Inquiry into Action

A New Century College Cornerstones Learning Community

Inquiry into Action

RING Meetings on Tuesday, 16th February

February 15th, 2010 · No Comments · RINGS, schedule

As we’ll be spending some time talking about information and communication technologies that can aid collaboration tomorrow, we should like to ask you to bring your laptops, netbooks or laptop replacements  to seminar, if possible.  Not only will this let you experiment with some platforms that may be unfamiliar in seminar.  It will also let you work as efficiently as possible as a collaborative group during seminar.  If you see this blog posting, spread the work to your ring colleagues, too.  Many thanks!

Lesley Smith

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New due dates

February 11th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

Greetings,

We know that many of you are concerned about completing your community event logs by the deadlines.  Here are some revised dates for you:

CE 2 – due by 2/19

CE 3 – due by 2/26

CE 4- due by 3/5

We really would like you to be finished with the events before Spring Break.  So please make every effort to attend events next week.

On Tuesday, plan to attend your RING group.  Most of the time will be spent working on your Group Management Plan and narrowing down your topic.  Professor Smith will visit each RING and discuss some of the tech tools that will be especially useful as you work together in groups.

Enjoy your weekend!

Prof. Muir

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Greetings Everyone,

February 10th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

I hope you are staying warm and finding things to do during this snowy weather. We are disappointed not to be seeing you all tomorrow, but safety and comfort are definitely priorities.  We will need to do some shifting in our schedule, so please check the onmason site by the weekend to see what’s changed for next week.

Please note:  we realize that your Group Management plan will not be ready by this Friday (2/12), so we will give you an additional week to complete this task.  Meanwhile, here are some things you can be doing during moments of boredom:

1) Read ahead in your Action Research text.

2) Talk to your literacy group on FaceBook or through a Listserv – start a conversation about topics related to your RING that might be of interest to everyone.

3) Find your two articles for the Praxis essay.  Send these titles to Dr. Perry for approval.

4) Go back and outline the articles you haven’t read yet – a good way to study for the upcoming quiz later this month.

5) Build a snowman, or snow-woman, or snow dog, as the case may be.

6) Start a huge snowball fight, or make snow angels – depending on your mood at the moment.

Meanwhile – enjoy this historical time and start planning your spring break!

Cheers,

Prof. Muir

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No class on Tuesday

February 8th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

As you probably already know, Mason is closed tomorrow.  On Thursday, you should plan to meet in your RINGS to work on your Group Management plan and further discuss your RING focus.  Enjoy the snow and stay warm!

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Movie: No End In Sight

February 8th, 2010 · No Comments · documentary, supplement to seminar

If campus is open on Tuesday evening, we’ll be showing the award-winning  documentary, No End in Sight, (special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival;  Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary) about the first months of the invasion of Iraq, in Hanover Lounge, at 7-00 pm, with pizza.  This documentary showcases the value of interviews with a range of stakeholders as a research method, and as a way of building a narrative which answers key questions.  As interviewing (and then using those interviews as research resources) marks a key methodology for action research, each RING group should try to make sure that some representatives attend the screening (if it goes ahead, of course)

If we are not able to hold the screening, you can stream the documentary from Netflix, if you have a subscription.

|  movie web site |    |  reviews |   |  interview with scholar & director,  Charles Ferguson (starts at 2:20 into the video)  |

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Tuesday Seminars

February 8th, 2010 · No Comments · schedule

On Tuesday, as RING groups, we’ll be exploring information and communication technologies that can enhance collaboration.  As the RING groups will not always be all physically in the same place at the same time, each group will  have to co-ordinate complex information and communication logistics, plan and compose collaboratively, and reach consensus without constant  f2f contact.  If you add the capacities we shall be discussing to those that you are already using as individuals and as groups, you should be able to build a vibrant community well-equipped to complete exemplary research.

We shall be meeting in two groups in the main NCC computer lab. (not the classroom at the back).  You should make sure that you are familiar with both the RING-Project-Worksheet (latest version) and the RING group management plan prior to the RING meetings tomorrow.

Important: If you have a laptop we should be very grateful if you would bring it to the session in the NCC lab. as we shall need additional computers for these sessions.

Here’s the schedule:

Morning
9-30 am: Education & Family RINGS meet in NCC main lab.

  • 9-30 am – 10-30 am:    Collecting and Sharing Information
  • 10-50 – 12 noon:             Collaborative Authoring

9-30 am – 12 noon: Homelessness and New Media Literacy RINGS complete research assignment (to be distributed) and work on Group Management Plan

Afternoon
1-00 pm – 3-30 pm: Homelessness and New Media Literacy RINGS meet in NCC main lab.

  • 1-00 pm –  2-00 pm:    Collecting and Sharing Information
  • 1-20 pm –  3-30 pm       Collaborative Authoring

1-00 pm – 3-30 pm: Education & Family RINGS S complete research assignment (to be distributed) and work on Group Management Plan

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RING Management Plan

February 3rd, 2010 · No Comments · RINGS

Just a quick reminder that you can find the link to the RING Management Plan segment of your research project via the sidebar links to our blog, and from the main, RING Assignment segment.

Lesley Smith

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Human Subjects Review Board (HSRB): Online Training

February 2nd, 2010 · No Comments · ethical research, general information

You will find the HSRB training for members of George Mason University at the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative site.  As a new user of the site, you need to begin by registering as a user.  Once you have clicked on the Register button, fo0llow the onscreen prompts to complete the registration.

When you are asked to choose the course you will be taking, you should choose the course for social and behavioral sciences, and make sure that you register for the Basic course.  The HSRB site at Mason describes the Basic course thus:

“Prior to conducting any research at Mason using human subjects, you must complete the Basic Course, which consists of seven learner modules.  You must take the modules in the order they are shown and complete a short quiz following each one.  You will not be allowed to move on to the next module until you have completed each one.  You do not have to complete all seven modules at one time.  You may return to the program as many times as you need to complete the course.”

Unless you have two to three hours to devote to this online course for researchers,  you should probably plan to complete the training in two or three sessions, rather than all at once.  When you complete the course, don’t forget to print and keep a couple of copies of your completion certificate, as you may need it for subsequent upper-level learning communities and courses.

Lesley Smith

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Campus Closed at 7pm Tonight

February 2nd, 2010 · No Comments · general information

Attention:

George Mason University will be closed today  –  Feb 2, at 7:00 PM due to inclement weather.

That means any community meetings you were planning on going to on campus tonight are probably cancelled. Be safe!

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Pride Alliance Meeting Location Change!!!

January 26th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

Pride Alliance

Tuesdays at 7:30pm- email pride@gmu.edu

SUB I Meeting Rooms A,B, & C

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