Looking Forward 2014...

In my last post I reflected on 2013 (work wise). Now I want to document some thoughts for the new year - 2014.

Photo: Colourful 2014 in fiery sparklers by christmasstockimages.com

First of all, we wrote letters to ourselves during the last Springboard Women's development programme. We wrote what we would want to do if we knew we were not going to fail. Our coach promised to post them to us in the new year and I'm so looking forward to receive it. I can't remember what I wrote then but would be great if I had been able to at least partially achieve one.

Travel wise I already have two conferences where my papers are accepted. I look forward to visiting Switzerland in February. Visiting Newcastle will be easier and possibly will be more fun if other members of the research group also decide to attend. We have also booked a seaside holiday in preparation for MOOC's second run in February. I also want to take the twins on a proper long vacation (at least 3 weeks) before they start school in September. Let's see what we will able to do about it.

The MOOC's next run is in February and that will be a busy (I mean a BUSY) period. In our beta run we identified things that we could improve to support learners and from January I will be working on them alongside my other colleagues. No matter what we change it will not be THE perfect course for everyone but we hope we will be able to improve from last time.  I have already started working on a new piece on my leisure and let's see how that will come along.  I already have a paper deadline for February which will mean that I will have to work on this while working on the MOOC. This is where part-time working becomes a challenge. Either you have to select what you can do during office time and say 'no' to others OR try to do everything by putting in extra hours that you do not get paid for. I think I will be/ have been in the second category. I think this is a dilemma faced by workers who can work flexibly because that work-life boundary become blurred.

I'm always looking out for new opportunities and hopefully the new year will bring more of them. My ideal job will need me to have lot more experience. So until then, I will take up whatever opportunity that comes my way. The MOOC facilitation helped me get a flavour of going full-time with my other commitments. It is hard work but I think now I am upto it. Since the twins start school in 2014, I hope I will be able to go full-time. I want to build a portfolio for a professional certification which I have been putting off but I think I will get started on that in the new year. I look forward to new learning opportunities and I will be looking out to see what other staff  development programmes will be on offer by the University.

There are couple of research ideas that I want to pursue and a half written grant application I want to complete and submit. We have a possible collaborative project that I really look forward to. Not to mention looking into the data generated in our MOOC. The School of Systems Engineering has a whole new outlook for its future and I hope I will be able to contribute to that.  I also hope to be involved in student recruitment activities (such as open days) and out reach activities.

I have not being able to continue my Zumba class mainly due to lack of motivation and I'm not sure whether I want to put that to my 'todo' list. As there is no obvious reason (for example to lose weight), it never gets to the top of the list. I would rather include walking to work at least one day a week (because the Whiteknights campus is huge and the scarcity of  parking anyway means that we get healthy amount of exercise even if you travel by car) instead.

Well... I think that will be what I would look to achieve in 2014...

Looking Back 2013...

Photo: Kat from http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3622/3392950817_54dc2dd80a_z.jpg

It is the Christmas and New Year break at the University of Reading. What better time to reflect on the year passing and make resolutions for the new year.

Since completion of my PhD I have been working at the University in the same research group as a Post Doc researcher, so nothing changed in 2013. But I moved to my new office, OdinLab, from my Postgraduate workspace, which I now share with three colleagues. During the year we had a new PhD student coming in and one MRes student finishing.

The year 2013 started with a dreaded disease - chickenpox. My son contracted it first; after exactly two weeks my daughter got it; after another couple of days I got it (for the second time!). I was out of office for most of February but managed to work weekends and cover work because I had the flexibility. This is a great advantage of being a researcher especially when you have poorly twins.

Early in 2013, through the University I got the opportunity to take part in a women's development programme called 'Springboard'. I made new friends there and ultimately moved into a house where my next door neighbour and neighbour down five doors are both my Springboard buddies. Through these contacts I also got the opportunity for the first time to take a lecture at the University. The programme was a great eye opener for me.The book 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway' recommended by the coach has certainly made a change in me.

Because I am working on research projects it is vital to find funds to sustain my post. 2013 was a mixed year in that respect. My research proposals went to second rounds with two most competitive funding bodies but unfortunately we did not get either of them. On the other hand, I succeeded in winning my first ever research grant from ELESIG Small Grants Scheme and we had two other successful proposals. I applied for couple of jobs, which I secretly hoped would not materialise because I love my job and colleagues I work with. But when you have short-term contracts there is always that 'what if' when it comes to the end of contract. Luckily for me and thanks to my advisor the contract always got extended.

 In terms of publishing, I couldn't ask for a better year. I have published 5 journal articles and two conference papers in 2013. Two other papers were accepted for journal publications and I thought they would appear in 2013 but now it seems unlikely. But in terms of publishing I think 2013 will always be an year to remember.

 I love to travel - especially to escape from the routine that you have to follow when you have young children. But I am limited on my ability to travel due to other commitments. However, in 2013 I had the opportunity to travel to Cape Town for the Unisa Cambridge International Conference on Open Distance and eLearning. Best of all my paper presentation was sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning so I did not have to worry about finding funding. I explored the Table Mountain, Cape Pennisula, and Penguins during the little time I was in Cape Town. It was a memorable trip especially being able to see the Cape of Good Hope and so on that I learnt in history lessons - which made the learning suddenly feeling like 'relevant'.

The most important work engagement came when the University became a partner of the FutureLearn. Because we had already published work on MOOCs and my advisor is well connected, I got the chance to get involved in University's first ever MOOC, Begin Programming: Build Your First Mobile Game #FLMobiGame. In June and July I worked mostly on creating learning materials for this course. Along with Prof. Shirley Williams, the front man of the MOOC - Karsten Oster Lundqvist and editor and cameraman Luke Micaliff we offered University of Reading's first MOOC on FutureLearn Beta from 28th October for 7 weeks. The course was oversubscribed within 24 hours of launch on FutureLearn and we will be offering the second run in February 2014.  For the first time since having the twins I worked full-time as the lead facilitator for the course. We had a great team of student mentors supporting our learners on the MOOC. Throughout the MOOC I've worked weekends not because I had to but because I wanted to. It was so addictive - sometimes I found Shirley, the professor overseeing the MOOC, and I replying at the same time very late in the night! All in all I think we have delivered a great course, supported our learners far better than any other course I have been on or heard and extended our University brand.

 Looking back at 2013 the obvious highlight is my involvement with the University of Reading MOOC. But I think Springboard also played an important part. As the twins are due to start school in Autumn 2014, there is lot of things I hope I will be able to do in 2014. Tomorrow I hope to write Looking Forward - 2014 and now it is time to put the twins to bed.

MOOC Platforms - December 2013

I've been curious to know what MOOC platforms offer courses. List Education Technology lists 19 systems as MOOC platforms (as of December 19, 2013). With some search in news articles and aggregator sites I found five more MOOC platforms.

Photo: Laura Billings http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3285/2930410633_d5a723f196_b.jpg

I am sharing the MOOC platforms list I have compiled and if you are aware of others please leave a comment.

1	ALISON	http://alison.com/
2	Canvas.net	https://www.canvas.net/
3	Coursera	https://www.coursera.org/
4	CourseSites	https://www.coursesites.com/
5	Coursolve	https://www.coursolve.org/
6	Crypt-4-you	http://www.criptored.upm.es/crypt4you/portada.html
7	edX	https://www.edx.org/
8	FutureLearn	https://www.futurelearn.com/
9	Galileo Education Systems	http://ges.galileo.edu/
10	Rwaq	http://www.rwaq.org/
11	Iversity	https://iversity.org/
12	Miriada X	https://www.miriadax.net/
13	NovoEd	https://novoed.com/
14	Open Learning Global	https://www.openlearning.com/
15	Open2Study	https://www.open2study.com/
16	OpenHPI	https://openhpi.de/
17	OpenupEd	http://www.openuped.eu/
18	Skynet	http://skynet.unc.edu/introastro/
19	Udacity	https://www.udacity.com/
20	Udemy	https://www.udemy.com/
21	uneopen.com	http://www.uneopen.com/
22	UKeU
23	University of Miami Global	http://globalacademy.miami.edu/
24	Veduca	http://www.veduca.com.br/

Updated Dec 23rd 2013... I found anther MOOC platform called Saylor.org and recently nine of its courses were approved for college credit. An informative blog from Dhawal Shah included some other MOOC platforms which I have also added to the list.

25	Saylor	http://www.saylor.org/
26	France Universite Numerique	France Université Numerique
27	Xuetangx	http://xuetangx.com/
28	P2PUniversity	https://p2pu.org/en/ (Updated Dec31st)

Updated 7th June 2014
29. LORE is another platform http://lore.com/ 
Edit 12th Augu 2014
30. Edraak Arabic language portal from Jordan https://edraak.org/

MOOC Dropout? - Part II

In an earlier post I discussed the difficulties of defining what 'dropout' is in a MOOC. Coming to the last week of our #FLMobiGame 'what was the dropout in your MOOC?' will be a question that I will have to answer. But without knowing the definition of 'dropout' what could be the answer?
I think my answer would be "depends on your definition of 'dropout'".

Photo By: Ian Muttoo http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1430/5109543974_52f6bb1430_b.jpg

Looking into the participants' perspective of MOOCs we have now interviewed 11 MOOC participants. There are some focus groups planned with a variety of groups including school students (16-18 year olds) known to have taken a MOOC.

Our paper on MOOC dropout that will be presented at EMOOCs2014 is now ready to be submitted for the proceedings and I am working on the presentation. There is so much to understand about MOOCs. If you want to know more about our research click here.

#FLMobiGame - Functions

On Week 6 we are discussing functions in #FLMobiGame. The function we are using in the game is quite lengthy so I thought I would show a small function in a java file to show where they are positioned. I will use blank functions to make the code shorter.

Line1: public class TheGame extends GameThread{
Line 2:          //Here all variables used in the game with 'm' prefix will be defined
Line 3:         //from here onward the functions will be defined
Line 4:         public TheGame(GameView gameView) {
Line 5:         }
Line 6:        public void setupBeginning() {
Line 7:        }
Line 8:       //there will be lot more code in between
Line 9:      //Collusion control between mBall and another big ball
Line 10:    private boolean updateBallCollusion(float x, float y) {
Line 11:       return true; //we are not doing anything but returning true here
Line 12: }
Line 13:}//this is the End curly bracket from Line 1

This Java tutorial explains returning values from methods. In #FLMobiGame we were looking at basics of programming, so we did not talk about Object Oriented Concepts. If you are interested in knowing more about Object Orientation you can have a look at these tutorials: OOConcepts; Classes and Objects

#FLMobiGame - Nested Loops in Programming

Nested constructs in programming are a powerful tool for a programmer. However, understanding them in the first instance is not the easiest thing. Here I am trying to explain a specific question that we have used in FLMobiGame which participants found difficult.

Line 1: int myInt = 0; 
Line 2: for (int index1 = 0; index1 < 3 ; index1++) { 
Line 3:   for (int index2 = 0; index2 < 3 ; index2++){ 
Line 4:       myInt = myInt +1; 
Line 5:       if (myInt == 7) 
Line 6:            myInt = 0; 
Line 7:     } 
Line 8: }

This example is written in Java and there are two loops one inside the other (nested loops). If condition is also within the inner loop.

Let us look at the execution of this programme now.
If the code was
Line 1: int myInt = 0; 
Line 2: for (int index1 = 0; index1 < 3 ; index1++) { 
Line 3:   
Line 4:       myInt = myInt +1; 
Line 5:      
Line 6:          
Line 7:      
Line 8: }

It would have been easier to understand.
This is the familiar one for loop that increments a counter inside it. So at the start index1 = 0 and until index1 < 3 it loops and increments myInt by one each time the loop is run. Here the loop will run when index = 0, index = 1, and index = 2; that is three times incrementing myInt to 3. That was easy. Now let us look at what happens when the second loop comes along.

Line 1: int myInt = 0; 
Line 2: for (int index1 = 0; index1 < 3 ; index1++) { 
Line 3:   for (int index2 = 0; index2 < 3 ; index2++){ 
Line 4:       myInt = myInt +1; 
Line 5:      
Line 6:          
Line 7:     } 
Line 8: }

Here inside the first for loop with index1 there is another for loop with index2.
Let us look at how this execute.
At the beginning in Line1 myInt is assigned a zero.
At Line 2 execution of first For loop commence. Now index1 is equal to zero and the condition index1 <3 is satisfied. So it goes into the for loop to execute the loop body or the block of code within this for loop.
When loop body begins execution there is another for loop (Line 3). So now the execution starts working on this inner for loop with index2.
At this point if we look at the problem in a different angle we are again faced with the familiar single loop

Line 3:   for (int index2 = 0; index2 < 3 ; index2++){ 
Line 4:       myInt = myInt +1; 
Line 5:      
Line 6:          
Line 7:     }

index2 starts with zero and as long as index2 is less than 3 the loop executes by incrementing myInt.
When the loop ends myInt will be incremented to 3 because this inner loop runs 3 times.
When we come to Line 7 after finishing the execution of the loop we again have to look at the bigger picture.

 Line 1: int myInt = 0; 
Line 2: for (int index1 = 0; index1 < 3 ; index1++) { 
Line 3:   for (int index2 = 0; index2 < 3 ; index2++){ 
Line 4:       myInt = myInt +1; 
Line 5:      
Line 6:          
Line 7:     } 
Line 8: }

When we get to Line 8 because we know it is the finish of first iteration of index1 for loop we need to go back to index1 loop again to check the condition. 

In this iteration index1 = 1 and index1<3 so we do the whole thing again. That is we go into the body of the index1 for loop and execute it. In this body we find the index2 loop and once again we execute this loop three times. Now myInt is 6 and we have finished index2 for loop execution for the second time round.

We go back to Line 8.

This shows that we are in the block of index1 for loop so we come back to Line 2 and now index1 is equal to two.

index1 is still < 3 so we go into the body of the for loop and find the index2 for loop.

We execute index2 for loop again in full and reach Line 8 for the third time. Now myInt has a value of 9.

This time round index1 is equal to 3 and then the condition index1<3 fails and the execution of the for loop finishes.

At this point we  have myInt with value 9.

I hope that the execution of nested for loops is now clear. 

But wait, our program has an if condition within the index2 for loop. We ignored it this whole time. Now let's put that in place too.

Line 1: int myInt = 0; 
Line 2: for (int index1 = 0; index1 < 3 ; index1++) { 
Line 3:   for (int index2 = 0; index2 < 3 ; index2++){ 
Line 4:       myInt = myInt +1; 
Line 5:       if (myInt == 7) 
Line 6:            myInt = 0; 
Line 7:     } 
Line 8: }

Both index1=0 and index1=1 iterations of the outer for loop myInt value does not get incremented to 7. Because at the end of second iteration of the index1 for loop myInt was equal to 6. 

In the next iteration - that is index1 = 2 iteration myInt gets incremented to seven.

Let's consider this iteration more closely.

We reach Line3 in the third iteration of index1 loop with index1 = 2 and myInt having a value of 6.
Line 3 for loop begins to execute.
When the index2 loop begins execution with index2=0 inside the body of index2 loop myInt gets incremented to 7 (Line 4). Now in Line 5 the 'if' condition is satisfied and myInt gets a value zero assigned to it.
Next iteration of index2 loop in this run increments myInt to 1 and third iteration increments myInt to 2.

index1 = 0
    index2 = 0; myInt = 1
    index2 = 1; myInt = 2
    index2 = 2; myInt = 3
index1 =1
    index2 = 0; myInt = 4
    index2 = 1; myInt = 5
    index2 = 2; myInt = 6
index1 = 2
    index2 = 0; myInt = 7 --> goes into if condition and gets reset to zero --> myInt = 0
    index2 = 1; myInt = 1
    index2 = 2; myInt = 2
So at the end of this program myInt has a value of 2.