[Xmca-l] Re: The Annotated Bibliography Project (ABP)

[Katherine Brown]

Greetings to all
 I’m typically more involved in conversations about  lchc  and its many forms of distributed collaboration than xmca per se, and in any case post very infrequently to any list.  
 
I think there are many of us lurkers and infrequent posters, even with many years of being  on this or other  list(s) who  enjoy many of the threads and this way of being.   I hope that this continues to be an ok way to be in the community because for me its a matter of  too little time and too many other email-based  tasks to  manage.  But I enjoy hearing others’ voices  and learning from the conversations.  

 Recent suggestions for xmca have me  reflecting  on the  labor of the multi-year effort to create  lchcwiki (which several of us spent many years on from 2008 9-ish  and continue to tinker with where we have time.)   

Even with all that was existing to pull from and how helpful many generations of people, alumni and friends of lchc were  then and continue to be  we are continually  surprised by how much work it requires to keep such an effort alive, even at minimal maintenance mode,  with all the various demands on people’s time. 
 
Anyway, what drew my attention was familiarity in the kinds of suggestions for  invigorating communities and creating new resources, wikis, archives and discussion spaces.  Thought it was worth noting the relevance of  a lot of history on the lchc website archive and lchc wiki pages and possibly elsewhere others have mentioned that I’ve missed,  when searching for key texts. 
 I appreciate  prior suggestions from members of the community to read around and look at such  sources, (and perhaps add to them where indicated) as a way to help any person learn, look at models of others' efforts, and save time as they go about creating something new, (given the work entailed by any number of the suggestions made for enhancing xmca).  

Thanks for your time, 

Katherine Brown
Associate Professor, Communication 
CSU San Marcos
(UCSD and LCHC alumna  and  one of several co-editors of lchcwiki)

 


________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 8:55 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Annotated Bibliography Project (ABP)

I like the idea of ranking them 1-5, from intro to very complex.

H


Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com

On Dec 14, 2014, at 6:12 PM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:

> Esteemed discussants!
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> The Annotated Bibliography Project
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> Helena and I have decided as a part of the Newcomer's Project to compile a list of important sociocultural texts and incorporate annotations to these entries (ideally to host in the wiki??).
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> So I'm initiating a request: Would you kindly offer up texts (APA format is gratefully accepted). This project is deemed The Annotated Bibliography Project or possibly The ABP, or just The AB, or perhaps affectionately "the alpha-beta"!!
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> Then in addition, if you please, submit with your entry(ies) a small comment explaining the text(s) and why it(they) is(are) important (We'll keep your name attached, but if this is problematic, email your list privately to me and your name will be removed from the entry). Any comment should be 100 words or less, this will be adhered to as strictly as possible.
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> Helena and I will be working together to edit these entries and their comments (initially anyway) just to be certain there is some cohesion.
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> Designations for Reading Level
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> Please provide a designation for the text as to whether it is a beginning or advanced text.
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> We might use a grading system of 1 through 5 along these lines:
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> 1. Introductory (no previous exposure to texts by Vygotsky, et al is expected)
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> 2. Beginning (some familiarity with introductory texts and themes).
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> 3. Intermediate (quite familiar with introductory and beginning texts and themes).
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> 4. Advanced (quite familiar with intro, beginning, and intermediate texts and themes).
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> 5. Master (requires mastery of full gamut of texts and themes).
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> More About Comments
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> The idea beyond a compiled list, is also to create a comment context (how, TBD) with each text possessing a cluster of comments. List members visiting the wiki page may post comments concerning the text (100 words or less). This would be a space in which controversial aspects of the text might be noted, or other histories to consider.
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> Comments are to provide sense to novices and experts alike; they are a means for setting context for any given text-item. Further, by having pluralities of comments (again, each comment 100 words or less), deeper contexts will likely emerge and provide a different quality of access to novices, by revealing deeper understandings usually lost to novices, who can only note surface features.
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> "Expansions"
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> Thinking out loud, it is entirely possible that substantial debates might ensue about contexts of a text. This would entail a requirement to "take it outside." In that case, this should (ideally) manifest in a separate wikipage and that could be linked to from the ABP wikipage. So anyone who has to air something out will have the space to do so.
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> What Goes In
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> Since this list will be authored by the community, it is assumed that this list will be sanctioned by the community as important texts to the community here.
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> Helena thought we could do a top 100, which is a good large number. However, I have a sense that spots will fill quickly, so I'd prefer to see what happens. Regardless, 100 is a good number to shoot for! I don't think debating over what should be put in or taken off the list would be fruitful, so if it grows beyond 100, the more the merrier. And, in that case of a large and long list, annotations (comments) will enable a visitor to decide for oneself after evaluating said comments what is worth reading.
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> Reading as a Community Effort
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> One aspect of being a member of xmca is the READING involved!!! It is my experience that academics are faced with little time to read, though this is not restricted to academics. :) Annotations can assist in breaking down the chore of reading by providing some "pre-reading" content, which might save time over all for everyone. Of course, those who are retired have more free time and can annotate away!
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> Thusly: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. :)
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> With this in mind, who knows, the annotated bibliography may become as valued by experts as it would by novices!!! Imagine that!
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> To The Task; Take Action: The Takeaway
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> So if you would like to send (or post to the list) your choices and the accompanying (1-5) reading level designation, with your comment (100 words or less), I will start collecting entries and post to the list as it grows by 10s.
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> If you don't have time to submit comments, we will try to farm out the comments to someone else, but at least the text will make the list, so don't restrain yourself from making a submission because you don't want to comment. The inversion of this is feel free to submit if you already see a text on the list, just submit your comment and indicate its text, and your comment will be added to the entry.
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> The Final Form
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> Once the list is launched, there will the text in APA, the abstract, page length or word count (if that makes sense), and links pointing where to find these texts (such as marxists.org or perhaps a storage bin at XMCA, but also perhaps to the publisher's pages). This will be hosted at the wiki, I anticipate.
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> Kind regards,
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> Annalisa
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