research problem

So, I am trying to think of a good way to interact with the research class. I wonder if I can present them with a research problem like this one:

Marshall McLuhan provocatively suggested that kids in the 1960s were trying to interact with print like it was a screen: they scanned print, looked around, but didn't focus on words, had trouble holding the line of the line. How might we research a claim or hyposthesis like this?

Or, I want to develop a pedagogy that favors tactility and connectivity rather than abstractness and isolation? How might I do that, and how might I research this pedagogy?

Rather than read texts closely, I am interested in making connections among texts: compositionists after McLuhan. David Byrne, David Carson, Laurie Anderson, others.

Or really, really generally: I want to understand 21st century students. What is that going to take? What do writing instructors in particular need to know?

I suppose we could also play around with tetrads. Tetrad laptops, tetrad cell phones, tetrad personal essays, literature, the genre approach. I should probably bring in a bunch of McLuhan books.

What, if anything, are laptops doing for your classes (as student, as teacher)?

'nuff.