I discovered GoodReads.com about two years ago.  At the time, I was using Facebook rather heavily, despite the nagging feeling that it might not be the best use of time.  I had recently moved to a new city and enjoyed being able to connect regularly with friends who now lived far away. But, I still would find myself saddened at the wasted hours not doing anything useful.  GoodReads.com is a social network itself, but it’s focus is on reading good books.  Sharing books is already a great way to interact with others, and is often a method of social interaction in the real world through book clubs or just sharing books among friends.

GoodReads.com takes this online, allowing people to create a profile and share thoughts about their favorite books. Users can rate and review books, which then show up in their friend’s news feeds. They can also join book groups and form discussions, or follow their favorite authors.    In addition to seeing what other people are reading and liking, the site provides recommendations based on your reading history.  This helps users find new books that they might have otherwise missed.  GoodReads.com offers several other fun tidbits, such as book trivia, quizzes and quotes.

One feature that has proven especially motivating for me is book queues.  Once I’ve finished one book, I consult my long queue of “to-read” books and usually find something else I want to read right away.  This keeps me reading regularly, rather than finding some other thing (hours of Facebook time?) to take priority.  Another motivating feature is the “reading goal”, which is a statement of how many books you plan to read in the next year.  As you mark books completed, a progress bar advances, showing how close you are to that goal.

So, if you find yourself tired of clicking cows in Facebook or just wanting to find some new good books to read, head on over to GoodReads.com and check it out!

Jaelle’s bookshelf: read

More of Jaelle’s books »

I made it through my semester experiment of online learning!  As you may have noticed, my blog updates dropped to nothing over the past two months as I raced to keep up with coursework.  However, now that the last computer program has been written and the final paper is turned in, I am looking forward to turning my attention back here.

Earlier in the year, I covered my initial impressions of my online courses.  I want to briefly revisit this now that the experiment is completed.

First, I will focus on HCI 575: Computational Perception, which I took through Iowa State University.  This course made use of a mixture of streaming lectures, related readings and assignments.  The class content was challenging, but the professor did a good job of making it interesting.  I really appreciated being able see the same things that the students in the class saw and not being confined to reading a book and taking quizzes.  The lectures and assignments covered a varied range of topics in the computational perception field, such as image processing, signal processing, artificial intelligence and neuroscience.  The readings provided additional information about each lecture, which was especially helpful for topics I was not already familiar with, such as signal processing and neuroscience.  I learned many new things and the class gave me insights into what all might be possible in the computational perception field.

I was very excited by the prospect of getting all the same content via streaming video and this lived up to my expectations.  However, I was surprised to note that I still felt cut off from the experiences of those students attending from the classroom.  Sometimes it felt like the distance ed students were more of an afterthought. Since the class was primarily made up of local students who attended the actual class, it is understandable that the class would be more geared for them.   The students had the opportunity to ask each questions, form groups with people they saw at least twice a week and drop by a TAs office for additional help. This was harder for distance ed students.  A discussion board was available, but it remained quiet through the semester and did not facilitate the same collaborative environment afforded by being in the same room.  We could email the TAs, but received responses slowly in comparison to the time it would take to drop in for office hours.  Because of this, I always began homework assignments immediately, to ensure there would be time to email back and forth with the TA in case of problems.

These experiences were in stark contrast to the dynamics of the P2PU course I took earlier in the semester.  Here, all of the students in the class were ‘distance ed’ students and they were much more involved in the online collaboration aspects.  Participants and facilitators regularly replied to discussions and commented on blog posts.  The entire class met regularly on IRC for chat sessions about the course topics.  In this course, I did not miss the fact that I was not watching a lecture.  Assignments were directly tied to the reading and I knew that my responses would be read and commented on by the other students.  This gave me additional motivation for giving the readings and responses a solid effort.

In conclusion, my online learning experiment was a success.  I found both courses much more stimulating than online BlackBoard classes that I have taken in years past.  The streaming video lectures provided in HCI575 were preferable to online courses that provide only a book and quizzes, but there was still some lack of engagement in the online collaboration.  My P2PU course made excellent use of online collaboration, to the point that I did not feel like I was suffering from not having a traditional lecture.  I would be interested in taking a course that takes the best of both worlds.  This might work in a traditional classroom with the teacher encouraging the students to collaborate online (probably by making it a graded assignment).  Or, it could work in a P2PU environment with the facilitator providing webinars to accompany the other course content.

Human vision is fascinating.  All you do is open your eyes in the morning and know immediately what is in front of you, its color and you have a sense for how far away it is.  When reading, you pick out symbols on some object in front of you and quickly assign meaning to them.  The object might be lined paper, your Kindle, the street sign, or even the letters in some alphabet soup.  No matter what the medium, your brain usually has a pretty good idea what is going on.

Over the past few weeks in my Computational Perception course, I’m getting a new appreciation for just how far we are from being able to make a computer with similar capabilities.  Computers can scan an image and display it back to you, but it is very difficult to get them to assign meaning to what they see.  It may be easy for me to tell what text is on a page, but the computer requires much prodding before it even knows there are letter shaped symbols there.  For a computer, this is optical character recognition.

Optical character recognition (OCR) is the process of translating printed or handwritten text into a digital or mechanical form.  It seeks to mimic human vision, allowing the computer to separate the text from the rest of the image. It is often used for the purpose of creating electronic files that can be copied and shared, searched, and translated.  OCR not a new topic.  A brief look at Wikipedia shows patents for OCR being obtained as early as 1929.  The field has come far since then, with modern systems doing a decent job of understanding text written on simple pages with modern fonts.  However, even under ideal circumstances, OCR accuracy has not reached 100%.

For my final project in Computational Perception, I will be learning about various optical character recognition techniques, with the end goal of being able to read a Walmart receipt and convert it to an electronic form. During my initial research for the project, I stumbled upon several articles talking about text recognition in historical texts.

Having access to historical texts in electronic form would be a great asset to the field.  More researchers would be able to access the texts, without risking damage to the originals.  Additionally, a historic text in electronic form could be searched and analyzed digitally.  Unfortunately, many current OCR systems fail when dealing with historic texts.  These are often damaged, and written or printed in fonts that are foreign to modern OCR systems.  New systems have to be developed that take these issues into consideration.

At least one organization has taken up this challenge.  The video below was produced by IMPACT (Improving Access to Text) project, through the Centre of Competence in Europe. This organization seeks to remove the barriers of mass digitization and making it “better, faster and cheaper”.  IMPACT has its hand in the development of several software tools for this purpose, including an OCR engine that is built to deal with historical fonts, layouts and words that can’t be recognized by traditional OCR systems.  They’ve also implemented crowdsourcing methods, which encourages massive volunteer support for validating or correcting the OCR results.

This is an exciting field of study that seems to have a lot of activity right now and I look forward to seeing how it progresses.

This semester, I am taking two online courses on very different subjects, through very different formats.  The first one is HCI 575: Computational Perception through Iowa State University.  This is a course for credit, hopefully to be used towards a Masters in Human Computer Interaction.  It is offered online via streaming video and Blackboard. The second is “How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students” from P2PU.org.  This course is mainly for informational and professional development purposes and operates as an online study group, with readings, group discussions and questions to post answers to.  I am now three weeks into my online courses, and am ready to give a little overview of my impressions.

Streaming Lectures Are Nice

I have taken a few online courses in the past.  These primarily used Blackboard or another LMS to serve content about the course syllabus, deadlines, assignments and quizzes.  It was a lot like taking the class, but without any lectures.  I was often left teaching myself the material from the book, and not being guided by a teacher as I would be in a traditional classroom.  I never particularly enjoyed this method of learning, but sometimes it was the only way to take a course that would work with my schedule and location.  When I heard that Iowa State University offered online courses where you stream lectures that are being taught in the actual classroom, I was intrigued.  Finally, I would be able to take courses in Human Computer Interaction (which aren’t offered anywhere near where I live) in a format that lets me still live where I want to and keep my job.

For the most part, ISU’s streaming lectures lived up to my expectations.  Each evening on the day the course is offered in a classroom at ISU, I login to Blackboard and watch the recorded lecture.  The professor makes the topic interesting, and does a good job of explaining content that I would have struggled with trying to learn from a book.  Sometimes, he even addresses the online learners in his lectures, which helps me feel a little more involved.

However, it’s still not entirely like being in the classroom.  Sometimes, I miss being able to turn to the person next to me after class and ask a question.  It’s also a little more difficult to get help with the programming assignments, since you can’t drop into a TA’s office and ask a quick question.  Email responses seem a little slow, and I know that I better not wait until the last minute to ask for help.  Happily, I met some of my fellow online students through email and the course discussion boards, and they have proven to be quite friendly and helpful.

Blogging to Participate

Having never taken a course like P2PU.org’s “How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students” before, I didn’t know quite what to expect.  P2PU describes their courses as study groups, and from what I can tell, this is an accurate description.  Since it all takes place online, the study group discussion takes place through blog posts and comments on the course page.  The course organizer will post tasks each week, which includes readings and questions to think about.  Then, participators reply to the task with a link to a blog post describing their thoughts and reactions to the task.

I have never been a big participator in seminars and study groups in person.  I like to hear other people’s comments, but often don’t vocalize my own.  However, with this course, I am driven to participate.  I get excited about blogging a response to each weeks task, and writing it ensures that I take the time to read and reflect on the associated reading.  I also enjoy reading through the blogs of the other participants for their responses.  Overall, this leads to a very engaging learning experience and I kind of wish blogging responses was part of all courses.

Conclusion

Online learning comes in many forms, and not all are created equal.  Compared to past experiences with online learning, my experience this semester is turning out to be a far better learning experience.  Streaming video allows me to benefit from the experience of a teacher, and blogging gives me a new engaging way to participate.

As the semester progresses, I will post another update about how the courses are progressing and if my thoughts and feelings about them have changed.  Meanwhile, you can follow my P2PU responses here.

How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students – Week Two Response

This is the second week of my p2pu.org course.  From last weeks responses, it became obvious that while the term “free-range students”* refers to non-traditional learners, it can apply to a variety of different types of students in different scenarios including online, mini classes, project-based courses and more.  My challenge this week is to determine what kind of free-range learner I am serving.  Since I am not officially a teacher, I realized that the first step is to figure out where in my life I am assisting free-range students to learn.

My Role

I manage a computer lab that is aimed at teaching technical skills to undergraduate women on campus.  The students we serve spend a lot of time teaching themselves and each other technical skills that they haven’t had the opportunities to learn in their classes.  I want to be able to more effectively support their learning.  Also, I also serve as a mentor to help get middle school students excited about technology careers.  In this role, I want to be able to show how programming is accessible and fun. Finally, I want to give helpful information and encouragement to my friends and colleagues who are trying to learn about web design or programming.

My Learners

I realized while writing this blog, that I have similar types of learners across each role that I play.  I’ve identified three in particular, including newbies, bridge builders, and the jack-of-all-trades.  User interface designers often write up stories about fictional characters who represent their users in an attempt to better understand them.   Using this method, I will describe three people who would fall into these categories of learners.  Also, having spent some of my life in each one of these learning states, I explain how I feel it is best to assist each learner in their quest for knowledge.

Newbies

Newbies come in from all ages and backgrounds.  They often have had limited exposure to technology so far, and are mostly lacking preconceptions about it.  They often they wish knew more about technology, but do not know where to start.

To assist a newbie, it is good to be patient and try not to alienate them with technical terms advanced concepts.  Be there for them when they have a question, and try not to pass along your own technological frustrations to them.

Bay B. Newb hasn’t spent a lot of time with computers yet.  She likes to watch other people on the computer, and sometimes they even make it play movies for her.  Bay wishes she knew how to make the computer do things.  All she knows is that people start pushing on the keyboard thing and cool things start happening.  Sometimes, she tries her luck at using the computer, but it doesn’t usually go well.  Someday she hopes to use the computer to make her own movies, but for now she just wants to learn how to operate the keyboard.

Bridge Builders

Bridge builders are people who work in a non-technical field, but feel that technology could make their lives easier.  They want to learn about technology in a way that will make them better at their primary job.  They are often the first ones on their teams to start implementing technology into their role, and so they face many challenges.  However, their hard work paves the way for others in their organization and/or field to follow.

Bridge builders may share characteristics with both the newbie and the jack-of-all-trades.  To assist them, it’s best to help them find the exact resources they will need to accomplish their task.  Be patient and answer any questions they may have about technology that is new to them and help them discover the wide array of online resources available to them to see what has already been done.

Bobby Bridges likes to look for novel new ways to connect previously unconnected territory.  He is often the first person to try something if it might help him in that goal.  He recently heard about how technology can help him do things more efficiently and he has decided to start learning more about it.  At first it seems like a daunting challenge, as there are very few resources for him to turn to for help and using technology requires much hands on effort and creative thinking.  His friends sometimes tell him he should just stick to the old ways of doing things.   But, Bobby knows that if he sticks with it, he will be able to accomplish exciting things.

Jack-of-all-Trades

The jack-of-all-trades already knows something about everything.  Technology can be both a blessing and a curse in that it is constantly providing the jack-of-all-trades with new things to learn and keep up on.  They usually can pick up on new topics quickly, but may not dig deep into the subject.  Because the Jack-of-all-trades already know a lot of things, and it is hard to keep up on everything, they may revert to less efficient methods of doing things using information they already know.

To assist a jack-of-all-trades, try to instill upon them the importance of the deeper and more challenging material.  Also, it is good to provide reminders of the topic and what has been learned to encourage the jack-of-all-trades to return to the topic and learn it more thoroughly.

Jaqueline O. Valtrades is interested in a lot of things.  She loves learning and doing things herself.  She is often found trying to read and do other things at the same time using her many different devices.  Often when learning a new topic, she will read the Wikipedia page and do a couple Google searches to feel proficient.  She rarely spends a lot of time on any one topic.  She doesn’t feel that this is much of an impediment for her, but sometimes recognizes that she might not always be accomplishing things in the most effective manner.

* P2PU Course organizer Greg Wilson stated that he coined the term “free-range” so that traditional lecture-in-classroom learners could be referred to as as “battery-farmed students.”

I was recently informed by my doctor that my cholesterol was quite high.  In addition to that, my ‘good’ HDL cholesterol was very low.  One recommended way to raise HDL cholesterol is to exercise 30 minutes per day, four times per week.  I have never been one for exercise, but I’ve always had this nagging feeling that I should.  I decided that a desire to not develop heart disease was a good motivation to start.

However, having never followed any sort of exercise regimen, I found it difficult to develop a habit and keep it going.  About this time, a friend of mine introduced me to Fitocracy.com.  Fitocracy takes exercise and turns it into a social game.  In some ways, it is like Facebook.  You can add your friends, post statuses, maintain a profile, etc.  Beyond that, Fitocracy gives you options to track your workouts and build routines.  As you enter your workout each day, you gain points based on the difficulty and amount of exercise accomplished.  After you reach a certain number of points, you gain a level.  You can look back about see how all the hard work you’ve been doing is helping you level up as a fitter person.  You can also complete quests and gain achievements, which provide a sense of accomplishment.

With Fitocracy’s help, I get excited to go to the gym and work out as hard as possible on the elliptical machine, so that I can get points and level up!  I also have the opportunity to get a little competitive when I see that my Fitocracy friends have leveled up twice since I last logged points.  This helped me develop positive feelings towards exercise and turn it into a habit.

Since Fitocracy is still in beta, there are a few things that I hope are changed or added in the future.

1. List of all possible achievements and quests

   Right now, you stumble across Fitocracy achievements and quests when you complete them, but never know what to work for.  I think this would be very motivating to have a list of achievements that I can strive for, or be given a quest to work towards on a regular basis.

2. The ability to create my own achievements

   It would be great to make fitness goals for myself and then get an achievement badge when I complete them.

3. Mobile app

   Currently, there is a mobile website version of Fitocracy.  But, it seems to be very lacking compared to the full site.  A full blown app with similar functionality to the full website would be really helpful.

Overall, these issues are very minor and Fitocracy does it’s job just fine.  It helped me develop a habit and stick to it, which is what I needed.  Currently, Fitocracy still requires an invitation to get started.  I have some invitations available, so if you are interested in giving it a try, let me know!

Over the next few weeks, I will be participating in course on P2PU called “How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students.”  This course explores the challenges faced by “free-range” students, best practices from traditional classrooms and how they translate to other types of learners.

The first activity for this course was to read a blog post by Greg Wilson at Software Carpentry.  Here, Greg explores the recommendations made by the Institute of Educational Science in “Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning.”  These recommendations present many ideas that the facilitators of non-traditional spaces would do well to strive for.  However, there are obstacles.   For example, many of the recommendations require students to revisit material, which is difficult to enforce in an online setting.  Additionally, assessment can only practically be done through basic drill exercises, which can limit the teacher’s ability to know how the student is doing overall.

Below is a list of the recommendations provided by the IES, and my thoughts as both a learner and facilitator in non-traditional classroom settings.

1. Space learning over time.

   This could be difficult in a free-range setting, since students are dropping in to pick up some new skills quickly and then move onto the next thing.  It is left up to them to return at a later time and review the skills.  However, there may be ways to remind the student about the topic from time to time using RSS feeds, newsletters or social media.  I have noticed that websites aimed at helping people learn new life skills often will send out newsletters or post blog posts that cover similar topics and often have reminders about things you may have learned before.

2. Interleave worked example solutions with problem-solving exercises.

   Again, this requires that the student take the time to read through the worked examples and problem-solving exercises in order.  You might be able to offer the examples and exercises in this order, but there is no guarantee that the student will actually take the time to complete the exercises.

3. Combine graphics with verbal descriptions.

   On the Software Carpentry blog post, it was brought up that research has shown that combining visuals, text and audio can actually lower learning because it requires the brain to process two data streams (linguistic and visual) at the same time.  Most commonly when trying to learn something new, I have used some sort of book, blog post or tutorial text with images and text captions and/or video.  As a learner, I tend to prefer text as I can read through it more efficiently than sitting and watching a video.  However, when the content is more difficult, I find that well-made videos with helpful visuals can help me understand the content better.

4. Connect and integrate abstract and concrete representations of concepts.

   This seems fairly straight forward.  Providing concrete examples that a student can relate to will help them to understand the more abstract concept.  For example, geometry can be made more understandable by describing the principles using blocks that the students can interact with.

5. Use quizzing to promote learning.

   This is especially difficult to do in a free-range setting.  Quizzes can be provided, but it is often up to the student to make use of them.

6. Help students allocate study time efficiently.

   This also requires the student to choose to follow the recommendation.  In a free-range setting, the student may be reminded of good study habits, but it’s up to them to follow them.  I haven’t seen any good solutions for ensuring that students follow the suggestion.

7. Ask deep explanatory questions.

   Again, deep explanatory questions may be provided, but it is usually up to the student to take the time to make use of them.

Many of these recommendations provide challenges because there is no structured way of ensuring that the student will take the time to implement them.  To encourage good habits, the facilitator may need to offer reminders and incentives to complete quizzes, answer deep questions, study effectively and space the learning over time.  However, in the end, the student will get as much out of the learning process as they are willing to put into it.

I’m always excited when I can affect technology, either by building a computer from the ground up or creating a new website.  In recent years, I’ve begun to focus on how technology affects people.  Many people could probably name off several instances when computers caused them frustration.  Yet because of it’s many advantages, most continue to use it.  As someone who develops websites and apps, it’s important to me to think about how technology can be made better and how it can be used as a force for good.

My goal with this blog is to document my experiences using technology in every day life and explore how technology can be made accessible to more people.  In particular, I will be focusing on the following areas:

1. Learning opportunities

   I am taking two online courses this semester on topics that are not offered anywhere near my home city.  The first is HCI 575: Computational Perception through Iowa State University, which I attend via streaming lectures from my living room.  The second is purely informational through P2Pu.org on “How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students.”  Since both of these courses are offered using rather novel online teaching methods, I will be comparing the learning experience and documenting ways in which technology supports or distracts from my learning adventure.

2. Self Improvement

   Having spent much of my life as a computer geek, I have been attempting to branch out into becoming a more well-rounded, organized, fit and healthy geek.  However, that doesn’t mean I have to leave my technology completely behind.  Smartphones have an app for everything these days, including virtual fitness coaches, nutrition trackers and organization tools.  As part of this blog, I will be sharing some of the more exciting apps I find.

3. Giving Back

   The internet offers many ways for a person to give back to communities and causes they care about.  These include open source communities, long distance mentoring programs and more.  I will be posting about some of these and what it takes to get involved.

So why am I taking the time to blog?  By spending time examining existing apps and websites, I hope to get ideas for good uses of technology.  Also, I am very interested in technology and it’s affect on learning.  This blog will give me a place to gather that information and share what I find.  Finally, I often come across many great apps and websites that already exist and I hope that others will be able to benefit from them too.  If any of this sounds interesting to you, please feel free to subscribe or check back soon.