Christina Blanch Monthy Summary - January31

EDAC 631 MONTHLY SUMMARY  - CHRISTINA BLANCH - GROUP 2

As mentioned in my introduction post, I am Christina Blanch. As we have just been assigned our groups, there is not much to summarize. My group is small, consisting only of Kristin Walsh and myself. We have exchanged contact information and are starting to communicate about our group project. Kristin and I did set up a blog at edac631group2.blogspot.com. If you are reading this on the blog, you know that. This is where we will post all of our project related assignments, including our monthly summaries and our final project. 

As for future plans, we are each choosing an educator in the field of adult education and then will plan that research. If the educator is alive and willing, we plan to interview them, most likely via email but possibly skype. If the educators we choose are no longer with us, then we will resort to researching their lives using other sources. We will also begin to plan what two groups we want to investigate. We would like the groups to be in the same area so it will be easier for us to mesh the programs together. We are just starting these discussions as Kristin and I are getting to know one another. We will also soon begin to plan what organizations we want to introduce to the class through our blog. 

For myself, the readings have been very helpful in preparing us for the upcoming research. I feel as I am getting to know the adult education field much more than I did a few weeks ago. I have never really been involved in adult education per se as I have only taught on campus and in the correctional education system. However, I have taught ‘adults’ before as the prisoners ranged in ages and I have had non-traditional students in my campus classes. 

Personally, this has been a stressful few weeks for me as I am writing my comprehensive exams, too, and also preparing for the MOOC I am teaching which is taking a lot of time. I have many other projects, such as transcribing interviews for a project I am doing with Dr. Elena Polush, my graduate assistantship duties, gathering interviews for my MOOC at several comic cons during the next few months, writing my weekly comic that will debut in March on thrillbent.com, putting together a conference in March on teaching with comics, preparing for three presentations at academic conferences (ICQI and AERA), and preparing for taking part in three panel discussions at C2E2, a comic con in Chicago, about teaching with comics. One panel will be a live ‘interview session’ for the MOOC I am teaching. However, I feel as if I allowing enough time for each project. My children may disagree with me. And, sleep? It will come later.