I recently had a document, written using Google Docs, that I wanted to make available in Kindle format (a .mobi file.) The thing was, I didn’t want to publish it through Amazon, I just wanted to provide a file that… Read More
Confessions of a Citeaholic – one man’s battle with academic social media addiction
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
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
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
Strong passwords, stronger extortionists
I’ve posted before about passwords, specifically about the large number of extremely weak passwords revealed by the Adobe hackers. I recently saw a story on the BBC web site about a password that the security forces couldn’t crack. Here’s the… Read More
Social entropy in software
One of the less obvious aspects of software entropy is changes in its social context. I use the Nike + iPod software when I go out running. Despite a recent software upgrade, if I run further than my previous sessions… Read More