"The whole movement of life is learning" (Krishnamurti). "To be an act of knowing, then, the adult literacy process must engage the learners in the constant problematizing of their existential situations" (Freire). "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free" (Douglass). "I can learn anything I have the desire to learn" (White, S.G.).

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

1-2-3 Presentation & Feedback


I am at work and do not have my notes with me, but you all asked some great questions and I hope you can remember some more of them!

I'm working on trying to tie the form to institutions of power and Discourse--the chapter on the "language of the new capitalism" (Gee et al) and the Reading Work book were particularly influential to me when I was starting this project so I intend on going back to those and connecting that theory to my findings (I took so many notes during those Gee chapters about my project!). I wanted to mention that in my presentation but I ran out of time.

Any other suggestions?

Fabric from here.
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7 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 17, 2014 at 12:50 PM

    Melissa,

    Thank you for presenting on this issue! Without being too telling about it, I really think you could achieve a lot by starting from the beginning (the website used to access the form). There are a lot of issues with it, and even though it may seem VERY user friendly, it can really get you started off in the wrong direction.

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    1. Melissa KApril 21, 2014 at 9:04 AM

      Thanks Jason! Yes I think even accessing the form is troubling. There is so much going on here, I hope I can really narrow it down.

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  2. AnonymousApril 17, 2014 at 5:29 PM

    Melissa,
    I want to piggy back on Jason's comment about the website used to access the travel form. I will use my presentation to make my point.

    I went back to my 3 Feb 14 blog input and pulled the following from Gee's definition of Discourse, " We are all members of many, a great many, different Discourses, Discourses which often influence each other in positive and negative ways...."

    In my presentation I mentioned two Discourses, the Secretariat and Action Officers. If you recall, the Secretariat was responsible for the "oversight" , .e.g. the tracking and reporting the status of action packages as the Action Officers pushed them through the system. On the surface it appears that the Secretariat has the power.

    However, there is another Discourse that could potentially be a significant power, if not the ultimate Power, and that is the "System Administrators" who provide "oversight" on the action processing system from a technical perspective, i.e. they control the what, when, and how the action processing program interfaces with those who use it.

    All application programs have system administrators who have the ability to, to varying degrees, change the way computer programs interface with the users. As I continue to reflect on the "power" aspect of my study, I need to give serious thought to the role of the system administrators and their role from a power perspective. Perhaps looking at the role and function of your application program's system administrator will aide you in your efforts.


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    1. Melissa KApril 21, 2014 at 9:05 AM

      Thanks Bob, this is extremely helpful! I am beginning to think of the power in silos and really seeing who controls different parts of the process and who is ultimately responsible for things.

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  3. Rachel WiltshireApril 18, 2014 at 3:15 PM

    Melissa, I really liked the story that you told about the Director who was great at filling out the paper version of the form, but not so great at the online version. I can totally relate to this. As a former Admin Support Manager, I was an expert at filling out the Excel sheet. However, the new system has me totally baffled. Maybe this is something that you should talk about in your paper.

    I also really liked where you were going with the issues of power and agency between faculty and administrators. I think that it's interesting that faculty would be willing to give up their independence in decision-making just to NOT have to fill out a form. I agree with you that their are much deeper issues at play. You may want to think about for whom the text was written?

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    1. Melissa KApril 21, 2014 at 9:27 AM

      Thanks Rachel! Yes I think it's fascinating that they are willing to give up their independence. I think what most fiscal administrators think (even my director) is that faculty just don't want to learn the policy. But are things not explained to them? Do they understand the importance of the process? Do they think FAs are THEIR support staff? What is really going on?
      I personally think Chrome River is a billion times easier but I understand all parts of the process so it's hard for me to think from their perspective. I might continue to ask myself questions to inform my theory. ;)

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  4. CaitlinApril 21, 2014 at 9:38 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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