My thesis

I am glad that my thesis has been in the White Rose Etheses Online now.

Finding your passion

Those speeches were one/two years ago, but Randy Pausch's ideas are everlasting. Randy Pausch was a computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. I adore him as a good computing scientist and an excellent educator. I like his speeches very much, for example, the sentence below,

"But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

Here is his last lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams in both English and Chinese.

Interesting sources

I haven’t blogged for quite a while because firstly, my job is something new and not very relevant to the original purpose of this blog; secondly, I am still thinking a direction of this blog.

New sources:

• http://videolectures.net/
• http://www.academicearth.org/
• http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/googlescholar/archives/049814.html

Google it...

As I moved to a new city, I started to discover it. I like to lounge about the city when I finish my work, and see it's differences and similarities. I also like to ask questions about locations on local forums. However, I got some responses recently, like 'Google it, find the answer yourself'.

Yes, Google can help me find a place, seek for some information I want, however, I suddenly feel that Google is a good searching tool for getting information easily rather than a Q&A tool for exchanging life experiences on the forum. If everybody is good at searching information by Google, do they need to ask questions on a forum?

I suppose some people may say 'Google it first. If yu can not find an answer, going to forum and ask.'

A silly idea: Someday, we might not talk to each other any more or often because we all get information from the Internet or Google it. Just using the online huge information database...

Call for Papers and Special (Invited) Issues

JCIT: Journal of Convergence Information Technology focuses on thetheories/technologies/architecture and its applications on the variousaspects of advances in convergence and hybrid Information Technology.

Christmas greetings

Hi my friends,

Thank you for all the support and encouragement you have given to me all year long. It is a pleasure to be able to work with you and have lots of good memories in 2008.

Have a blessed and peaceful Christmas holiday. Happy New Year!

Boundless blessings to you all. Miss you all.

Jin

Viva day and viva questions

It’s the early morning 9:15am, a normal winter morning. I had my viva. 12:00pm, I was pleased to get the result.

It was lucky that I got much better from the flu and got cough relief before the viva. It was nice to see a best of luck card on my desk before the viva. It was nice to see many of my colleagues in the common room waiting for me and to get their full-hearted hugs when I finished the viva. It was nice to get friends’ blessings from far distance. It was nice to celebrate with you all.

Thanks a lot to many people who help me and are with me during the three years. What I can do now is to share my viva preparation list. Here is a long list of viva questions that I collected and prepared. I hope it’s useful for you. Best of luck for you all too!

Two pieces of news

• The Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University Computing Services announced its eighth annual one-day conference on educational technologies: Shock of the Old 2009. It calls theoretical or position papers on new academic literacy in areas such as modelling, collaborative working, computer gaming, mash-ups, co-creation and open content.


• The nomination for the annual Edublogs Awards of 2008 has been shortlisted.

Connectivism, a new learning theory?

I was thinking the terms in learning theories. The researchers named them by different emphases, such as reflective, experiential, informal, virtual, active, inquiry-based and so on. Some of them have certain similar ideas and key points. Also, I com across this article “Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age” written by George Siemens. I agree with him that learning theories have been developing from three dimensions: behavioursim, cognitivism and constructivism. However, for me, the view of ‘connectivism’ is more similar to the dimension of so-called ‘social/realist constructivism’ or ‘collaborative constructivism’. It is another term that stresses the ‘connective’ element in learning.

Juliet Corbin’s view of grounded theory

I know that Juliet Corbin has finished the 3rd version of “Basics of Qualitative Research”.

In the literature, arguments between Glaserian and Straussian are continuing. I come across this article “Interview with Juliet M Corbin” wrote by Danny D. Meetoo. Through the interview, we may know a bit about Juliet Corbin, her work with Anselm Strauss, their view of ground theory and Barney Glaser’s view of grounded theory.