In our class meeting this past Thursday John and Casey described the arc of their research. With Abby unable to make class due to sickness, Mark reported on her first interview. We look forward to hearing from Julia, who had technical problems accessing the network while away from campus.

The Research Reflections continue to be an important dimension of your work. We all benefit from your thoughtful and timely reflections on what you are doing as you move along your research timeline. In our class meeting we asked everyone to look over the reminder in the post Good Housekeeping.

With three weeks before we gather for a preview of the project sites (November 15 and 17) we talked about interviews and interviewing. Mark described Abby’s “test” or pilot interview and the value of doing a lower-stakes interview. Both technical and methodological questions will come up and we want to work through these questions together. In addition, the Resources page now has links to materials that will prove useful over the next few weeks. Please make use of them.

We agreed in class that next week we will debrief our first interviews or a test interview. So here is what you need to do:

• Conduct an oral interview
• upload the digital file to Soundcloud or Audacity and, if necessary, edit the file
• Post the audio file on your blog by Thursday morning
• listen to the interviews and take notes in preparation for debriefing and discussion

Our class session on Thursday October 20 will begin with the interviews.  You will share your thoughts on the interview, the questions you have about recording, the digital tools you are using, and/or your methodological questions about conducting an effective interview. We will then debrief as a group as you look ahead to a couple of weeks of interviewing.

Over the next few weeks you will be working on your project sites as well. The sites are now live and listed in the sidebar of the NAPLA site. These sites are “under construction” and we look forward to seeing you on the job site and to the progress you are making. One of the questions is how you plan to present the interviews on the site. There are many options and we need everyone to be thinking about these kinds of questions as you go about the interviewing process.

At any time please be in touch with Cole and Mark if you have questions. We are available on Tuesdays between 2-4 for individual or team conferences.