PhD Procrastination the Canadian Way

At least 7 feet of snow piled up against the garage.

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PhD studies update: draft proposal submitted . . .

Yes, methinks ’tis time for some fun tomorrow!
(Oh wait . . . -32 celcius tonight and chilly tomorrow; it’s just not fair! I have one friend in Kenya and one in the Canary Islands. It sucks to be me.)

I’ve just submitted the first draft of my proposal for peer review. And, I’ve downloaded a couple others to read and offer friendly critiques.

And, we have just been notified of our official thesis supervisors. Good news. Great supervisor.

Now the work to pass the confirmation (candidacy) panel is approaching. The game is afoot.

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Ahhh . . . now, this is the PhD student life!

Got up early this morning, dropped hubby at work and went to my favourite coffee shop. Task one: review course materials for masters course I will be teaching this April on Human Factors in Educational Technology. I jotted down all kinds of ideas for online presentations, resources and discussions. I’m really hoping to make it interactive and useful for the students.

Now, onto re-reading my proposal so far. I’m a little over in word-count, so I’ll have to pair it down somewhat.

Then, back home to prepare a minestrone soup in the slow cooker for supper tonight.

Although it is cold today, it is bright and sunny. A very nice day to work at the coffee shop.

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#phdchat – 1st time

Today I participated in my first #phdchat in Twitter. To be honest, it felt a bit chaotic. But, I had the sense that there were more participants than normal. It’s a strange way to communicate. At 140 characters an utterance, one must consider how to best use those characters.

Nevertheless, the #phdchat group provides leads to some very good resources.

How to find this group:

• http://twitter.com/search?q=%23phdchat

Information about this group:

• https://www.martineve.com/2011/02/02/on-phdchat-call-for-collaborationhistory-overview-themes-and-response/

The phdchat daily:

• http://paper.li/tag/phdchat

And the phdchat wiki:

• http://phdchat.pbworks.com/w/page/33280234/PhD-Chat

When: Wednesdays at 12:30 pm (MST/Edmonton time)

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PhD Proposal: Getting Started

It occurred to me as I exercise my avoidance and procrastination muscles, that it might be beneficial to start a blog. I’ve spent several days now jotting down ideas of how to get started on my PhD proposal. Obviously, the best way is to simply get started.

So far, I have started writing the first two paragraphs explaining the philosophical orientation of my intended work. Then, I started creating folders for the most significant aspects of the proposal:

• theoretical articles & references
• papers about phenomenography
• papers about learner-identity
• papers about threshold concepts and reflectivity

I am now ready to type out the headings for the main sections of the proposal.

The main thing to keep in mind is the scope of the proposal: 3000 words.

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