My name is Dave and I am a citeaholic. I had been ignoring the signs for too long. Knowing my Google Scholar citation count without having to go and look it up, checking the impact factor of the journals I’d… Read More
Mobile Citizen Science: nQuire-it Site Launched
One of the most important aspects of using a mobile device for learning is being able to use it to interact with your environment. A major part of that is the various sensors that enable you to gather data from… Read More
Welcome to the Machine
It seems that, for learning designers, learning analytics (mostly using log and performance data gathered from learning management systems) is the new black. I recently attended the annual conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education… Read More
The Next New Normal
I spent some time over the weekend throwing away old data CDs. Many of these were for courses I’d delivered on customer sites. These days the course tools are shared on a (soon to be obsolete) USB 2 stick. Others… Read More
Re-engineering coderetreats – bringing design to the fore
For the last year or so, one of my research activities has been exploring the design and delivery of coderetreats. Our first article on this topic Coderetreats: Reflective Practice and the Game of Life was published in IEEE Software, the… Read More
Why regression testing matters
Quite some time ago I posted a whinging blog about the software I have to use a editor of a journal. Over the last couple of years I have to acknowledge that the occasional improvement has occurred. For example it… Read More
JavaScript as a first programming language? Some pros and cons
Recently I was working with a group of JavaScript developers in Australia. One of them observed (from maintaining code written by other developers) that he felt people coded in JavaScript in various styles, depending on their programming background, and that… Read More
Supervisor-Research Student Translation Guide
Recently we had an issue with one of our postgraduate students who was disappointed with the grade he received for his research report. He had been under the impression from his supervisor that his work was of a high standard,… Read More

Faking your location – how and why
One of the many interesting types of app you can download on your phone is one that will fake your GPS location. There are quite a few of these on the app stores, but they all work in much the… Read More
Validating Hofstede? Some reflections on cultural differences
This semester, for the second year running, I tried out a small experiment with one of my classes to see if the students cultural profile matched Hofstede’s results for New Zealand: http://geert-hofstede.com/new-zealand.html I asked the students to fill in the… Read More