Author: Kristian Lindqvist

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Google Correlation (but not yet Google Causation)

Now you too can bring your own datasets to Google’s correlation service, “Google Correlate” – read about it here:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/mining-patterns-in-search-data-with.html

This is a continuation of the Google Flu Trends -thing which started when Google search data was found to correlate with flu activity. Simply put: when people search for flu-related stuff on Google’s search engine more than usual it indicates a peak of flu activity. Now you can test your own findings and see if you stumble on any interesting phenomena out there in the world… there’s bound to be lots of interesting stuff to test, like… er… wait for it… ah, eventually something will crop up – but just remember: correlation does not imply causation! [wikipedia.org]

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Survey (for Uni. of Helsinki users): What languages do you use in Moodle?

Update: results of the survey available, links below:
http://ok.helsinki.fi/moodle/2011/05/26/moodlessa-kaytetyt-kielet-kyselyn-tuloksia/

http://ok.helsinki.fi/moodle-sv/2011/05/26/sprak-i-moodle-forfragans-resultat/

http://ok.helsinki.fi/moodle-en/2011/05/26/languages-used-in-moodle-survey-results/

Moodle can at present be used in three languages: Finnish, Swedish and English. The used language – via both language selections and used phrases – is an essential part of using Moodle and how it works. Teachers’ and students’ language choices do not show in Moodle statistics, and information concerning user preferences does not exist at all. As a consequence, we wanted to collect data about Moodle use in various languages at University of Helsinki. Tell us in which language you use Moodle, how the choice of language guides your work in Moodle! The questionnaire in English can be accessed here:

https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/26879/lomake.html?rinnakkaislomake=eng

The questionnaire is open until April 12. It will only take about 10 minutes to answer the questions.

The results will be presented in MoodleMoot UK this coming April, and published in this blog later in the spring. For additional information, please contact Kristiina Karjalainen (@helsinki.fi).

Thank you for your co-operation,
Kristiina and Anni

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E-reader II: Rise of the tablets

This is a followup (“sequel”, if you will) to my initial e-reader post. [Low, raspy male narrator voice:] “As the year 2011 begins, the electronic book market has seen a bit more action than anticipated during the last year, at least on the device side of things thanks to a major player stirring the kettle – Apple with its iPad [Wikipedia] made tablet computing sexy again…” [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Hz8dhQw8Q] Apple’s products usually generate a lot of emotions, and are often the subject of some humour as well… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eF0y0IfpPU] The iPad is more of a big iPhone without the phone capabilities, using a normal backlit touch display (albeit a high quality one). It is capable of browsing the net, watching videos and of course reading e-books but doesn’t offer the paper-like readability and battery life of the e-ink readers. But its sheer versatility and 10 hours battery life might be enough to make dedicated reading devices less desirable – hopefully this competition will speed up the evolution of the paper-like display even more. Apple also launched its iBookstore alongside the iPad, so they do have e-books in mind with the device alongside games, music & movies… although becoming the replacement for news(papers) might be what the iPad really is aiming for where consuming digital text is concerned. This is hinted by the imminent launch of  media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily [engadget.com], an iPad exclusive 7-days a week news magazine. Amazon, currently holding the “iPod”-status of e-readers with its Kindle-line  launched two generations of Kindles (now in its 3rd generation) since my last post in 2009, including Kindle DX [amazon.com] which is specifically targeted for reading textbooks & articles with an A4-sized screen – although it’s not apparently perfect yet for academia, at least according to  Princeton University students [The Daily Princetonian] who tested the device extensively. The Kindle also launched worldwide – you can now order it from Amazon.com and it works in most welfare states. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gotyZNvtc44] The free 3G-wireless functionality that enables you to buy books & browse magazine content is a bit crippled in Europe or not available in some countries (in Finland you can buy books from Amazon and browse Wikipedia, but that’s it). The large bookstore Barnes & Noble have also entered the ring with their e-ink reader called “Nook” and the “Nook Color”, which is an Android tablet more like the iPad but cheaper & smaller. As a big bookstore they apparently have a similar business model to Amazon,  where the books can be read on their Nook-devices and on PC:s & iPhones. As a novelty, these books have DRM that allows them to be “lent” to a friend for up to 14 days, during which you cannot access the book yourself. All in all, during 2009-2010 you could definitely watch the Wikipedia comparison list of different e-ink readers [wikipedia.org] grow, and the prices got lower too.

New technology

The black & white e-ink displays improved during 2010 with the new Pearl-type displays, and the company making these – E Ink Corporation. – also unveiled a colour e-ink display [crunchgear.com], which however still is too slow a technology for moving images and it “only” has 4096 colours (the Amiga HAM-mode [wikipedia.org] comes to mind) and apparently the colour images look a bit desaturated on this type of e-paper. There is also a new type of low-power LCD-display marketed as Pixel Qi (as is the name of the company producing it), which can enter a special black & white mode without backlight that makes text easy to read and keeps power consumption low. The first tablet computer using this display is called the Adam [wikipedia.org], and has been surrounded by a lot of hype. Thanks to the Pixel Qi-display, it combines the good features of e-ink readers with iPad tablet-like features. An interesting device for sure! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGUKHDBoTEc]

The devices are there – where are the books (in Europe)?!

OK, it’s fairly trivial to get a dedicated device for reading e-books today. The problem is finding the books – there are many stores and few of them have all the titles you would like “in stock”, but the bigger problem is that they most likely only sell to US or UK customers (if we’re talking about English books, how the situation is for other languages beats me). Also, the  prices of the e-books themselves are of course more expensive in Europe as shipping e-books overseas is soooo expensive through the internet. And the books are often crippled with DRM, requiring additional software or bookstore-approved devices to be able to read them. Globalization is funny in  the way that companies may freely go to where labour is the cheapest, but the consumer may not buy the product where it is sold at the cheapest price. Free markets my… er, donkey. So, e-books (like all digital content) are facing the dilemma where old rules of distribution really shouldn’t apply anymore, but they are artificially upheld. But some publishers “get” e-books, and in my last post I also mentioned sci-fi publisher Baen, who have the e-book store Webscriptions. That’s were I purchased my first e-book from, and it went really nicely. No DRM, I can download it as many times I like, the price was right… and I could read a free book by the same author first to see if I wanted to buy more, which I did. At the moment a good bet is to use an e-book search engine / price comparison site like Luzme [luzme.com], which also shows you if you can buy the book outside the US/UK. So, the devices are there and sales of e-books are growing [idpf.org] – now it’s just about finding the content. And academics might be better of with a tablet like iPad or Adam for the time being, since they currently offer the functionality that research requires – flipping through tons of short articles while bookmarking and making notes. The slow e-ink readers are still king for novels. Now excuse me, I think I’ll watch some TV… Official soundtrack to this post Somewhat related to literature… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs] 
E-book
 

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Blending right in: Seminar on Blended Learning 2010

*** This is old stuff, but since the next blended learning seminar is coming up and I had this mostly written already, here goes… ***

The 2010 Seminar on Blended Learning was held on the 11-12th of March at the functionally beautiful Metsätalo (“House of Forestry”) in Kaisaniemi, central Helsinki.  If you are unsure what blended learning is, here is the Wikipedia link. Simply put, think of it as mixing different modes of teaching in one course…

Keynote speaker Charles Dziuban from the University of Central Florida gave an entertaining presentation on blended learning from his point of view: he has been advocating blended learning & e-learning as solutions to problems with growth inside the university. From the 1970’s the Uni of Central Florida has grown from accommodating 1800 students to a whopping 54.000 students. Of course, in the U.S. more students equals more money more significantly than here, and it is definitely lucrative to offer courses completely on-line  in order to save on physical space & travel costs. Students were more satisfied with blended courses than fully online courses, and it was nice to see the claims backed up by some data. American lecturers like Mr. Dziuban are nice to listen to, even if I always get the impression that I’m being sold something rather than being told new things – watching the shopping channel too much on late nights has its drawbacks, I suppose  🙂

Online exams in the blender and in the bed

Taina Joutsenvirta from the Faculty of Social Sciences presented their Moodle-exam pilot, where students can take book exams on Saturdays from any computer they wish by logging into the Moodle course management system, either at home or at the computer class in the city centre. Students and teachers then evaluated their experiences of this way of planning, taking and grading exams, with the following results:

  • Good readability of the keyboard-typed answers were generally considered a big plus
  • Students liked the fact that they could do the exam in a calm, familiar place (and with no need to dress properly – imagine lying in bed in just your underwear comfortably typing away) which made answering easier.
  • There was, however, some discrepancy between students and teachers about the perceived quality of the answers – some teachers thought this type of exam produced poorer answers, and others (esp. students) were more satisfied with the answers they wrote.
  • Students liked the applied nature of the questions and felt that they learned more this way – as these weren’t monitored exams the questions had to be designed with a broader scope to cover instead of simply being a test of individual facts, since you can’t know if a student reads his notes, consults a textbook or makes Google searches and such.
  • But teachers were worried that too much trust is placed on student ethics – you couldn’t be sure that student’s hadn’t for example  used collaborative tactics and shared the exam into several pieces where each student concentrated on one part. The lack of monitoring thus potentially creates unequality compared with students taking the traditional exam, as cheating in one way or another is easier in this type of unmonitored online exam.

Further reading:

The Seminar on Blended Learning (Blog, in Finnish):
https://blogs.helsinki.fi/sulautuvaopetus/

Online exam pilot of the Faculty of Social Sciences (in english):
http://www.helsinki.fi/valtiotieteellinen/opkeh/online_exam.html

Official soundtrack to this post:

Here’s a piece by the Chemical Brothers celebrating the reboot of this blog!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APqm36XTqKE]

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Electronic exams in the Finnish universities

Verkkotentti

The Finnish Virtual University organized an online seminar on the 9th of December 2009 about taking exams using computers instead of plain ol’ pen & paper. The potential benefits are obvious: students can choose more freely when (and possibly where) to take the exam, and the teacher doesn’t have to worry about finding the suitable time and space to organize an exam. Four speakers from different universities told us about their solutions in this area during a two-hour Adobe Connect Pro meeting, so attending the conference didn’t require a lot of travelling and it worked surprisingly well.

From the presentations it became obvious that there are really two different philosophies of doing exams electronically:

First, there is the more traditional exam type where the student can book a time slot according to his needs, and then go to the space which has been setup as a dedicated exam environment with a computer shut off from the regular internet and a remote surveillance system (usually a video camera and a microphone recording the student). Even staff or students can be around monitoring the process, providing extra security to discourage cheating. These exams can be just like regular exams where you (usually) aren’t allowed any materials and must know all the details by heart.

Second, there is the completely do-it-anywhere-virtual-exam, where the student can use any online computer to take the test, even from the comfort of ones home if he or she so wants. This usually means that cheating cannot be monitored in any secure way and so the exam itself must be of a different type: learning materials are allowed but the questions are broad in scope and require knowledge that you simply haven’t got the time to learn in the time it takes to complete the exam.

The differences between these two ways of thinking about e-tests are interesting and the exam culture probably depends a lot on the subject being taught/learned, so it was interesting to hear about the different approaches chosen.

The aquarium approach

Three universities had built an “electronic aquarium” -type solution, of which two – the University of Jyväskylä (UJ) and Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) – had a solution based on the SoftTutor application. LUT had an aquarium in their library building, with 10 machines (seats) and 4 cameras monitoring the place, as well as some paid students on monitoring duty. About 30 teachers are taking advantage of the system at the University, especially for the “maturity test” (fin. kypsyysnäyte, a small exam that tests the student’s knowledge of his/her thesis).

Jyväskylä has a similar solution, with 12 seats and 6 drawing tablets, enabling some sort of free hand drawing to be added to the the exam. 8 courses and 7 teachers were using this electronic exam system as a compliment to the normal exams.  The University of Helsinki has a few different approaches to electronic exams, of which the oldest has been the aquarium system called “Tenttiakvaario”, which is currently in use on the Viikki Campus (3 seats) and at the Faculty of Law and Order… awww, ok, just the Faculty of Law (1 seat), so this is a smaller scale solution that students and teachers nevertheless have been happy with.

The more Out-of-the-box approach

At Tampere the University has taken the course management system Moodle and uses its quiz module for making exams, with the goal of having large groups of students taking the exams in a short time period. Electronic exams have been seen as being especially helpful with organizing book exams, that students need to take sporadically.  Using existing computer classes especially the summer exams have been popular – during the summer of ’09 927 exams were taken.  The exams were monitored, as with the previous examples, using access control cards, video surveillance and spot checks.

At the University of Helsinki Moodle has also been thought of as a way to make remote exams, and then of course the exams themselves have to be re-thought because surveillance is next to impossible to organize.  For example, exams then have to be more “putting knowledge in practice”-type broad questions than questions asking for detailed tidbits of knowledge. This approach could in the future mean great savings to space costs if people could do exams on their home computers instead of being dependent on expensive computer classes. And space costs are always an issue in Helsinki.

It was nice to hear these stories, and I think electronic ways of taking exams – or really any new way of grading & monitoring learning – could be helpful, but maybe the biggest challenge then is to embrace the new possibilities instead of trying to fit the old ways into new technology. It is an frustrating idea that you have all that processing power and networked knowledge at your fingertips, but you’re only allowed to write text in a Word document during the exam.

Edit – forgot the music to this post, here it is – a soothing piano piece (no video) by Eluvium, the album Copia is really great!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rEkxKhCp40]

Further reading:

The seminar presentations:
http://palvelut.virtuaaliyliopisto.fi/palvelut/seminaarihuone/?q=node/179

Tenttiakvaario at the University of Helsinki:
http://ok.helsinki.fi/tentti/