Blogging for the dissertation

I've finally got started with gathering research pointers for my MA dissertation, and figured I needed a place to put them together. This blogspot was looking old, tired and disused, so with a lick of paint and a bunch of links, it becomes useful. I hope.

I'm a secondary English teacher in Newbury, Berkshire, studying for the MA in English and Language in Education at Reading University - four modules done (Mentorship, Poetry Teaching, Children's Books in Education, Media in Education), and just the dissertation to go. It'll be about the potential value of social networking technologies in education, specifically to do with the development of creative writing. So it really has to have a blog to go with it.

Anyway, the first area of research I'm looking at is to do with collaboration and writing - I'm interested in the history of creative writing in English teaching over the past forty years; secondly, I'm trying to get a handle on the work that's been done on looking at social networking in education; and thirdly, I'm looking at creative writing communities on the web, and using them to develop the one I've set up for my creative writing troupe at school.

Yes, it could get a bit overwhelming... So any pointers, comments, votes of solidarity, whatever, will be heartily welcomed and appreciated.