What's this

For over a year now I’ve been thinking about doing a PhD to be able to carry out research on the many ideas I’ve been playing around with in my research over the past few years. Some answers to some questions:

Why do a PhD? Because I need to stop and think about what I’ve been doing and because, though it sucks being a ‘technician’-but-really-a-language-teacher here in Italy, I can get 3 years off to do a PhD?

Why now? Midlife crisis? And since I’m already doing research with Fran…

Why in Germany? In the end it’s Rob’s fault Couldn’t find anyone here interested in telecollaboration, new technologies and new literacies. Didn’t want to do a PhD in this messed up system in Italy. Wanted to learn a new language and be part of a new culture. Rob put me in touch with Markus, who is interested in the affordances of these new technolgies…

What about the title? Well. I grew up in a country that though ‘grand’ was completely isolated from the rest of the world and VERY monolingual. My first years in Italy were tough with no easy way to communicate with family and friends and then technology made all this easier. Then I began to integrate technology into my teaching, the computer-as-tutor type thing. Then I attended a workshop by Rob which opened my eyes to the possibility of having students communicate with one another across all sorts of boundaries, be they physical or idological, in order to allow them to move beyond the limited sphere of their limited world into the global world. Then I started working with Fran, who helped me focus on the importance of critically understanding these technologies beyond their face value in order to help our students become thinkers and, hopefully consequently, do-ers.

Why a blog? I’ve always thought about keeping a blog but it’s not a part of my personality. When I started doing research, I came across several blogs held by PhD students and found them useful and intersting. Then, when I was attending the Summer School in Antwerp, the teachers pointed out the importance of keeping track of what we are thinking and doing in our research. So here will be my, hopefully, whole-hearted attempt to do this. Finally, if you’re investigating new technologies and online literacies you’ve got to be a part of it. And after using Blogger for years, Markus suggested I use WordPress, so here we go!