There’s so much really cool stuff happening at AERA this year (as always), but I miss so much of it because the tools to organize my experience here are, um, challenged. I’d really want to challenge the planning committee to address some of these tools. Here are a few suggestions:

• Better online search: Let me search by keywords. Give me recommendations and suggestions based on what I search for. Why not fill out a whole suggested schedule for me based on distance and time and my interests, and what others who viewed what I viewed also viewed (ala Amazon.com)? Let me adjust my calendar more easily (UI). Give me an easy way to export it or email it to myself in multiple usable formats (iCal, .PDF, text, etc.) with links that I can click for more information, in case I forget why I chose it and can’t tell by the title. Let me adjust what information I want to show up in my personalized format.
• Google Calendars: let me subscribe to a google calendar for all the SIGs and Divisions, etc. Let me turn them on and off as I wish. Use the location feature, so I can see where they are, and copy individual sessions from a bunch of different SIGs to my own personalized AERA google calendar. Google Calendar is already pretty well optimized for slow internet access and mobile phones, so it would be easy and quick for me to use my mobile device to find out where I need to go next. It would be incredibly more efficient than the printed program, which is awful (really) and heavy and PLEASE don’t make me need it anymore!!
• Map the Rooms: let me make intelligent decisions about the sequence of sessions by warning me that the session I just scheduled is 12 blocks from the previous session that scheduled. Offer me suggestions of Nearby Sessions that I might be interested in (based on my choices so far). Or again, suggest a whole day for me based on my interests. Since technology now makes this all fairly simple, link this info all together.
• Diversify Me: I don’t always know whose sessions to go to, so I sometimes just take the easy route and see the folks I already know, and end up not really moving beyond the research group I already know. You, dear magical program of my dreams, can save me from nepotism! Or make a good effort toward that end.

So do it. Make my AERA 2011 that much better. Please.

Paper done. Going to upload it this morning (hopefully). Here it is: 550k pdf.

“Where Boys Can Be Boys” – Investigating Cultural Models at a Woods Camp

Abstract: Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) suggests a somewhat circular process of identity influence, and posits that what we believe and value is revealed in our activity; and conversely, what we do is influenced by the beliefs of the community of which we are a part. Using Activity Theory’s third principle of “Historicity” (Engeström, 2001), this paper considers the contradictions, tensions, conflicts and breakdowns of cultural models at a traditional New England camp for boys over time, and raises questions on how and why the cultural models have evolved. Interviews and identity artifacts of recent campers are compared with historical camp artifacts in order to better understand how the cultural models have developed, and what forms of cultural narratives are most effective in promoting and preserving attitudes and belief systems.