Essential Questions for Research

Well, I guess the essential question that I am asking in this project is what exactly is the ultimate goal of connectivity?  Then, based on that goal, are we creating the efficient avenues to achieving those goals.  Essentially, what kinds of discursive products are being used, re-contextualized, or produced to accomplish these goals.  Blogging is a discursive product that has essentially be re-contextualized by Ceibal, and they have had some problems in accomplishing their goals of putting the voices of their students out there.  So is blogging the write discursive product or do we have to produce something else.  Or do we have to re-imagine the genre.  Or does it have to be used in conjunction with some other avenues.    

Rising Voices is not only concerned with student blogs but also the with creation of a digital infrastructure to poor, rural communities in the third world.  Thinking about the theoretical framework for this study I think we are looking at discourse, genre analysis and community information infrastructure.  This last one would possibly relate to an extension of community literacies.  Looking too at communication technologies and digital community network setup as products of discourse.  An interesting turn may be to look at the way in which new products arise in a discourse.  Does the ideology change or does the available means of production change.