Here’s a quick pass at analyzing the basic metadata for the online discussions.
I plotted a few calculated values (Excel pivot tables fracking ROCK, BTW…), to try to compare activity patterns. What’s interesting in this graph is the average wordcount (green line) - low for the Blackboard discussion board threads (the left 5 items) and markedly higher for the 8 student blog (the right 8 items).
Read MoreI’ve finally entered all of the metadata information for the online discussions I’m using in my thesis. This includes the person who posts something, the date, and the size of the post. I worked through my earlier visualization mockup, and wanted to try it with the full set of data. So, here’s the Blackboard discussions (top image) and WordPress blog posts (bottom image):
For my MSc thesis research, I’m working with a bunch of data collected through online discussions during a blended course. Part of the discussions took place using Blackboard’s discussion board feature, part took place on students’ blogs. One of the things I need to do is to document how the discussions played out, to try and tease out any differences between the two venues. I’ll be using the Community of Inquiry model to describe the social/teaching/cognitive components of posts, but I’ve been wanting to describe the flow of discussion as well. How do the discussions occur? Are there patterns of activity, in time or size of responses? I’ve been struggling with how to document these. In my thesis, it’s really just a glorified case study, so I’ve had to constantly force myself to stop thinking of it as controlled experimental data. What I’m doing is describing the activity within a single course, in 2 venues of online discussion.
Read Morea vintage 1965 cycling film from the NFB. awesome.
Read MoreI didn’t get copies of the photos from the borrowed camera until just recently, and just finished going through and editing. This is the first wedding I’ve ever shot, with any sense of responsibility for capturing the whole thing. Lots of rookie amateur mistakes in there. It’s amazing how fast things happen in a wedding, when you’re trying to capture it all. And how quickly the lighting goes south - the wedding took place on a beach, just before sunset, so we had amazing light for most of it, and then harsh oblique shadows at the end. I didn’t have any lights aside from the on-camera flash, so things got messy in a hurry. Thankfully, I pumped off about a thousand frames - whittled down to 80-something.
Read MoreInteresting discussion about the nature of blogs, blogging, and where this stuff might be going. Some comments jumped out at me:
The whole idea of comments is based on the assumption that most people reading won’t have their own platform to respond with. So you need to provide some temporary shanty town for these folks to take up residence for a day or two. And then if you’re like Matt–hanging out in dozens of shanty towns–you need some sort of communication mechanism to tie them together. That sucks.
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I just found this Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle video. So good.
The Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle Video from Holstee on Vimeo.
so go out and start creating.
life is short.
Read MoreI’ve been using the Ghostery extension in both Chrome and Safari for awhile now. It sniffs the web pages and blocks requests for the douchey stuff that tries to track you online. It lets the good stuff through, but prevents all of the creepiness from executing. It also reports on how many tracking items are attempting to worm their way through it on each page you visit. Eye opening.
It’s free. Runs in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and IE. There’s also a custom browser for use on iOS, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking about what would happen to my online stuff, when I eventually kick off (hopefully not for several decades, but still…). This whole Reclaim stuff would mean that my online artifacts would disappear rather abruptly. That’s partially mitigated through things like the newly-minted Hippie Hosting Co-op, but what happens to my various account info? How would I hand that off, and send a message after, well, you know…
That’s where the idea of the internet deadman’s switch comes in. A bit of code that monitors for signs of life from me, and after I stop doing stuff it assumes I’ve kicked off, waits a predetermined period of time, tries to nudge me by email, and then sends off an email to my family.
Read MoreMy niece got married on the beach in Playa del Carmen last week, so we tagged along. So nice.
The bride asked me to photograph the wedding, but my DSLR is a bit under the weather. I wound up shooting it on a borrowed DSLR - the first real DSLR photos I’ve shot in about a year. I need to pull mine out of the basement and get it back in working order again. I still haven’t seen the photos, but the ceremony was beautiful and fun. I think my fave shot of the entire thing might have been a quick Instagram I shot on my phone, though…
Read MoreIf you’re seeing this, the move is complete. My site is now powered by the freshly-hatched Hippie Hosting Co-op, thanks to Timmmmmmmyboy (Tim Owens) for getting the ball rolling.
I’m sure more info about the co-op will be coming soon. I’m making the move to help test things out and see how it will handle adding users. Once things are settled, I’ll be closing my MediaTemple hosting package and transferring the balance into the server hosting package used by the HHC (which is also hosted on MediaTemple, so I’m not really leaving MT - they’re fracking AWESOME web hosts. Glad to be with them!)
Read MoreWhat a fantastic series of posts by Dr. Ben Cowie, a geology prof here at the UofC. He worked with his first-year undergrads, on going to primary research lit, rather than just settling for teh wikarpedia.
so good. so happy he’s teaching here at UCalgary, and that he’s blogging the stuff he’s doing.
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