Jingyu EDUC500

Walking with video is a phenomenological research method that entails walking with and recording participants as they experience, talk, and show their material, immaterial, and social environments. In Pink’s case, she walked with her participants around a community garden on several occasions. She also video-recorded their walk as her participants guided her through the site and explained to her their involvement and experiences in the garden project. Her participants’ experiences of the place are socially negotiated, and yet the interactions and behaviours are individualised and personal. Pink’s participants showed and told her about the community garden as they experienced it together. It gave Pink the opportunity to use her own sensory embodied experience, for example walking in the rain on wet grass or feeling the texture of brickweave path, to empathise with her participants’ experiences. With “place” being the central concept, the research would be able to “sensing place, placing...

This study explored users’ interaction with a chatbox interface in language learning. The interactions were videotaped, accompanied with individual interviews afterwards. What surprised me: The author started the introduction with conversations he/she had with the students about CSIEC, a chatbox system used in language learning. It is an interesting way to draw the audiences into a discussion about the user experience of a computer programme. I was intrigued by the way the author presented it and wanted to read more about it. Things to take away/questions The author used abbreviation from the start and did not explain what CSIEC is until the third page. I wonder what type of audience we should have in mind while writing our own thesis? Are we writing for someone with specific knowledge? If not, how might it affect the way we write? The author explicitly differentiated ethnographic methodology (whole process of research) and ethnographic research methods (an approach or technique to col...