About half of the videographers are leaving today. Thanks so much, all of you! Could you comment here on what features of the experience we should try to make sure and repeat next year? or improvements?
And if you have new paper ideas, add them to the list.
There should be an hourly worker -- no, two hourly workers -- to do the technical processing in real time, so that the rest of us would be freed up to do intellectual work.
ReplyDeleteI didn't do that this year because (1) I didn't really realize how much time the technical part would take (since we didn't do it last year), and (2) I didn't have a system in place, so I wasn't perfectly clear on what I would tell an undergrad to do. I'm clear on that now.
Yes, I was just about to post that I wish I had more time each day to think / talk / write about my observations. As a morning observer, I usually only had around two hours after lunch to do my processing and I was *always* wanting more time.
ReplyDeleteAnother suggestion: it would be nice to have a meeting (daily or perhaps every-other-day) just for the researchers to talk. Over the course of the project people could develop paper ideas, discuss relevant theoretical frameworks, or other researcher-centric types of talk. I see this as being different than the instructor meeting because the instructors might not necessarily want / need to hear all that?
I wish I had a week afterward to process, make snippets, talk ideas, sketch out some research questions and methods, etc. (Or do I just wish it wasn't the fall semester already?)
ReplyDeleteHunter had the following two excellent ideas for next year:
ReplyDelete1. Have the two courses run simultaneously, instead of merely overlapping. The overlap week was the most fun for the videographers anyway, and three weeks is a long time for observations.
2. Host a week after the classes finish in which each videographer presents their favorite data along with research questions/theory/analysis/literature etc appropriate to that data. The audience would be the other videographers + the instructors. Each videographer would get a half-day. The goals would be (1) to provide a forum for the videographer to develop a piece of research based on their observations, hopefully as the starting point for a future collaboration, and (2) to educate the audience both about what happened in the class and about the theory, literature, methods, etc that are relevant to the data. (This is in the spirit of Leslie's suggestion above but encourages a clear product - the half-day presentation.) This week needs a great name, because I think it would be a great week... anyone have an idea?
Energy Project Congress? (meeting of different groups = videographers & instructors)
ReplyDeleteEnergy Project Potlatch? (in which wealth is demonstrated by how much you give away)
A T-shirt designed by the participants.
ReplyDelete