Week 3

Having internet access issues this week, due to lack of broadband connection at home, so this has not helped the speed or ease of working on this course. In relation to this student experience, as educators, we perhaps have to build in more 'flexi-time' for online courses.
The task on Usign Acadmic Search Engines was, therefore, challenging, but having found myself internet access elsewhere, I was frustrated to find that the link from the course guide did not take me to the ISI Web of Knowledge or to Googal Scholar. However, I have previously used the OU on-line Library resources for my MEd and carried out research using both subject papers and journal databases. When I came to use the link for the 'demonstration of citation searches', this did not follow through either, so I will have to come back to the online tasks when more on-line time is avaliable, in order to review the search engines (ACM Digital Library is not one I have used before).
What I have had time to do this week is review reading 4 (Laurilland). The main arguement appears to be one of concurring with the view that previous studies continually arrive at a 'maybe' answer to the research question. In having the word 'improve' in the research questions, this implies that whatever technology is available is 'bound to' improve the elarnign experience. However, are there just too many assumptions being made here? Evaluation may be being made by those who are biased towards using and implementing these technologies.
I have posted this to the TGF -
'For me, this reading seemed to highlight a number of issues that are relevant to educational research as a whole - not just technology. For example, in relation to conclusions of '...well perhaps..' or '...if X...' or '...depending on Y...'; why is this so common in educational research? Yes, often because we are dealing with 'people', a range of boundaries and the context are stated, to take into consideration the variability of any study, but in practices, say, psychology or sociology, 'results' are often taken as 'true', regardless of the limitations of the study group. Does this mean that educational research has 'lower status', in some way?I was struck by the lack of any 'new' information being uncovered in this paper; the second half of the paper seemed to dominated by stating practices, which I would view as basic teaching skills, regardless of using any technology. Also, to highlight the aspect of assessment - '...to re-think the assessment...' - I see as being driven by the widening participation agenda, rather than by technological capabilities or accesss'