my additions would be:

1) highlighting the role that dr luehmann played, and continues to play, in bringing us together as a research group, being our friend, philosopher, guide, mentor, and more and more…

2) authorship

Parental involvement:
1) what is the nature of parental involvement?
2) parents knowledge and belief about their children and the effect of it on children?
3) the relationship between the Freedom school staff and parents and the effect of it on children?
4)parental learning?

* highs/lows – personal connections really matter
* balance of project and research work both in meetings and outside meetings
* work is intended to complement students’ place in program and other pressures (e.g. so everyone gets a chance to publish, present, develop research, conduct interviews, etc. – depending on what they need and what will fit with other demands)
* give and take – most pressing issues first
* use the group to access resources – e.g. conversations with senior scholars

That’s what I got for now… thanks for starting the conversation Michael!
*A-

Commenters are responding to particular “work” being done. This work can be connected to the cognitive/affective components that Alsup recognizes as a needed component for professional identity development.

So I feel like a question is: How did blogging contribute to the development of a professional identity?

– blogging about the comprehensive
* including the affective, cognitive, and physical

Comments are used as:
- support/encouragement
- to share resources
- to mentor/guide
- explicitly offer help
- to relate
- to share related experiences

Problems with identity development as a teacher/ professional development
Knowledge being misunderstood as purely intellectual and as a consequence there has been a suppression of multiple ways of knowing. Alsup argues that separating the affective from the intellectual hinders the professional identity development.

Alsup maintains that, “secondary school teachers must develop a sense of professional identity that successfully incorporates their personal subjectivities into the professional/cultural expectations of what it means to be a ‘teacher’. This professional identity formation happens through a new teacher’s participation in various genres of discourse that facilitate a dialogic engagement with students, mentors, teacher educators, family, and peers and even in internal dialogues with personal subjectivities or ideologies.” (p. 27)

This paper argues that the practices involved in blogging afford teachers an opportunity to engage in discussion about the affective, the cognitive, and the physical. Internal dialoguing in the form of blog posts (reference to blogging as journaling) and dialogic engagement with like-minded professionals provides opportunities for self-actualization, growth and professional identity development.

Does the blog offer learning opportunities for teachers to develop a professional identity?

What are the learning opportunities?
- Exploring the cognitive, affective, and physical
- Self-actualization through journaling
- Engagement with like-minded professionals

What features of the blog contribute to these learning opportunities?
- Cultural expectations of the blog differ drastically from that of the school.
o A space is provided that has a shared Discourse, which may (or may not be) shared locally.