Roberta Foizey in the teacher scholar role

I think the first step toward incorporating technology into my scholarship is to recognize all of the research I've never read and how available it is through electronic databases. I'm not proposing that I should exclude the printed word from my future endeavors, but I'm realizing I can inform my research through what feels like exponential avenues. My established practices of doing superficial searches in Academic Search Elite (at my home university) and ultimately sifting through page after page in the stacks has shifted (not a paradigm shift, mind you). Although at first overwhelming, the volume of research that can influence where I step is almost too exciting.

Beyond the influence others' research will have on me, I am looking forward to my voice in the mix. Obviously, I can't deny that every move I make in my own work will occur with the understanding that I'm standing on the shoulders of many. What I value in that is the idea that they, too, were being born by others, and their research was, in part, intended for a new rider.

In terms of how my role as teacher scholar will impact my coursework, even as early as this fall, is exciting, too. The first mini effort I'll undertake is finding a way to incorporate some piece of technology that the students already use for personal reasons, and ask them to use it for the coursework. Obviously this isn't defined fully yet, but I can imagine a different classroom that was up to this point "technology free," and finding ways to help students use a variety of new (to me) methods to support their work.