dogged

 

So, if I am going to get some more publications up for the year, it is important that I get working fast. Since I am analysing new data I will have to work hard on the transcription and the analysis.


Today I am working on a new transcript. Here is some of the talk that occurred between a father and his young son (aged 2 yrs 11 months) as the boy looked at a Wikipedia site on lizards:

D: I wonder if that's that's the giant cave gekko
(0.8)
L: maybe he's a modo dagon
(0.6)
D: komodo dragon you ↑think
(0.6)
L: maybe he's a special lizard
D: who a special lizard (0.4) a special [green one
L: [yeah
D: he's a pretty one isn't he
(0.2)
L: yea::h maybe he's (0.8) a green one
D: green ↑one (0.4) ↑yep ((nodding head))

It's great interaction and I'm enjoying the work.

the year of writing carefully

This week I've returned to office work after several weeks of leave. In some ways it was good to get back to the schedule of the working day because i have a lot of things to finish.

Most importantly, I've had three journal articles accepted for publication since December and two of those since my return from the trip down south.

So, the state-of-play is:

an article for the Journal of Classroom Interaction (in press)
an article for the Journal of Early Childhood Research (accepted and have made corrections)
an article for the International Journal of Qualitative Methods (accepted pending revisions)

I blinked over the latest and last one in the list because it is my review of transcription literature. So, I have some work to do but it was absolutely thrilling to receive the feedback which acknowledged this "important area" of qualitative research. The timing is also useful because it means that I will be working on the revisions at the same time as I am writing the paper for AERA around the same topic.

Meanwhile, I have in mind to publish an article in a literacy journal this year and that will be using data from my cyberspace project (young children using the internet). I will focus on two children's use of google searches and wikipedia.The younger child was 2 years 11 months at the time of recording.

from Peter to Patience

As the posts below this one detail, I've spent the weekend translating a braille message. It was on the front of a card that my grandfather sent or gave to my grandmother around 1915 or 1916. Here you will see the pic of my grandfather that was in the card, a pic of the braille message that he wrote on the card, my "translation" of the braille message(thanks to the help of Wikipedia) and a picture of my grandmother taken around the same time.

grandfather0833
Originally uploaded by angie cat

 

May every blessing life can know
inbold the newborn year
leave not a vacant hour for woe
nor cause to shed a tear
except it be thy will to weep
for joy

Grandma
Originally uploaded by angie cat

wower

bloody hell, I'm excited now because i just figured out some words using the contraction search. it's brilliant.!! vact h-- vacant hour!!!!!

May every blessing life can -
inbold the newborn year
leave not a vacant hour for woe
nor cause to show a tear
except it be thy will to weep
for joy

So .. what would be the missing symbol in the first line.

I've made a guess, keyed it into the contraction program and i am right. marvellous really -know. the missing word in the first line is know.


May every blessing life can know
inbold the newborn year
leave not a vacant hour for woe
nor cause to shed a tear
except it be thy will to weep
for joy

And there we have it, the message on the card that Peter wrote in braille to Patience from Broken Hill at xmas around 1915 or 1916.

peter
Originally uploaded by angie cat

wow!

continuing the saga of the card message in the post below - I found a site that translates words into contractions. So it allows you to put in a word and it gives the braille symbol or word. in the verse on the card i made a guess at some missing words that i could figure out. for example in one line i had previously:

be thy _ to weep

I guessed that the missing word was 'will' so I typed in the word and up came the symbol and yes i was right -the card reads 'be they will to weep'. I also guessed 'not and was right on that.

now the best bit. remember there was a symbol that had all the dots filled in, and i thought it represented italics or emphasis:
..
..
..

I wrote in the word 'for' and up came the braille word for it:
..
..
..

So a guess was right for that.

I now have:
except - be thy will to weep for joy.

I think that - in this case is 'it' and so will try that out next.

Drum roll, and yes...
so the last two lines of the poem read

except it be they will to weep for joy

All up I now have this:

May every blessing life can -
inbold the newborn year
leave not a vact for woe
nor cause to show a tear
except it be thy will to weep for joy

That's so much clearer, except for 'vact' and i don't have any ideas about that right now.

Why this now?

 

This pic is from the front of a card that I have. It was sent or given to my grandmother (Patience)by my grandfather (Peter). I am guessing that it was written around 1915 or 1916. I've had the card for years but, being in holiday mode, I decided to take a closer look at it today. The message on the front is written in Braille which I don't happen to read but my grandmother did because she was blind.

A wikipedia search using the word braille gave me the alphabet and I have been busy translating the dots into words. first off though i had to discover the right way to read the page because it wasn't obvious which was top and bottom of the page. Once that was done I was able to start to pick out words. The last word on the left hand side of the pic has three letters and it spells out 'joy'. Other words I've found are 'bless' and 'newborn'. These three words were easy. Others didn't make sense and seemed not to be spelled correctly. I read more on the wikipedia page and it seems that braille uses contractions or a kind of shorthand way of writing that people develop for their use - a bit like texting.

Previously, I'd assumed that it was a commercial card because it does have
"Christmas greetings from Broken Hill" written on it, very faintly,in small gold lettering. now i think that it also has a personal message that was written by my grandfather in Braille. it's an interesting puzzle that i'm going to work on by attempting to translate the entire message. This will mean getting a handle on the contractions used, not just replacing dots with letters of the alphabet.

I am keeping in mind that my grandfather wrote poetry and so i am expecting a rhyme or two. this has helped. I also have in mind that maybe he wasn't perfect at writing braille. this is what i have so far with gaps representing what i can't get yet:

may ev-y bless- life c -
--brl d - newborn year
leave in a vact h-r woe
nor cause to shed a tear
except - be thy w- to weep
- joy

It's an intersting puzzle. while some of the gaps seem obvious -such as in 'ev-y' i can't see the dots that represent the letter i expect to make 'every'. So, either i am missing a shorthand way of recording something, or (perhaps) my grandfather was only learning braille at the time and got it wrong. the latter explanation is appealing since i reckon that he would have only just met my grandmother at the time of writing.

may ev-y bless- life- -
inbeld - newborn year

that's better. of course, I may also hve to take into consideration my grandfather's accent when spelling words since he was fresh from Scotland when he wrote this card. hmmm

okay i think i've found a contraction. In the first line there is just the letter 'c' sitting alone. if i take that as standing for a word, then the first line reads:

may every bless- life see -
inbold - newborn year
leave in a vact hrr - woe
nor cause to shed a tear
except - be thy w to weep
- joy

I've got a couple of gaps that i can't figure out and they look like this (except smaller):
..
..
..
I think they might represent italics or some other form of emphasis because they occur before woe and before joy.


I've still a way to go but have made good progress, no?

fruition

Getting back into work mode after the xmas and new year break isn't easy, is it? My transition into work mode was helped by opening up my work emails and finding an acceptance for a journal article. I was over the moon (as usual) and even more so when i found that i only have to check copy editing corrections. This article was submitted to the Journal of Early Childhood Research and is the first one that I wrote about transcription. At the time of submission (see my blog post of April 2008) I was pretty happy with the article, especially because of feedback that friends provided. I thought it the best work I've done so far in relation to journal writing. And, I am especially thrilled to produce something about transcription according to the writing "program" that i set myself at the end of 2007 i.e. to write a series of three articles about transcription.

In a number of ways, 2008 didn't feel so productive because I didn't publish much, however at the time I put that down to dealing with new data (in the case of the At Home in Cyberspace project)and to the time it took to complete a review of transcription literature from 1979-2009. I am hopeful that I will see the fruits of that labour in 2009.

The slow crawl towards having a good publication record has taught/is teaching me a lot. Most especially, I have seen how important it is to keep writing, even when teaching during term, given the time it takes to produce an article and get it accepted. I've tried to stick to doing writing every morning and delaying opening work emails and dealing to other matters that are pressing until I've written. Writing comes first and then the rest.

I'm not ashamed to say that writing journal articles hasn't come easily to me but I am pleased to say that it is getting easier. In some ways, writing and getting published has kept me in the game at a time when higher education work can be dire. Setting personal goals has worked a treat in relation to that. My writing on transcription has really come out of a desire to make a contribution to research in relation to transcription and was driven by a lot of questions that my PhD work provoked in relation to transcribing multi-party talk in the classroom. I could have let it go but the more I read about transcription, the more I realised that i did have something worthwhile to say. And, saying something worthwhile seems to me to be the only tenable game in town if I'm to continue as an academic in difficult times.

So, I've returned to some good news and a need to write some more. I have to finish the Wiggles paper, and I need to analyse some more data to write some more. I've been doing some reading which also helps to inspire. Today i've been reading some chapters from:

Hutchby, I., and Moran-Ellis, J. (Eds.). (2001). Children, technology and culture: The impacts of technologies in children's everyday lives. London; New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

It's a great book and I've particularly enjoyed a couple of chapters:

Robinson, I., and Delahooke, A. (2001). Fabricating friendships: The ordinariness of agency in the social use of an everyday medical technology in the social lives of children. In I. Hutchby and J. Moran-Ellis (Eds.), Children, technology and culture: The impacts of technologies in children's everyday lives (pp. 81-96). London; New York: RoutledgeFalmer.


Hemmings, T. A., Clarke, K. M., Francis, D., Marr, L., and Randall, D. (2001). Situated knowledge and virtual education: Some real problems with the concept of learning and interactive technology. In I. Hutchby and J. Moran-Ellis (Eds.), Children, technology and culture: The impacts of technologies in children's everyday lives (pp. 97-113). London; New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

The second article was particular illuminating for its consideration of children's interactions with technology designed for learning (in a museum). I made connections between the article and my own work on the Wiggles game, whereby (1) a relatively simple game (in adult terms or those of more competent gamers)is occasioned as complex when used in the home by a child or children, and (2) the educational value designed into a game is not necessarily taken up in its use.

Plenty to bring to fruition in my work in 2009!

what! me?

I don't often post pics of myself but I thought this one was worthy of an airing. here I am in 1975, hanging out (as you did then) with my guitar. it's a great period piece, no? the pic was taken by a friend (Robyn Donaghue) who did a series of black and white pics of me for a uni assignment. I'd quite forgotten this particular photo which my sister had and produced on my recent visit over xmas. Anyone who plays a guitar will note that i'm in C major chord position, and most folk who were young around the same time will recognise the trappings of the time.

My sister also gave me another pic. This one is of my grandmother, Patience Davidson. Patience lost her eyesight shortly after birth. I figure that Patience was in her early twenties when this pic was taken, so she was around the same age as I was in the pic above.

I find this pic interesting, most particularly because my grandmother read braille through her finger tips yet is posed as if she is looking at the book (without her hands on the page which was necessary for reading).

both pics are now period pieces i think.