DrJoolz Snapshotz on Life

Sarah has this about a new blog she has set up for a new class. Also on her blog is a link to something she is reading at the moment on pedagogy and space. I have copied and ordered it too.
I have aalso ordered the book Kate is interested in on second hand stuff. (So by reading two blog posts I have managed to spend nearly fifty squid.)
I can’t believe that Sarah has been doing a Masters as well as a PhD… and teaching. Wow.

Both these books will help with what I am doing on Flickr and representations of domesticity. This is the abstract at the moment:

Public Displays of the Domestic: online presentations and readings of ‘the everyday’

Drawing on a study of a photo-sharing website (Flickr.com), this paper explores ways in which domestic life is represented and talked about through online screen based images, in an online space where traditional boundaries between the public and private spheres are being extended, challenged or eroded. The paper reflects on the presentation and subjects of the images; the narratives around them, and the affordances and practices which are impacting on the ways in which we see and represent our ‘everyday selves and lives’. The paper considers the impact of new technologies on the ways in which we are representing our identities and lives in online spaces. The paper views the interactions on Flickr as instantiating literacy as a social practice (REF) using the notion of multi-literacies, which is inclusive of a range of modes within its conceptualisation of literacy (REF). Thus, a multimodal approach to the analysis of images is adopted, following the work of Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996; 2001, and Van Leeuwen and Jewitt (2001) as well as Pink’s work on Visual Ethnography (2001 and Hine’s work on Virtual Ethnography (DATE). It also draws on the work of cultural theorists of the everyday (de Certeau, 1988) and of photographic representations of the everyday, such as Kuhn (1985) and Hirsh (2002). Third space theory (Soja, 1996) is invoked to explore aspects of the global/local practices on Flickr, and to reflect on the processes of online social learning, with particular reference to our reconfigurations of the domestic.

So I am interested in space as a metaphor to describe something like the development of shared meanings in spaces where collaborative social learning takes place - but especially the idea that a space gets created through the shared meanings.

Something else to say … I think the RAE is a pain.
We have all had to highlight the four publications we want to be counted in the RAE and these have been graded by an external assessor as a practice RAE from 1 - 4 with 4 as the highest. One of mine gets a 2, which frankly, is rather crap. Yet this paper is one that has been downloaded the most since last July in the journal it is in.. see here. Does this mean that the people who download are only after mediocre work? Does it mean they are all bad judges? Does it mean the RAE reader is wrong and should think again? Does it mean the criteria for assessment in the RAE are not useful? What does it mean?

Finally, just when you think you are clever, this can happen:

One guy fell asleep on the subway and so his friend gleefully took photos of him on his ‘cell phone’. He happily texted these pix around the place and kept looking at fellow passengers for approval.

What he did not know was that we were the clever ones, shooting him. (Did anyone shoot us?)