See below!!! lol
I’m finding it hard to come up with a research topic that will
A. be of use and
B. be of interest (mostly to me as I have to do it)
So, I’m toying with something to do with church and tech, but what? Should I look at youth work? (would seem to make sense) But what about it?
I guess what I hope I’ll get out of it, apart from a Masters is some sense of training needs and where we are at.
I’m assuming that since it’s a project on research itself rather than the subject of the research (if you see what I mean), then you’re looking at how to analyse and deal with data. Or have I misunderstood?
So, what sort of data could be collected and analysed in the field of tech/youthwork? Use of social networking, blogs, forums, im? Audio/video presentations? It might be interesting to see whether the usual ‘labels’ – liberal, evangelical, moderate, etc – actually follow through in their stereotypes when it comes to use of tech or whether there are ‘anomalies’ where, eg, a literal fundamentalist will still use a video presentation to make a point.
If this is way off the mark in terms of what you mean, please feel free to clarify because I’m not entirely sure I understand what your project is.
Just as a passing comment, one of my fellow students is doing their dissertation on web-based youthwork. Don’t think their supervisor is terribly impressed – not sufficiently academic, I suspect.
No, I have to do the research!!!
Have you looked at
http://ltsblogs.org.uk/consolarium/
what about the impact of social networking on youth work?
games based / technology based learning?
how technology has impacted on communication with and between young people?
Thanks Rich. All great ideas but maybe a little too big. My problem is that the study will be fairly limited so needs to be quite specific and do-able. Something like ‘How do church youth workers in Scotland employ computer and mobile phones as tools to enable learning with young people?’ but I’m not convinced it’s there yet.
Can’t be all that different from use in wider education, surely? Except that in some churches there is a much greater degree of digital illiteracy among the adults, so the gulf is greater. (This is my particular bee-in-bonnet at the moment – doing a presentation at diocesan synod next month)
I’d be interested to know what you’re saying! We’re about to have a bit of a rethink about our synod website and the kinds of digital tools we can use to help us in our work throughout the synod.