. Having a student email schedule will also put a halt to the irritating experience of having desperate students email you at 11pm the night before a test is planned or a paper due. If you have announced and enforced a set schedule, students will no longer assume that you will reply to all last minute, electronic questions or pleas.

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Posted by prolurkr at 12:21 PM | TrackBack

CFP - Interdisciplinary Conference on Culture, Language, and Social Practice

The program in Culture, Language and Social Practice (CLASP) at the University of Colorado at Boulder is pleased to invite submissions to its first graduate student-run interdisciplinary conference. Abstracts for 20 minute papers covering topics in various areas of sociocultural linguistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_linguistics) are invited for either the General Session or the Theme Session (see below) and are due by April 15, 2007. For both Sessions, we encourage papers that focus on the broad connections between language, culture and society and are grounded in empirical research. Examples of possible frameworks or analytic traditions for either Session may include, but are not limited to:

Sociolinguistics
Linguistic anthropology
Narrative studies
Critical discourse analysis
Conversation analysis
Language and identity
Discourse pragmatics
Computer-mediated discourse
Ethnography of speaking
Language and literacy
Verbal art and performance
Bilingualism and code-switching
Language globalization
Intercultural communication
Language socialization

*Conference Details:

The conference will take place from Oct 5 - Oct 7, 2007. Our confirmed plenary speakers are Mary Bucholtz (Linguistics, UC Santa Barbara), Kathy Escamilla (Education, University of Colorado), Norma Mendoza-Denton (Anthropology, University of Arizona), and Crispin Thurlow (Communication, University of Washington). The Friday of the conference will consist of workshops held by plenary speakers and CLASP faculty, while Saturday and Sunday will be devoted to paper presentations and plenary talks.  The conference website can be found at: http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/faculty/kira_hall/clasp/conf/

*Theme Session
Papers for the Theme Session should focus on a topic or issue dealing with interdisciplinary approaches to doing research on language, society and culture. Papers for consideration in the Theme Session may address issues dealing with crossing (inter)discipinary boundaries in both theoretical and applied research. Possible topics for the Theme Session might include: dialogues between linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics; the use of feminist and queer conversation analysis; ethnographic approaches to doing critical discourse analysis; etc.

*Submission Guidelines
Please email a 500 word abstract to clasp.conference@gmail.com by April 15, 2007. The abstract should be attached in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text (.rtf) format and should contain NO information identifying the author(s) of the paper. Abstracts are evaluated on an anonymous basis. In the body of the email, please include the following information:

-Name(s) of author(s)
-University or other affiliation(s) of the author(s)
-Email address(es) of the author(s)
-Title of proposed paper
-Whether you'd like to be considered for the General or Themed session
-Equipment requirements
-Any additional comments
-3-5 keywords describing the paper

Notification of acceptance or non-acceptance will be sent via email by August 1, 2007.

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Posted by prolurkr at 12:08 AM | TrackBack

ThinkingRock and GTD

If you have read this blog for long you have probably guessed that I am a proponent of "working smarter not harder."  To that end I keep testing to-do software trying to find the interface that is pleasing to the eye, intuitive, and flexible...and while I have used a variety of programs over the years I keep testing hoping that someday one of them will more closely match my work style.

Well my new favorite is ThinkingRock a great donationware program from our friends downunder.  What I like about this little program...aside from the fact that it is a little program that will even run from a USB drive, is the overall design.  To use ThinkingRock you do a brain dump by collecting your thoughts with a description and assigning a topic, if you want.  Then you can process your thoughts by creating and/or assigning them to a project, giving them due dates or marking for inactivity (I used this code for research ideas), and even deciding what would be a successful outcome of the action.  And if you are like me, and you reorganize things periodically, you will like that every field is editable.  So you can move an activity to a different project or change any of the fields to match changes in your environment.

This is a very cool program, I've been really impressed...so I suggest you check it out and see if it works for you too.

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Posted by prolurkr at 01:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack