Going Postgraduate, Postgraduate
I have reflected previously on the mind mapping process and my move, forced by disability, into a technological method of mind mapping possible research notes. This process, to me, is ultimately very personal. If it was not personal, by default, it would fail, because there would be no temptation for you to touch it, use it, or interact with it. It also has to be easy, because any time wasted on the fly is a no go. This is what I have learned while being someone who learns while working and bringing up a family. If it distracts me from my children, it is a No Go. Having said that, sometimes something that looks like wasted time, quite simply isn’t. The move to an online system for collecting a research mindmap was a natural progression from the forced technological advancements throughout the MA course. Every module consisted of three assignments, and every assignment relied on the use of a new piece of software. Our tutor used this method to ensure that our knowledge increased exponentially, and while there was resistance to the rigours of the course, I personally feel that I benefited hugely from this. It was changed after my year from the sheer level of student resistance, but I will be thankful that I had to undergo it, while simultaneously having kind of hated the painful process. My aim of updating my original humanities degree, in which I had written an Access database, had been achieved. In addition to work completed on gaming, just in one assignment, I had completed a full piece on digital curation using new applications (I personally used a PearlTrees account); so I can confidently say that I learned new technologies opening in the museum sector purely as a sideline within the course. I also completed a piece on library management and curation, satisfying my requirement to develop my understanding of the processes relevant to library knowledge. By all this, I am not suggesting I completed a specialised library or humanities course, because I most certainly did not; I was instead given a significant selection of media tools that I feel were designed to let me progress however I wanted, which had been the original point.
I may well never use any of the exact same new software again, but in those few short months, I became application confident; so much so that I now try out new apps as a standard method of learning, and utilise gaming apps as much as PC and console as part of my research; this would not have fallen on my radar as a researcher previously as I barely even knew of their existence. With hindsight that I then gained from the first year of the PhD course, what I feel I may still be lacking, is an understanding of some of the postgraduate terminology and what fits where; this element is still open to interpretation in my mind, despite my having completed much of the actual work previously in other guises. So, I have completed methodologies, but a PhD methodology then looks and feels different, even despite having written a postgraduate methodology previously. The links between research context, theoretical framework, methodology, research questions, and so on pretty much eluded me - I actually ended on a fourth draft submission to PhD supervisors trying to show I had the process clear in my head, which I still didn’t, completely, though I was getting closer.
Sometimes, it can just pay to do something practical and different, even if that distracts you from what initially looks like the main priority. Last week, I needed to complete a presentation for the PGCert, with the subject matter (you’ve guessed it) to be the methodology and research questions. Given the number of incorrect drafts I had already submitted on this subject, I cannot say I was expecting to be able to submit an accurate presentation either. The obvious digital option was to present by Skype, but I was not comfortable with this, as my Skype connection drops regularly, I have never shared my screen and have not worked it out yet, and did not want to stop the whole day messing with technical issues. I therefore offered a YouTube link with a recorded presentation. Simple, I thought. This turned into a comedy of errors. I am not going to lie, I became obsessed, and dragged work colleagues into my new obsession. We had just finished some Google training in which we saw a Slides presentation, with the presenter video streamed directly through either Chat or Hangouts onto YouTube and saved Unlisted so that it can only be used by those the link is sent to. The presenter video is therefore set into the slides within the presentation. It looks and sounds great, but we are really busy, at work, so although I do have a research day allocated, I do really need to use it wisely. We could not make it work, so we contacted Google, and it turns out a business account is needed. I rewrote my presentation spiel as an autocue, and we recorded the clips as individual videos embedded in the slides, and then retaped the whole presentation and uploaded it as a YouTube link. It looks amazing, but the repeated reprocessing damaged the audio. By mid-week, we had three recordings and nothing that worked right. I arrived the following morning, and recorded a traditional presentation, in a room, in 10 minutes, and uploaded it to YouTube, with a set of slides, which is what was used, and had a sorrowful PhD supervision meeting.
So what had I learnt? My colleagues and I, it turns out, do not feel we wasted our time. We learned loads about recording presentations, recording in general, uploading, and could now produce a presentation really quickly if required, for a PhD course or anything else. We can also use a second presentation as an autocue, which we have found works as a memory aide for my disability. Finally, I talked through and badly explained the research questions and methodology with my audience so often they tentatively began making some kind of sense. The presentation is actually okay. Just stopping writing, putting the whole thing down, and attempting a presentation, it turns out, was not a waste of time in the slightest. It was a bit of a win.
