[Air-L] iPad as Research Tool

Ben Light B.Light at salford.ac.uk
Fri Jul 16 06:21:34 PDT 2010


I've been watching this thread and glad the discussion has finally come 
back round to the idea that, basically, what's good for one, might not 
be good for another.  My own experience is a good example even within a 
project:

I'm working as part of a team studying and engaging in practice aimed at 
getting boys and young men engaged in the maintenance of their sexual 
health. On the one hand we've created videos which show you how to put a 
condom on properly - this will get distributed on the net, but also will 
be shown to young people in parks and other public spaces they hang 
out.  We're doing this because at the moment outreach workers have to 
take condom demonstrators, essentially red dildos, out into the field 
and it can be kind of embarrassing and clunky to do the demonstration in 
public - but they have to do this so they can hand over the condoms to 
an 'educated' person.  The idea is that now they can take the videos out 
on a phone, ipod or ipad or whatever rather than having to take the 
condom demonstrators.  Now, we had the discussion about screen size (no 
don't go there!)...   Were phone screens big enough, should they use 
itouches or ipads.  ipads were ruled out due to their 'coolness' 
specifically viz cost and safety - we didn't want the outreach workers 
getting mugged!  Battery life we do need to consider as they are out in 
the field and not near a socket.  However, in another part of the 
project we are seriously considering using iPads as a way of nurses 
collecting data and as a way of getting feedback from service users 
within a clinic setting.  In other areas we're using bog standard pcs 
and mobile phones to collect data.  So... this is a long winded way of 
me saying - it's just a question of what you consider to be the right 
'tool' for the right job.

Finally, I like Barry's idea and I think this comes up in some of the 
other posts - sometimes we can be too quick not to think about the role 
of technology in shaping our experiences as researchers and indeed that 
of our research participants. I wonder if there are any historical 
studies to offer some background? I guess if anyone is like me, I'm 
arguing against technological determinism that much, I end up a tad 
socially deterministic.  As an antedote, I've recently done some work 
around the ethics of Facebook with Kathy McGrath where we drew on 
disclosive ethics and ANT - others might find them helpful for a study 
of the role of the non-human in the research process - that is if you 
can live with ANT!  Kathy did a good job of beating it into me only for 
us to later downplay it's role :O)

B.

Ben Light
Professor of Digital Media
Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Centre
Associate Head of School - Research and Innovation
School of Media, Music and Performance
University of Salford
Adelphi House
SALFORD
M3 6EN

Tel. +44 (0)161 295 5443

www.benlight.org
www.smmp.salford.ac.uk


On 16/07/2010 13:50, Barry Wellman wrote:
> Thanks danah for showing us 1 way the iPad could be useful in 
> research, rather than just entertainment or being kewl: "mine is 
> bigger than your's." ***I still maintain that the iOS is an inadequate 
> engine, and as for battery life, most peeps in all but poorest 
> countries have electricity in their homes.***
>
> Of course, we're kinda obsolescent, but when NetLab did the COnnected 
> Lives interview, our piloting found that laptops were a distraction -- 
> both intimadating and fascinating -- and we went to a modified 
> paper-pen-stickynote data collection technique. Read about it in our 
> Field Methods paper (also on my website).
>
> Bernie Hogan, Juan-Antonio Carrasco and Barry Wellman. 2007. 
> "Visualizing Personal Networks: Working with Participant-Aided 
> Sociograms." Field Methods 19 (2), May: 116-144.
>
> Maybe it would be useful if CITASA, AOIR, CSCW had a session or 2 on 
> data gathering gadgets. I've seen lots on data analysis -- the Sunbelt 
> Social Network conference was filled with dazzling ones -- but little 
> on the pesky problem of getting the stuff in.
>
> YMMV IMHO -- my .02
>
>  Barry Wellman
>  _______________________________________________________________________
>
>   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
>   Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
>   University of Toronto   Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:barrywellman
>   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman             fax:+1-416-978-3963
>   Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>  _______________________________________________________________________
>
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