Thoughts on Publishing and on Being an Academic

It's the end of the year, and I'm growing reflective. I'm thinking back over the past year, the things I've done, and the things I've left undone. I deliberately didn't set a lot of goals for this year (in my first post of this year I talked some about that), but informally, I figured I would do some writing, and try to publish a few things. I've become an academic...and that's a big part of what academics do, after all.

One of my proudest accomplishments--academically speaking--of the past academic year was getting an article I co-wrote with two of my professional colleagues and friends published in a highly regarded EdTech journal. Our piece is entitled "Assessing Digital Nativeness in Pre-Service Teachers: Analysis of the Digital Natives Assessment Scale and Implications for Practice," and we got it published in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, which is a top-10 journal in the EdTech field (depending on the way the question is asked, anyway. I'm basing it on the research included in the chapter "Where Should Educational Technologists Publish Their Research?") Matt and Jake and I have been researching different aspects of the so-called "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" for several years, and have presented some of our research together at conferences, and now have published this piece. It was a lot of work, but gratifying to see our research in print. 

But I recently read this piece from John Hwang entitled "Christian Scholars have a Distribution Problem," and boy did this resonate with me. Hwang's basic argument is that academics are doing great work...but very few people wind up reading/viewing the work because it's often (primarily) done for others within our specific guilds. And this connected with me...because who is really going to read the article Matt and Jake and I published? Honest answer: probably only a handful of other EdTech researchers who are also interested in the digital natives/digital immigrants "construct," and the problems associated with the abject lack of empirical evidence for it.

In fact, I can check how many people have cited our work on Google Scholar...and after a year out in the world, it has been cited by...wait for it...ONE person so far. I hope that a few others have actually read the piece, but I don't really know if they have. And if they have read it, have they found it beneficial in any substantive way?

On the other hand, I write things here on the blog--infrequently as they come--and I regularly have 100+ people read the posts I'm putting out in this format. My most read posts have had 10,000+ reads, though there are precious few in that category; only 3 or 4 over the decade I've been writing on here. But I've had 440,000 views of things I've written on this little ol' blog in that decade, and that feels like something substantial. In contrast, I've had a total of 38 citations of things I've published formally as journal articles, book reviews, and chapters in edited books in that same 10 year period. While I'm quite sure I've had more than 38 people read those pieces that have gone through peer review...it's still a striking difference.

The numbers don't tell the whole story, of course. Certainly there is a difference in these two forms of writing, and the informality of publishing my thoughts-in-process on the blog is WILDLY DIFFERENT than the rigorously peer-reviewed approach to getting an article published in JRTE. Not to mention that I don't typically use my thickest educationese and academic writing style here--it's much more informal writing, and much more of "here's what I'm thinking about in the 30 minutes I had to write this thing" rather than the careful, painstaking, thoroughly-sourced writing in a journal.

But I do wonder about whether the things I write here on the blog have more practical value for the readers than the more academic writing I also do. Is this going to be more likely to spur a conversation between practicing educators than a journal article? I wonder about this, and it makes me think I should keep writing things and pushing my first-draft thinking here.

Or take podcasting as another experiment in informal publishing. Along with my Education department buddies, Abby and Matt, we started recording Hallway Conversations about a year ago. In that time, we have had just about 11,000 downloads over 44 episodes. This means we are averaging about 250 listens to each episode--which is a modest audience by some measures, but I'm incredibly grateful for the dedicated community of regular listeners we've developed over time. We get feedback, questions, and affirmations regularly from our listeners, and this gives us a fair confidence that what we are putting out into the world each week is fostering valuable reflection and discussion, at least for a small number of educators. 

Is there value in traditional, peer-reviewed academic publishing? Certainly. And I'm grateful that I get to do this, and that people have read and cited my work--this is affirmation that it is valued, at least by people in my weird little guild of EdTech researchers.

But is there also value in non-traditional, more informal publishing venues? I think so. And, when push comes to shove...are these going to be more impactful for practice for educators than peer-reviewed articles that are likely to end up behind a paywall or in an academic library on a university campus? I'm thinking that this is likely the case.

The real problem for me is time. I have lots of ideas of things I'd like to research and write about. I'm most limited by the amount of time I have to dedicate to this work that I find so enjoyable! So this prompts the question for me: where should I devote my limited time? Peer-reviewed writing for my guild that is more reputable and reliable, but less likely to be accessed? Or informally-published work that has less prestige, but might have more widespread impact? 

Regardless of the answer to this question, I hope I'll keep doing both for the foreseeable future. And I know I've got a couple of books in me too...it's just a matter of finding the time to start writing them!

Image by Mohammed Hassan via Pixabay

Overcoming Writer's Block

I have written so very little this summer, and that pains me in some ways.

Writing is so often cathartic, and a key part of my reflective practice as an educator.

I enjoy writing, most of the time.

But this summer has been...well, my life is rich and full.

And my rich, full life means I have not been able to prioritize some things that I really enjoy, including writing.

I have had some great adventures this summer, things that I've been mulling over how they might become blog posts: the story of getting stung by a stingray, the things I learned as a 40-something on a high ropes course, my typical post-Royal Family Kids Camp reflections, how my dog and I are both turning into curmudgeonly old grumps on our morning walks, how my faith-life continues to develop, my son and I enjoying a sushi lunch, new approaches I've been trying for live meetings in online courses, a hilarious Bob Ross themed gift from a dear colleague...I have a lot I'm thinking about writing.

But, somehow, I haven't been able to prioritize the writing.

Sure, it has something to do with the preparations for the new academic year, which starts next Tuesday for me.

And it definitely has something to do with a very busy (joyful!) summer of teaching.

And I'm sure part of it is is that I'm having a hard time with a writing project I have to do, and despite my generally-positive disposition, I haven't been able to make the turn yet into making this a "get too" instead of "have to" proposition.

But I'm wondering right now if the underlying thing is actually that I got out of the habit this summer, and I'm just struggling to get the writing wheels turning again?

All of this to say, I'm hopeful that this post will help me overcome my writer's block, and get back at it!

Image via pixabay

A Few Thoughts on Intentionality

It's been over a month since my last post. I'd like to say that it was an intentional break, but that's not really true--at least not entirely.

I usually try to write at least one post a week, which keeps me actively writing. And, as one of my friends has repeatedly reminded me over the past year, writing is thinking...and a big part of my job as a professor is thinking. So in this sense, blogging is almost a professional responsibility for me, or at least thinking about my teaching, and what I'm reading, and how I'm connecting with my field is, and that's primarily what I try to do here on the blog.

But as the busyness of the end of the semester and the Christmas season swelled, I just didn't make time for writing. And then I was out of town over the holidays and I intentionally left my laptop at home, to have an intentional break from all things work-related. And now that I've been back in the office for the past week or so, I've been preparing syllabi for the new semester, and working on a new course that I'm teaching for the first time, and making plans for some additional courses for the EdTech track in our Master of Education program.

I feel like I'm making excuses for why I haven't been blogging. The reality is that I have not been intentional about creating space for it. I haven't felt inspired to write lately, and even though it gives me a lot of joy, it has felt too much like, well...work.

It's funny: while I was in grad school, I was blogging actively...and I was busy all the time between work and class and homework (and trying to keep up as a husband and father and church member) and yet I kept writing. I think partly it was because I was in the habit of reading and writing ALL THE TIME in grad school, and blogging was writing "just for me," which made it a joyful, life-giving thing. And honestly, I had to be intentional about it, because I had so many other things going on in my life, that if I wanted to keep writing on the blog, I had to carve out 20 minutes here or there to work on a post.

And so I'm thinking now about carving out some intentional time each week just for blogging. If I put it in my calendar, will I be more likely to stick to it? Probably.

I'm a little late for making New Year's resolutions, so we'll just call this an "intention" instead.

So here's my intention for this spring semester: I'm going to intentionally carve out space a couple of afternoons a week for reading and writing, and I'm going to intentionally work on at least one blog post each week.

That's my intention, anyway. We'll see how this goes.

Image from Pixabay. [Public Domain]

You know what? I discovered something I find funny and odd: there's an awful lot of photos of laptops and coffee mugs if you search for "blog" on Pixabay. Seriously...you should check it out for yourself.

Teaching Handwriting?

An experiment: I'm going to make a bold statement here, and I'd like you to notice your gut reaction to it, okay? You'll have to scroll down the page a bit to get to it, because I don't want you to read it immediately. Ready for this? All right, start scrolling...

Back to Writing

It's been almost a month since my last post.

I've thought about writing something, and I've even started a few "pieces of string"--just capturing a few rough thoughts as a pre-write for a post--but I just haven't had it in me to write anything of any substance lately.

It just hit me: I think I had some writing fatigue.

Duh?

I've written so much over the past four years during my doctoral work, and especially this past nine months as I've been working on my dissertation, that maybe I just needed some time not-writing.

Writer's Block

It has been a while since I've blogged. I miss this.

It's not that I haven't been writing at all; I've been working other things. I've been working on a couple of pieces for In All Things, and revising a chapter I've been writing with one of my professors. I have an article about half-way done too--still need to wrap up some data analysis before I can finish writing it. But the big one lately has been my dissertation proposal.

I had an afternoon blocked off to write the other day, so I started with a check of where things are. I have a draft of chapter 1 written, and got it back from my advisor with feedback. I'm pretty pleased with where things stand for that, actually, so I decided to go on and draft chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 (lit review) was overwhelming me--I have the outline written, and a ton of research already done, but I wasn't feeling it--so I went on to work on chapter 3 for a while (methodology.) I generated about 2 pages...

...and I hit a wall.

What's In Your Desk Drawer? Day 12

The December 2013 issue of Christian Educators Journal.

I have several issues of Christian Educators Journal in my desk drawer. (It's a pretty good journal for Christian teachers...if you're interested, you can read earlier issues here.)

I kept this particular issue, because it has an article by yours truly included. Check it out...

What's In Your Desk Drawer? Day 8

(This post is part of a series about the weird stuff teachers have in their desk drawers. You can read more about this project here, and I hope you'll share the stories of the weird stuff you have in your desk too!)

A mystery container!

In my desk drawer I have this container...which I think is an old tub for frosting (which I was thrifty enough to save, because I'm sure I'll find a use for it!)

What could be inside?

Oh, you'll never guess.

Here, take a peek: