Monday's down - Thursday on its way

My presentation went well, even by my own standards - and I think I'm my own worse critic. It was an odd forum - people presenting on really different topics all seemingly pulled together by the term 'multimodal'  represented somewhere in their title or abstract. My presentation was probably mostly aligned to Stephen's as we were both grappling with analytical frameworks and how to accommodate for the visual and multimodal in our data. But whereas his was more focused on the actually data, mine was a conceptual exploration of how important the epistemological stance underpinning your theoretical, methodological and analytical frameworks is. An important point I raised was how difficult it actually is put into practice what you say conceptually - so while I say I'm doing ethnographic research, am I really taking on board what that means in relation to my data?

As I said it was an odd forum - usually its a space for students to present their work-in-progress but this time around an academic was asked to present. Most academics who come to these presentation are the supervisors of the students presenting, so it mostly feels like a safe, try-out space to present your work. With the academic presenter presence, it changed the dynamic as more academics were present who don't really have a direct connection to your work, so the stakes are increased. I was left wondering, especially after my supervision last week - 'Where is the safe space to express your understanding, your thinking, where you are allowed to not get it right without fear of being overtly judged, but rather guided gently down a more appropriate path?' Or I'm I just living in cloud cuckoo land, expecting too much and not accepting my responsibility as a PhD student?

I'm still battling the 'practice' of academic presentations, but realised more than ever yesterday that to be an academic today means communicating your work, in a particular way, in both the written and the spoken - and with predominance of new digital technologies - all of this needs to be executed with the savy use of the right technological resources.

Thursday brings new challenges in the form of the Ac lits forum where I am leading the discussion on the use of Bernstein in my research and in academic literacies research in general. The setting is more intimate, and maybe its less performance based and so in 'theory' we can ask stupid questions - well that's the theory anyway. But I guess I will get more challenging questions and really have to know my curriculum from my codes in Bernstein speak!. So I'm putting my head down over the next couple of days, which isn't too bad a prospect taking into the account that the ground outside is covered in fluffy white stuff and I seem to be developing a bit of a chesty 'something'.