Mood:  irritated

So, on Thursday and Friday decided to test out the remote observation outside of the OU's firewall with Ritchie ... that is when large amount of problems occurred!!!

First of all, MSN can't work on the wireless - i.e. the voice/video conversation and application sharing... Skype could work ...  with application sharing. However, although I can send video ... I can't receive any ... which makes it really frustrating.

Not the mention the frustration of not getting any students to participate. I've decided to see whether I can use some of Amalia's students. Haven't asked her as yet though.

I'm still deciding on how to choose students ... I mean there should be some criteria in making sure that students can be compared sufficiently across, shouldn't I?

Well, if things fail ... I just might have to take the RAM I have in this computer and install in in my laptop and then use it from home - well it will definitely work from home.

I also ran the trial with Ritch ... unfortunately it seems as if the video didn't record!! I got his voice conversation though - which is good. He was doing some interesting stuff with the glass-box as he did a lot of exploration and it was interested that although he seemed to be getting towards the answer in some cases, he then turn tail and came to a completely different decision ... don't quite know why. Obviously is the understanding and was wondering what the strategies involved in the learning - I mean I've got to think about the qualitative data analysis - is there particular strategies that students use when using different software and whether this can be profiled - or is this the nature of the student?

How can you profile the nature of the student? I don't want to ask them to fill in an ASI ... but that might be interesting won't it? Probably if I can find 10 question ASI. I think there is a 20 question ASI I used. Hmmm ... gonna look that up ... would that be too much for the student to do? I think I got a 20 question Biggs approach to mathematics questionnaire. Or will that be alright if I'm paying them??

Posted by prejudice at 3:29 PM BST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, went to the Kaleidoscope conference in Cambridge with Gill on Friday. It was quite good, although I think the attendance was less this year. I was mainly in the maths/technology stream - well I didn't go anywhere else because the rest of the papers didn't interest me in the slightest.

But the papers were pretty good and interested ... and Patricia George was there, and it was good listening to what she has found and done, as I listened to her the first time when I was in Lancaster, and it is good to see how her research has progressed and how her ideas has been firmed up. So, that was encouraging.

There were still a couple of papers on teaching maths to trainee teachers, which I've always found a bit boring - not that the papers are boring but the topic doesn't interest me as much.

I think in all, whilst it wasn't a terribly important academic conference, I think in terms of meeting people and interacting it has been good. I met Zsolt again and yet again we've promised to write something together!!

Also, Gill and I were able to boast about our great postgraduate conditions at the OU :D. Also, how our supervisors support us as well ...

Posted by prejudice at 10:38 AM BST

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Mood:  a-ok

So, had a meeting with Doug and James yesterday where we discussed theoretical frameworks - that's still take sometime to get my head around it. Anyway, we were talking about constructivists theory which I barely have any clue of ... but they seem to think by the time I finish my literature review, I should know all the constructivist theories and be able to mention Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and Ausubel with some authority ... I've only got so far as learning their names!!!

Anyway, Doug was telling me that some researchers believe that construtivist theories cannot be applied to higher-learning as the information process is more complex ... also, I have to say why I'm not looking at socio-constructivist theories and I think my argument might be there is that the person is engaging with the software and also as this is sort of a e-learning model which is what the world is evolving to more and more (such as OpenLearn), students are more likely to on their first reading of my materials be on their own and cannot be extended into a social place until later and is that this understanding which is being measured, as it is likely that this (i.e. initial perception) would shape their attitudes towards the topic. Ok ... that's the best argument I can come up with so far.

 James and Doug want me to start writing my literature section soon and thought I should start with the cognitive load theory and point them in some direction of the important papers for them that they should read to get their heads around it. And possibly once the literature section is looking good, we can then pass it onto John to comment.

Posted by prejudice at 3:50 PM BST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, I'm still waiting on some RAM, so I can pilot the last box ... the glass box ... but still waiting for IET to get me the RAM and also need more storage on my computer ... I lost the whole webcam video when I did the open-box as I didn't have enough space to render it ... oh well, still had the audio recordings and the video of the software ... but I'm thinking if I'm doing it on one screen now rather than two, if I have a problem with the rendering ... then I'm going to lose that whole set of data ... so, hopefully that doesn't happen! I think that'll make me go stark-raving mad.

Anyway, I've transcribed the relevant quotes (well what I thought I was relevant) for the black-box and open-box studies, but still have to analyse them in NVivo, I'm not certain what tact I'm going to be taking for them. I should have a theoretical framework (or at least some coding framework) but I have no idea ... I could start with open-coding and see where that takes me for developing a coding framework. I wanted to code somewhere along the line of cognitive load, self-explanations and perhaps some kind of interaction with technology? I think the important thing to ask myself, is what I'm looking for ... and I think one of the basis for my studies has been to see whether these boxes help learn more ... so think I'll be looking at self-explanations, but think I need to define what kind of self-explanations they're doing.

Posted by prejudice at 10:29 AM BST

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Mood:  lazy

Well ... this morning I decided to tackle the mountain of papers I had (at least a foot high!) and file them away. And I've done it ... completely filed away, my desk looks surprisingly clear.

On another note, I've gotten my external HDD, my large screen monitor and my USB wireless card. Yesterday, I was having problems as there were conflicting drivers with the wireless card and the webcam - probably should have just restarted and might've fixed but decided to undecided to uninstall and install back, the only problem the computer was not recognising the drivers, it is only today when I clearing up that I realised I was using the wrong CD (ver 6 rather than ver 8!). Anyway, did it today and it is working fine.

I tested the recording of the excel file and the webcam at the same time the day before, and that works, the only problem is that Camtasia records it a very poor resolution quality, but I used Bulent Screen Recorder and it is doing it a good quality, only problem I think that takes a lot of memory, I tried using CamStudio but something is just not working with that programme - got to play around with it again. I can't seem to get it to work. Anyway, I really do need a larger RAM as I was running Camtasia and the application sharing software and the computer was really slow and I hadn't even started Vemotion - so need that urgently. And also a slave HDD, because my hard-drive is completely filled!

I've got to test my last box (the grey-box or glass-box) as yet, but want to test it with all the new equipment I have - but think I need the new RAM otherwise it is going to be really slow. Anyway, some good news is that I've gotten permission from 3 groups to post up my request for my students (I've only asked three) - so, decided to wait a bit before I go asking the rest - want to make sure things are set up properly. Hopefully, I can get my participants! I need to tweak the instructional materials a bit I think, as the interpretive questions are not highly interpretive as I originally thought they were! Well, at least spotted that problem before the real thing went underway.

Beside James and Doug have suggested that I analyse my two recordings so far, but haven't started as yet-  was supposed to start this morning - but then went on with the clearing of the desk instead :D.

Posted by prejudice at 2:31 PM BST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, yesterday I had supervision which was surprisingly quick (finishing in about 10-15 mins) - guess there wasn't a lot going on at the moment since I just came back from vacation and spent all of last week writing the CAL paper (which wasn't so good - but got sent off anyhow!).

Anyway, James said the dreaded phrase yesterday "theoretical frameworks"! He wants me to get one ... to return to the literature ... to start thinking about how I'm going to write the literature .... updating the literature etc. and not to mention weaving a story of theories to develop this mythical theoretical framework ... wonder if I can get some leprechaun to grant me three wishes, one being to get a theoretical framework! (ok - never mind that who wants to waste their wishes on theoretical frameworks!)

Anyway, he suggested I read a paper by Yvonne Rogers, which whilst interesting to some degree I couldn't for the life of me see how it could help me develop a theoretical framework. I couldn't even see a theory in there that could help me understand what I'm doing better ... perhaps he was alluding to external cognition, perhaps I should look that up some more later, sounds like a nice catch phrase. Probably can dazzle people with that term.

Anyway, we are meeting on the 23rd to discuss my progress on a theoretical framework and I have no idea what they actually expect from me at that point? Am I suppose to submit a paper on some thoughts? Or just a discussion? Being me - who tends to get quite tongue-tied when a discussion starts up and I have to defend my view - I think I'm going to go with giving them a paper (as short as possible!).

Posted by prejudice at 4:16 PM BST

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Mood:  cool

(Technically not thesis writing)

Well I'm back again from vacation and I'm hurriedly trying to put together my paper for the Computers and education journal and it seems to be taking forever, because I don't know how to write a methodology paper it was so much easier writing the PME paper since that was more a typical research report paper. Anyway, slugging away at it - waiting to see if Jonathan is going to be writing anything to contribute to the paper. Hopefully he checked his email!

Posted by prejudice at 11:01 AM BST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, I'm back from Dublin after the CAL conference. Dublin was great - the CAL conference was OK. Well, not so great for me because there weren't a lot of seminars on my area. There were quite a lot on development (which I found myself going to) and on mobile technologies. My presentation went alright - I presented on remote observation - so was still along the theme of the conference. One person from the conference has asked me for a copy of my presentation - so I think that bodes well and have spoken to Ann (from Computing) about it as well ... and I think she might just be interested in doing that.

Our poster (the research blogging) was well received - people were interested. At the moment, trying to hurriedly put together a conference abstract for CADGME - but mightn't get any comments from James since I was supposed to send it this morning and he is oft to a conference this afternoon.

Oh well ... got Gill to give it a read ... so, even so would have gotten some comments.

Posted by prejudice at 5:22 PM BST

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Mood:  d'oh

Well, I'm still working on the Excel spreadsheet programming - taking a bit longer than I expected. Technically speaking it is finished - however, need to make it attractive looking and easy for students to enter the data and prepare the sheets for the different problems (still go to do that) and then test these out - and I need to do this ASAP!!! My timeline was to finish by next Friday (but don't think I'll be able to) .. probably the two days I have here when I come back from Dublin I can do something - hope so. That means setting up the appointments and making sure they work. I think I will need at least need three persons, one for each software.

Well, will see how it goes.

Posted by prejudice at 5:07 PM BST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, this morning I was putting together the instructional materials for the linear programming and it is 4 pages long!! I wonder if that is too long ... and wonder if linear programming is too complex of a topic.

 Of course I understand it perfectly :). Anyway, awaiting to see what Doug says about it.

Posted by prejudice at 1:38 PM GMT

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