Boulton, H

Hramiak, A

English

Nottingham Trent Institutional Repository (IRep)

22 ESCalatenewsAlison Hramiak and Helen Boulton tell us about finding each other! and thebenefits of sharing a philosophy of educational research.Reflectionsof a PersonalResearch JourneyESCalatenews 23We were invited by the editors of thisspecial issue on Research inEducation to share some thoughtson our research journey.  Whenplanning the article it occurred to usthat finding a research partner whoshares the same philosophy ofeducational research, the sameresearch interests, and a similarbackground is not easy to do. Yetwe have managed this, and it hashelped us both in developing ourresearch profiles nationally and,more recently, internationally. This isour story... We met quite by chance.  At thetime we were working in differentuniversities but both within a Schoolof Education and in the field ofteacher education.  We were part ofan Information Technology inTeacher Education (ITTE) discussionlist but had attended ITTEconferences at different times so hadnever met.  We both responded toan email asking if anyone wasinterested in writing chapters for abook on Virtual LearningEnvironments (VLEs) in secondaryschools and Helen, working atNottingham Trent University (NTU),offered to host a meeting with otherinterested colleagues.  We startedchatting at the meeting, and latercontinued talking about ourbackgrounds and research. We hadboth worked in Further Education,then moved to secondary education,then into Higher Education; oursubject was InformationCommunication Technology; and wewere both strand leaders for thePost Graduate Certificate inEducation – we found we had somuch in common.  The VLE book became our firstpublication, a project with two othercolleagues. We workedindependently on our chapters, butarranged to meet up at the 2006ITTE conference to pull the booktogether; as we continued todevelop the book, our friendshipgrew.  We started emailing eachother with new ideas, chatting on thetelephone at weekends and Alisonbecame external examiner toHelen’s PGCE.  We found we wereresearching similar areas, forexample Helen had been running acommunity blog for a year on herPGCE and Alison and she decidedto develop this to use as a tool forprofessional reflection.  We arenow working with ex-students toidentify the barriers to using web2.0 technologies in secondaryschools.Alison had been involved inresearch with colleagues atSheffield Hallam University (SHU)looking at Assessment andFeedback and asked Helen to beinvolved, providing a differentperspective.  This was developedinto a successful bid to ESCalatefor funding to carry out researchwith Year 13 students and Year 1and 2 undergraduate students inboth NTU and SHU. We have very busy lives: Alisonis married with two young children,Helen has one child and is workingto complete her PhD. We bothwork full-time with all the demandsof a mainly teaching academicpost in a new university. We arelucky that our children get on welltogether and we generally manageto combine a social visit in theholidays with making revisions toresearch papers, finalisingpresentations and so on. ‘‘ ‘‘It has been a journey that is at timesfrustrating but mostly very rewarding.Finding someone you can work with, whoyou trust and get on with, who is able tomeet deadlines, and with whom you cansocialise as well, has been very valuable.As long as the kids get pizzas atthe end of the day they don'tseem to mind all the work! Wecarefully divide up jobs and agreeto deadlines – which we bothstick to, and this mutual trust iswhat really makes it work.Working in new universitieswith limited time for research, weare prepared to continue with ourresearch because it is somethingwe love to do and it improves ourpractice. We have both had toface rejection in our research,particularly when it comes towriting for those all importantpeer reviewed journals – whohasn’t?  We think it's important tohave a colleague with whommutual support can be givenduring the inevitable momentswhen one or other’s work isrejected, and to move on quickly.So, for example, when we firstmet, Helen had been writing apaper on e-learning in secondaryschools and had received tworejections; that Alison shared shetoo had various rejections beforebeing published spurred Helenon, and that particular article hasnow been published. At the moment our ESCalateresearch into assessment andfeedback is taking up much ofthe time we are able to allocate toresearch. Therefore, to help with thework we decided to pay apostgraduate student to carry outthe analysis  – we were very clearwith the direction for this and aredelighted with the results. We alsodecided to involve some Year 2undergraduate students to givethem some much neededexperience in generating researchideas. What’s next on the horizon?Well, we will continue to worktogether.  We are in the process offinishing a joint paper on actionresearch and are now into the 3rdyear of our research into using blogsfor professional reflection; this is nowimpacting very much on thesecondary schools we work with.We also need to write up theassessment and feedback researchand move this into a new phase, tolook at the transition fromundergraduate to postgraduate –something that is very close to ourteaching roles. We try to stick towhat will benefit our students andthe courses we teach since this iswhat is both manageable andbeneficial to our work.It has been a journey that is attimes frustrating but mostly veryrewarding.  Finding someone youcan work with, who you trust andget on with, who is able to meetdeadlines, and with whom you cansocialise as well, has been veryvaluable. Writing this article hashelped us to reflect on how glad weare that we replied to that emailasking for interest in writing achapter on a book – a chanceencounter that has benefitted usboth, way beyond our expectations.24 ESCalatenewsAlison HramiakSheffield HallamUniversityAlison Hramiak is responsible forthe 14-19 ICT PGCE course and isalso a Faculty Fellow forAssessment and Feedback. She isco-author with Helen Boulton ofLearning and Teaching with VirtualLearning Environments (LearningMatters 2007).Helen BoultonNottingham TrentUniversityHelen Boulton is a PrincipalLecturer in the School of Educationat Nottingham Trent University.Her research interests includeblended learning and teaching, theapplication of new technologies tolearning, and work based learning.  

Reflections of a personal research journal

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