Considering the monstrous in digital methods can inform researchers’ ethical decision making

Monsters stop people in their tracks, make us (re)consider the route we are taking. Consideration of imagined horror is a useful ethical tool for those who use digital methods. In this Halloween-themed post, Naomi Barnes provides historical and literary examples of the association between horror and information technology, challenging users of digital methods to consider whether their practices are rendering the informants of their research subhuman

Navigating algorithms and affective communities in the quest for altmetric stardom

Developing a social media presence is an important ingredient for academics seeking engagement with their research. However, the binary logic rewarded by the Twitter algorithm, means that the route to altmertric stardom for some may yield abuse for others. Naomi Barnes argues that understanding how social media algorithms work is essential to ensure the ethical and scholarly character of online engagement and should be a core part of how universities promote the use of social media for academics

Do we (mis)recognise the political power of Twitter?

We are told that Twitter is the new public sphere, the place where we hold government accountable, encourage diverse voices, and provide resources for public benefit like education, healthcare, and welfare. Using the #metoo campaign as a case study, Naomi Barnes and Huw Davies question whether Twitter really is a public sphere or if it is simply a platform capitalist that monetises displays of outrage

Ocular photography: Comparison of a +90 Diopter Volk lens and a contact Hruby lens

Photographic slides were taken through both a +90 Diopter Volk lens and a contact Hruby lens with a photo slit lamp. Being non-invasive, the +90 D procedure was usually quicker and easier on the subject compared to the contact lens. Photos taken through the +90 D lens had more reflections, a yellow tinge, less magnification, and a wider field of view, while those taken through the contact Hruby had more shadows, truer color, more magnification, and a smaller field of view. Both were capable of providing well-focused photographs of the ocular fundus

Blogging as a method of inquiry

This paper reconceptualises Richardson’s writing as inquiry within blogging. Blogging invites the audience into the scholarly conversation in ways Richardson hoped for in her articulation of the method. This paper explores writing as a method of inquiry through the writing of a blog for the academic news service, The Conversation. The piece was about the author’s personal experiences with school choice, written using expressivist composition techniques championed by Richardson. This paper extends the technique to consider a reader-writer assemblage theory of composition made possible through the technical capabilities of blog posts – hyperlinks to past scholarship and comments which prompt future scholarship. The paper also considers the potential for blogging as inquiry as a method which inspires both personal and academic transformative shifts

The education minister’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea [Blog post]

In response to the NSW government's plan to provide lesson plans and resources to teachers, this article suggests that addressing real workload pressures by ensuring there are suitably trained staff is a more purposeful use of public funds, rather than providing teachers with another worksheet

The truth: what our students really learn about Anzac Day

Exploring what schools actually do leading up to ANZAC Day. Almost all schools commemorate Anzac Day with a service and wreath laying. This fact is contrary to Tudge's assertions that students are being taught to 'hate' their country. ANZAC History is a space in where students are taught important skills, including how to consider evidence to reach reasoned decisions. Such skills, practiced in the context of war, are vital for upskilling​ students' media literacy, preparing them for making decisions about contemporary conflicts. By understanding what is happening in Australian classrooms this Anzac Day readers will be reassured ​that their children's teachers are skilled professionals who can balance national significance with critical thinking

Conceptualising Early Career Teachers’ Agency and Accounts of Social Action in Disadvantaged Schools

This article examines the accounts of actions undertaken by Early Career Teachers (ECTs) recently graduated from a social justice-oriented Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program and employed in complex school settings with high levels of student diversity, disadvantage, and poverty. The study drew on theories of teacher agency and agency more broadly to examine the workshadowing observations of the teachers’ practice in classrooms augmented by their reflective accounts in interviews. The study found that the ECTs’ agency, or contextualised social action, can be conceptualised as temporally embedded social engagement directed at addressing their students’ cultural, social and academic needs. The teachers drew on past learnings from their ITE program, committed to future-oriented innovations in teaching, and made in-the-present decisions about actions to resolve emergent contingencies such as resource shortages. We argue that these understandings are usefully enhanced by recognising contingency, consciousness, criticality and creativity as additional features of the teachers’ deliberative programs of action