Index - Work / Research
- How to visually represent combinations (April 24, 2013)
- Thinking in Systems (November 11, 2011)
- Feeds, please! (June 22, 2011)
- Technology to support Family Communication & Interaction (May 21, 2011)
- Better exploratory search with Google Reader (April 06, 2011)
- Ethics course (September 07, 2010)
- Accumulation (September 07, 2010)
- World of Warcraft (August 17, 2010)
- Blog category hierarchy (April 24, 2010)
April 24, 2013
How to visually represent combinations
Suppose you have a set {A,B,C,D,E}. Each permutation has a different value. I want to graph the values on an axis. How do you do that? I guess a bar chart is the only way to go.
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 24, 2013 02:02 PM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
November 11, 2011
Thinking in Systems
Currently, I am reading Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows.
It occurs to me that I can use this type of thinking to understand my field of research. How does theoretical AI impact the research you see in educational technology?
I think that this book is helping me "reach" further in terms of putting pieces together for overall understanding.
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on November 11, 2011 09:52 PM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
June 22, 2011
Feeds, please!
Whenever I stumble upon something interesting, (like a person or organization), I like to give myself the option to "keep an eye on them" in case any of those ideas are applicable to my work, or, maybe even one of my own ideas would be useful or interesting to them. How do I do this? I add their data feed to my reader. That way I can link to them, blog about them, etc. at a natural and convenient time.
However, I continue to be surprised at the number of organizations and individuals who do not produce RSS or XML feeds. If I can't add them to my reader, then I will not be in the loop about their future work and I will forget about them.
Why, why, why are there so many websites, online publications and journals without feeds? Is there a better way of doing things that do not use feeds that I am not aware of? Should I be doing things differently? Or maybe there are just so many people who do not use technology to manage their information, and would not want feeds or think they are a waste of time...?
I have no idea. I don't get it. Well, maybe I do. I am still recovering from a stint of "Hands tied behind my back and so much information overload that it is ridiculous to even THINK about organizing it in any strategic way". Maybe that's the perspective that most people live in, and I'm just one of the lucky few who has fought my way into a small breathing space.
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on June 22, 2011 07:19 AM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
May 21, 2011
Technology to support Family Communication & Interaction
Hello!
My friend Carrie over at the University of Toronto is helping a colleague find some people who are at least 50 years old to invite them to fill out a survey: Families in Touch Survey. The data from the survey will be used to develop technology to support family communication and interaction. Are you over 50 or know anyone? If yes, please check this out... thank you!
Have you recorded your family story? Do you wish your memories were better preserved?The Technologies for Aging Gracefully Lab (TAGLab) at the University
of Toronto is working to improve the design of technology for
supporting family communication and interaction, especially in the
context of preserving and sharing family history. We are interested in
the ways you currently communicate with family members, and in
particular, with long-distance family members. We are also interested
in the technologies you use to interact with your family, the
technologies you use to share memories and preserve family history,
and areas where your communication and social needs are not currently being met.Target participants are individuals over the age of 50. The survey is
completely voluntary and should take no more than 30 minutes to
complete. Your participation in this study will help make improvements
to family communication technology.The University of Toronto Office of Research Ethics has approved this
study. Data collected from the survey will be anonymous and
confidential.We appreciate your participation, and encourage you to forward this
invitation to anyone you think might be interested.The survey is available here: http://taglab.utoronto.ca/surveys/families
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on May 21, 2011 02:35 PM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
April 06, 2011
Better exploratory search with Google Reader
I started using Google Reader a couple of years ago at my brother Kevin's recommendation. At that time, I was on my maternity leave and was spending my scraps of spare time trying to find other researchers or bloggers with overlapping interests. I used Google and other search engines a lot. Whenever I found a person or organization that published an RSS feed, I added it to my reader. Today, I have 593 subscriptions. Each and every one of those was hand-picked by myself.
Today, I observed that when I want to search for a term that is quite specific to my research area, I get phenomenal, exciting results when I search within my Google Reader items. Typing the same term into regular Google yields comparatively uninteresting results. The "public" search gives very broad, sweeping information about the term. The "personal" search gives me very specific, passionate references from people working on it in depth.
At least, that's my perception after performing a single search just now that impressed me. heh, heh, heh!
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 06, 2011 08:56 AM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
September 07, 2010
Ethics course
I am taking a mandatory Ethics course for ne grad students. It is an online course with 5 modules. I'm finished two of them so far. I think that I'm absorbing the material quite easily, and one of the main reasons for this ease is that I have been reading Dr. Isis (example). Thank you, Dr. Isis!!!
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on September 07, 2010 11:16 PM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
Accumulation
I continue to accumulate resources I want to read. The reason I find it difficult to deal with my growing list of links is that when I finally have the time to do some reading, I forget my context and have lost the desire and motivation behind my desire to read the thing in the first place. It would be cool if my RSS reader could be paired with some sort of application that could help me retrieve that mindset.
This ties into my research interest into space and locality as learning support tools. (related entry)
And here is another link I wish I had more time to read.
http://www.gaussianprocess.org/gpml/code/matlab/doc/
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on September 07, 2010 07:09 AM
| Comments (2)
|
|
| Tweet | |
August 17, 2010
World of Warcraft
I renewed my World of Warcraft account. I had cancelled it about 4 years ago. I was supremely impressed that my old character was on file, Meredith, Master Sergeant, Warlock, on the
I figure I have a right to some fun and leisure in my life. :). Now, it is VERY easy to spend too many hours in this game. But I don't think this will be a problem for me because my spare time is "granted at a blessing". 7 or 8 years ago, I would say that spare time was "default" in my life, and if I wanted I could elect to do schoolwork or pay video games or work at my office job. Today, it is the other way around: I am always in non-freedom mode and it's only if I take a vacation day while my daughter is at daycare (or if she blissfully has a nap on weekends) that I have freedom. Asmy daughter becomes more independent, I am trying to turn this around again. But I am not there yet.
This is my way of rationalizing to myself that renewing WoW was not a mistake. LOL. Besides, I really enjoy it. How many games can pull you back after a 4 year hiatus?
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on August 17, 2010 06:37 AM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
April 24, 2010
Blog category hierarchy
I just refactored the willies out of the category hierarchy on my blog. 'Merged some, deleted some.
Upon further reflection, I realize I may have busted many links. (In which case, 'refactoring' is probably the incorrect term.). Maybe MovableType will impress me, and will have kept persistent permalinks, despite folder name changes.
One purpose of the reorganization was to create an RSS feed for the category "Work/ Research" to relieve myself of guilt when I post personal things on this blog. Let me explain. I worry about the people who subscribe to my blog for the research updates, and about them being "bothered" about non-scientific entries, such as my admiration for Britney Spears. (See the things I worry about? ugh.). Anyway, I attempted to fix that. Anyone who doesn't want the personal stuff just subscribes to the work/research tree, see?
I could have sworn that I'd set up category feeds for this blog. I hoped that the top level category feed would publish everything in its subtree. But I can't find the darned feed! I will have to try later, when I'm at the computer. Yes, I performed all of that refactoring and composed this post on my iPod Touch, laying next to my toddler to help her fall asleep. I can do a lot of things on the iPod, but scripting isn't one of them.
Next up: employ my new jQuery knowledge to create a collapsible tree to the left.
|
Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 24, 2010 11:57 PM
| Comments (0)
|
|
| Tweet | |
Index to Steph's Notes
Feb. 24th 2007 - Weee! This new part of my website is not an entry, but rather a permanent fixture whose purpose is to "Look Down on All Those Notes With Some Grand Vision of Organization". Wish me luck. LOL- Representing meta-data (fuel) & the different kinds of "hooks" that intelligent systems can use (how fuel is injected into the motor of the engine)
- Motivation: Semantic net / Rationalizable to a machine
- Semantic network
- Genetic graph
- Prerequisite AND/OR graph
- Constraint Satisfaction Problems
- Bayesian networks / causal graphs
- Technology & Philosophy: RDF, modus ponens,
- Predicates, Logic & situation calculus
- What kinds of data? - What kinds of meta-data would an AIEd system possibly need, and how is it represented?
- task domain knowledge
- "is-prerequisite-to"-type knowledge
- interactions with learning objects & other learners - (location, composition is-a/part-of, sequencing by restricting navigation, personalization, ontologies for LO context)
- lesson plans, curriculum plans, practicing sessions (What is stored, what is generated on the fly? What is remembered?)
- How to organize it - When is it stored in a database? Meta-data? Agent memory banks? Protocols? Repositories? XML files? Home-servers? WSDL services? Frameworks? Portable banks? P2P access?
- Database of object-agent interactions
- Concept of "Home" on a P2P network -- maybe the bulk of a learning object's usage data is on its home server and can be queried using WSDL or something ? Similar homes for each student's usage history, etc. Baggage problem.
- Links to the ontologies
- referring to a concept/relationship - ex. AgentOwl?
- Generation of this data
- Rationalization: For use by other AIEd systems
- What is generated - discuss items under part I.C.
- When it's generated - describe procedural model, which parts of the engine generate what (isa-part-of data, XML feeds, web services, meta data bout groups and collaboration, protocols, examples Friend of A Friend FOAF project)
- Technical notes of HOW it's generated: JENA, issues of implementation demo, my Hermione & Ron agent examples, lol
- Usage of this generated data - see part IV. A.
- Given the engine, who uses it?
- Students / Learners / "Me"
- instructional planning, student model, pre-requisites, tutoring, coaching, collaboration,constructivism
- Teachers / Educators / "Me"
- putting together lessons
- be able to browse through task domain knowledge in an objective / encyclopaedia format, then be able to pick-and-choose what you need for your students
- compose examples, design explanations, pull together diagrams, learning objects, etc. Haystack Relo?
- Administration / Governement / Structure / Crowd Control
- as restrictions/obstacles/sand pit to the robot in agent environment
- can't just have a swarm of students and teachers out there -- need structure of courses, curriculum, objectives, requirements (at least, we do in this day and age!) - Report cards, evaluation, feedback
- government, marks, certificates, requirements, funding, curriclum, attendance, delinquent, non-attending, motivation
- school''s images, goals, strengths, payroll, HR, security, accounts, permissions, privacy
- registration, failed courses
- User Environment -- How does this engine work? What does the user see on the screen?
- Introduction - Given a background in educational psychology, how does the system present itself -- what does the user see, and were does this data come from? Links to thoughts from part I.)
- Task Domain Browsing - Suppose you're you're just idly browsing through the "raw" content. How would it look when it's not wrapped around a learning-context or lesson or tutorial or anything. 'Cross between browsing a raw task domain ontology and browsing a learning object repository.
- Cleaning up the data -- Visualizing the data for humans to pick through the task domain and work on it. Suppose the "Subject Expert" discovers an advancement in science and needs to update the "world's" domain knowledge. (I used the "Subject Expert" terminology from Ontologies to Support Learning Design Context - Thanks Chris) How would they make corrections to ontologies and learning objects, or at least point the users of "old" objects towards adopting the newer ones.
- "Modes" - Learning & Lessons / Checklist - Homework, Assignments, Courses being taken / Collaborative mode / Teaching mode / Calendar- email -adminisrative mode -- See also the different kinds of scenarios in the ActiveMath system
- Evolution of this engine
- target some key implementation hooks discussed in part I - design an experiment/demo
- scrape a page - (Note, scraping can only give objective data, not in-context dat)
- LO repository - related to browsing the task domain?
- a learners "To Do" list - where does it come from? Assignments, courses.
- sample group scenario
- sample teacher lesson planning
- sample data "left behind"
- sample use of that data
- Data mining (for what? lol )
- discovery / generation of ontologies - when do you need to hunt for them, and when do you have to have a solidly-known & predictable ontology?
- I/O - where it happens, which languages, protocols, which agents perform i/o and when, precepts, actuators
- Role Assignments
- My Environment Adapts to me
- Displaying feedback from the server on JSP pages (Software engineering considerations)
- Sketching out a design (Content planning vs. Delivery planning)
- agent negotiations / social structures / ummm... Web 2.0 ?
- garbage collection of meta data
- Artificial Intelligence & Evolution
- Memory Culling: Necessary part of intelligence? (artificial or human)
- Applications for the Genetic/Evolutionary algorithm
- open learning environments
- Agents, pets, grouping, Community modelling
- Protocols - finding groups, cyber dollars, state diagrams (?)
- "Community Studies" - graphs & communication hubs, types of communities (free-for-all, hierarchy of authority, etc.)
- implications of joining a community - what do you share, which parts of your student model are relevant
- Walls & sand traps -- deliberate restrictions as problem-solving for learning
- Communication channels - individual-to-individual, individual-to-community, chat channels, agent-only "administrative" communications, ex. requests for related learning objects in a particular community, etc.
- Educational/Pedagogical focus (this part probably shouldn't be its own section but rather incorporated into the whole picture, but it's separate for me right now because I'm still only just starting to learn about it.)
- Semantics - what there is to talk about in Education
- ex. Merril's First Principles of Instruction, linking educational terms to AI terms
- Pedagogical skills for tutors -- supporting human *and* artifical tutors
- Student modelling - what the machine needs to know about the student, pedagogically-speaking, about learning history/preferences
- Roles - Simulated students, Coaches, Tutors, Teachers,
Syndicate this site (XML)

