bugsii

Today, I worked on my presentations.  I will be giving two in the next two days.  I was feeling strangely calm about the whole thing earlier, but right now, I am feeling a little tense and I have a headache.  I don’t know why I’m getting anxious, I am actually pretty excited to share what I’ve been working on.  My body just needs to listen to my head and relax.  This is a good thing though, giving presentations, and here are the two different conferences where I will be sharing:

Digital Media in a Social World

Miami University’s Graduate Student Conference on Social Justice

I taught a class tonight and decided to go to the library for awhile afterward.  On my way, I realized that I don’t venture out onto campus at night much.  They have white lights all around mirror lake and the library was looking very nice surrounded by the glassy snow.

Thompson Library

I better get to work.  I need to pick Dan up from the airport at 11 tonight.  Wish me luck tomorrow!

Yesterday morning I went to the eTech conference.  I got to listen to the keynote and attend a few sessions.  Then, I taught another lecture for my middle school almost-teachers!   I felt a bit rushed, but was pretty happy with how it turned out.  I was exhausted when I got home and it was only compounded by the fact that, today, I had to present at eTech.

See my presenter ribbon?

I started my morning with my last Digital Tools class, which wasn’t as smooth as I’d like, but it wasn’t terrible either.  It was my last day with this group and next week, I’ll have new students.  Do over!  I like do overs.  Anyway, after that, I came home for lunch and then headed back to eTech.  I was able to attend a session before it was time to present.  I was nervous, but tried to calm myself down.  It’s just one little presentation in the grand scheme of life, right?  I presented on blogs and their implications for learning and identity, especially for girls.  I was kind of worried about presenting this because I thought it might not be “practical” enough for people.  So, I sort of prefaced my talk by saying that I was hoping to share research and have a conversation.  There were lots of presentations at eTech about “how to” use blogs in the classroom, and mine was much more… now that we’re using blogs, what’s happening?  What do we need to pay attention to?  I felt like the presentation got off to a slow start, but part way through, people started to participate and really ask some interesting questions.  We ended up having a good conversation about the blending of public and private and the types of stories girls/women are telling the world about themselves on blogs.  By the end, I felt totally comfortable and really glad that I was able to share my research and ideas.  It was neat!  AND THEN, it just so happened that this big wig tech lady at Ohio State was in the audience and she stayed a bit to talk and I saw her name tag and told her that I knew who she was and she complimented my presentation and said that we should talk sometime on campus. 

This morning, I woke up early to read.  Then, I got ready to go Bergamo, my first academic conference where I would be presenting my own work.  I was pretty calm most of the morning.  It wasn’t until I was on my way there that I started to get nervous.  I tried to just drive, to look at the fall leaves, to remind myself that I should not spend hours worrying about a measly 20 minutes that would be over before I knew it, but you know, it’s hard to do.  When I got to the Bergamo Conference Center, I was delighted to find a small Catholic retreat in a wooded area.  Walking in reminded me of being in St. Joe’s church basement, and I sort of felt at home. It was like this little crazy Catholic summer camp.

Bergamo

I checked in and then went to the session before mine to listen and talk.  It was small (the first session of the conference), but the atmosphere was very different than the other conferences I had attended.  People actually talked to each other.  The presenter had a dialogue with us and I felt really relaxed.  At the beginning, the presenter asked where I was from and I said, Ohio State, and he asked who I was studying under and I said, Patti Lather.  From my left I heard a slightly gasped, “wow.”  I guess I’m still getting used to the fact that she is such a big name in this field.

When I got to my session, I was feeling relatively calm, but for some reason any time I have to present information (especially my own), I start to play this tape in my head.  And the tape says, “This is not interesting to anyone.  You don’t know what you are talking about.  You used that term incorrectly.  Etc, etc.”  So, what happens then, is that I start to talk really fast and I forget to make some of my points.  It’s the eyes on me.  I don’t know why, but it is.  Once I was finished “presenting” though, people asked all sorts of helpful and curious questions about my blogging work and a good discussion was stimulated.  That made me feel really good.  There was another presenter with me and he presented this idea that teaching should be more improvisational and he likened it to jazz improvisation.  It was really interesting.  I like that conference!  I had a good time having nerdy discussions about education!

Next year, I plan to get a room at the Catholic retreat and stay the whole weekend, but this year, I am home in my bed, preparing for Marcy’s wedding.  Tomorrow I leave for Canton for the rehearsal dinner and I am very much looking forward to it!

ELTU conference planning

Today was the unconference and it was really neat.  When we all got there, we planned the sessions collaboratively and then moved around flexibly.  It was great to share and to hear others’ ideas.  I learned about a bunch of new open source software that I can’t wait to check out!  See the website link above for a list on the wiki.

After the conference, Dan and I headed down to our old home sweet home, Cincinnati (or the northern suburbs)!  We got there and chatted at the table with Ma and Pa Angelone and then headed to The Cone!  I’m carb loading in preparation for the marathon, which basically means I’ll eat nothing but crap for the next two days.  And after ice cream, we played some Wii Bowling, so it all evened out.

Joyce and Pete

The final sessions yesterday went well.  In the very last one for the day, I got to listen to a PhD candidate talk about his dissertation.  He studied the ways that his student used blogs in his classroom.  Needless to say, I loved it. I’m kind of sad the conference is over because I feel like I learned so much, but I’m also very tired and ready to be in my home that is full of wonderful wireless Internet.

This morning, I woke up early to run 12 miles in the San Diego sunshine.  I ran along the boardwalk again down to the USS Midway where there’s a HUGE statue of the Navy guy kissing the nurse from WWII.  I only came up to the nurse’s calf, it was so big.  Then, I ran the other way down to the swanky Hilton and back again.  It was a perfect day.  High 60s, sunny, no clouds and no wind. I hear it’s nice at home too and that makes me happy!

Our flight is currently delayed 40 minutes, so I’m sitting in the San Diego airport using their free wireless (which every place should have) and hoping that there won’t be any more delays.  If all goes as planned, I’ll be home by midnight.

The trolley outside of the hotel and convention center.

Yesterday was busy.  I went to sessions from 8:15am-6:05pm.  The first one I went to was a session on “digital spaces” and, man, this one guy really loved the iPhone and it’s possibilities for education.  He talked about it so enthusiastically and told us about so many new apps that I couldn’t contain myself and had to pull mine out to start downloading some right then and there!  Then, I went to a session on dilemmas in qualitative research.  I mostly went because my professor was presenting again.  It was a good session.  After that, I went to one on women in higher education and there was a really interesting paper on how women turn on each other in higher education and how we need to learn to be more supportive of each other.  For example, one study showed that, if not blinded, women will evaluate other women more harshly than men.  I thought that was very interesting and I believe it too.  Why are we so hard on each other?  Well, she said it is because we all grew up in a sexist society, so we all (not just men) sort of “learn” that women are weaker, dumber, etc.  I shared with them my drteacher.com site because it’s basically about women in higher education supporting each other and I hope to get some good responses! Then, I went to another session on how women balance grad school and life.  This was very interesting and I shared my website again.  It was nice to hear others’ experiences and it made me feel like maybe I can really do this.  Lastly, I attended a session on Gifted Education since I thought I might learn something useful for my work at ODE.  It was okay, but basically, what they were saying was that the field of gifted education is fractured and they need to define what gifted education is. Dude, get on it.

After all of those sessions, Jason and his fiancee, Brie, picked me up for a nice dinner in La Jolla, which is a fancy schmancy part of San Diego.  We ate at a nice restaurant on the water and had good conversation and an awesome view of the sunset.

Jason and Brie

After they dropped me off at my hotel, I was exhausted.  I went to bed early with the plans of getting up early to have a nice breakfast at a nearby diner.  I found a really cute one using Yelp on my iPhone!  I had a pumpkin waffle and a cup of fruit.

Cafe 222

It is now the last day of the conference and things are really winding down.  There is not much going on in the way of sessions, so I decided to go to one on grassroots activism on college campuses.  It was really interesting and I realized that my drteacher.com site is a form of grasroots activism meant to help more women complete a PhD in Education.  My mind was blown (as it has been many times this week).

I have a few more sessions to attend (one on science education, one teaching online and one on teacher power and social media) and by 4 everything should be wrapped up.  I hope to take in a few touristy sites tonight before I leave tomorrow!  I will try to update later on these last sessions, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to my special corner of free Internet, so we’ll see.  I know that’s just what you all want to hear about. 

Last night, instead of going out to eat, Nicole and I decided to work the reception circuit to get free food and “network” (if you define networking as standing in a corner, eating free food, and trying not to make eye contact with anyone who might suspect that you are not from their university).  Since I got a pretty good overview of these receptions in the process, I would like to give individual awards.

Best Overall-Michigan State University (not the bad guys, the other one)

They had decent food, a band (made up of faculty and alum) and at midnight the deans of the college perform a song (or so I heard).  Now, that’s school spirit.

Best Food- University of Wisconsin-Madison

They were the only ones with real food and it was Mexican!  I enjoyed some delicious nachos!  Oh, and they had good school spirit too.  They made us put the Wisconsin “W” on our name badges (and it was hard to get off later!).

Go Badgers!

Best Selection of Exotic Vegetables- The Ohio State University

Yes, it does say something that this is the only award we could earn, but they had crazy little mini squash things, okra, yellow beets and two kinds of mushrooms!  Nicole and I are taking over the organizing of this event for next year.

Most Boring- Harvard University

Duh.

Most Intimate- Purdue University

This just means it was small enough that we were afraid to sneak in.

Best Dessert- University of Maryland

They had gourmet cupcakes!  It’s a good thing it was the last one we went to.  I had to take a picture, they were so amazing!

Yummy!

Worst Overall- The Graduate Student Council

Wow.  There were ten people there, a DJ playing Gloria Estefan, and I found something rubbery in my bean and corn rollup thing.  Not good.

All the receptions are over now, but I can’t wait for next year!

Today, I made it my goal to go to a variety of sessions.  I had been going to only one type of session so far, which were presentations of several papers people had written and then a discussion on the papers.  I started the morning with one of those sessions on Doctoral Student Socialization by Gender.  It was interesting and made me want to write a paper called, “Why I hide behind my thick glasses.”

Anyway, after that I went to a “roundtable discussion” where you sit at a table with the person that wrote a paper and have a conversation. This was very intimidating to me, especially since the paper I wanted to hear about was on Foucault, whose basic philosophy (as I understand it) is that knowledge (or what counts as knowledge) is determined by those in power.  Now, I don’t know much about Foucault, which is why I wanted to go hear about the paper, but I also was afraid to go hear the paper because I didn’t know much about Foucault.  It was a catch 22.  So, I literally walked into the room with all the roundtables, found the table I wanted to go to, freaked out and left the room, sat outside and looked at my program again, decided that I should get over it and go back in, and then actually went back in and sat down.  It was a really interesting discussion and I was able to just listen.  Nothing to worry about.  I don’t know why I always freak myself out.  I think it must be my fear of the academic power differential.  Yeah, that’s it.

Next, I went to a session on Queer Theory.  There were several sessions on this in the program and I decided that I wanted to hear what it was about.  In this particular one, they were talking about how gender isn’t as simple as male/female and that there is a whole spectrum and that it really isn’t even (only) an issue of homosexuality because all people are “harmed” by this male/female binary in different ways (the example of tomboys came up). I had never thought of that.

Next, I went to a poster session on the Computer Clubhouse, which wasn’t what I expected, so I went to get a snack and sit in the sun for a second.  That was nice.  Here was my view from the “boardwalk” which happens to be made of cement.

San Diego Bay

The last thing I officially went to was a “Presidential Session” which basically means that AERA considers these scholars to be especially special in their field.  It was a panel discussion about how Anthropology, History, Sociology and Cultural Studies have impacted Education and vice versa.  The cultural studies guy had a good point, I thought, when he said that education will never be “fixed” because it is always “becoming.”  We will never settle with where we are.  It’s like our own identities as individuals, they are constantly “becoming” or evolving to make us a more complex, complete person. Hmm.

I then stepped into the Presidential Address for a second (there were no other sessions at this time) only to find out that not many people go.  So, I left to write my blog.  Later on tonight is the OSU reception, which I learned last night means one thing… FREE FOOD.  Yay!  Nicole and I “stumbled” into Michigan State’s reception last night and got a nice plate of appetizers and then “happened upon” the Illinois Alumni Association’s reception and got a huge cookie.  We are reception chameleons. 

1. I can definitely “do” educational research.  It’s not as scary as I thought.

2. When I present in the future, I should try really hard not to be ultra-super boring.

3. As a participant/observer in sessions, I should try my best to give nice constructive criticism and avoid being a know-it-all jerkface.

4. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear the phrases like “sexy beast” in a serious academic discussion when teachers choose to study high school students and their discourse on blogs.

5. “Famous” academics are usually not scary or intimidating; instead they seem to be pretty funny and in favor of ignoring social norms of dress and behavior (which I like).  Oh, and they also don’t like that there is no wireless around here.

6. Bill Ayers ain’t so bad.

Bill Ayers' head is in there somewhere.

7. My qualitative research professor, Patti Lather, is one of those famous academics.  You should have seen how many people attended her session!

That's Dr. Lather! Second from the left!

8. The organizers of AERA do not care if you ever have to eat, pee, or rest ALL DAY LONG.  The sessions must go on!

9. I learned about public pedagogy, which means (among other things) that there is much learning that takes place outside of “school” (gasp), which also means that I can definitely do research on blogs as a means of people (like me and Vicki) “composing the self.”  I love it.

10. Academic-types either always remember to silence their cell phones, don’t have cell phones, or don’t have friends.  I’m not sure which yet.

This has been an exciting and very very busy day and I am looking forward to some dinner and sleeping.