Comments, comments, and more comments

I produced four comments per theme as follows:

Theme 1

Mikael J

I think your article is very relevant considering the recent SPAM postings by people who were concerned with the privacy of their content and information. However, Facebook has become part of a daily routine for most of us and I think we try to push those terms and conditions we agreed to in the back of our mine and continue using the service even if it is compromising our privacy. Do you think that these privacy issues will get to the point that people will quit using Facebook?

Markus W

Do you see a similar type of technology possibly being implemented in cars in the future as a safety feature? It seems to me that if the prototype could incurred fairly accurate results that this could be very useful in preventing car accidents due to drowsiness. I used to have to leave for work at 2:30AM and would have loved to have technology like this included in my car to see if it was actually safe for me to be driving to work at this time. Very interesting article.

Gerald H

I had never seen the word "propinquity" before, way to make the native speaker feel stupid. So I googled it a bit more. Apparently it is a term most commonly used in reference to social psychology but that virtual propinquity is increasing with the use of instant messaging and video conferencing. So I see why in your article they were interested in testing how electronic propinquity is changing communication experiences.

Joel A

This is definitely an interesting article but I agree that we are far from seeing this implemented. Especially in the United States it is hard for financial institutions to change their ways. We do not use smart chip (RFID) debit/credit cards in the US because many banks and also stores find the change in equipment is too much of an expense and I feel they would think the same about mobile payment. Though my bank does have a very nice smartphone app that not only allows me to check my accounts but to also deposit money. 

Theme 2

Carl S

I also agree that explanation and prediction is a good way to express the theory behind the research. I was wondering what were their predictions in regards to implementing mobile learning to help special education students? I know that many children suffering from Autism have now been given a great opportunity to learn and also communicate with technology like Ipads so I am interested if they are predicting the same type of results.

Joel F

What's funny is as I was reading your post, I was attempting to multitask. I find I try to do this a lot even though I know it must be causing more harm then good. Maybe I will read further into your article so that I might possibly stop trying to multitask (doubt it). I agree that there was limitations within their choice of theory and that they could not analyze if the data was outside of what they were looking for.

Viktor H

I also had a hard time understanding Gregor's classifications of theory as many papers I read did not have such an obvious trait. I agree with it seeming that possibly the more classifications might make the theory better.

Johan O

I think your article explained a very interesting topic but I am disappointed that they did really offer no predictions as to what the future could hold for this technology. I recently purchased a smartphone earlier this year and have really never thought about it being capable of leaving notes that where location based.

Theme 3

In response to Katya K

I've had different teachers use different methods of teaching for each online class I've taken. I even took physical education class on-line because I was not capable of taking it at school. I've had teachers that just download powerpoint slides and readings but I've also had teachers who record audio lectures and youtube videos. So I think each experience was different in terms of involvement and dialog.

In response to Marina B

I started to actually decline taking online classes because of the new rule in the US that mandates that you must spend a small amount of time in the classroom. I choose online classes to make myself more available for other things since you can almost make your own pace and adding mandatory classroom time, to me, took away the attractiveness of e-learning.

In response to Media Manager Master (Florian)

That is totally correct. In my experience of on-line learning, my teachers always made themselves available for phone calls and I think they were actually more attentive to your needs than a face-to-face teacher.

In response to Katerina 

For many of y online instructors I felt I had an intimate connection with them. They always gave feedback on each assignment and were always open and quick to respond to emails and even phones calls. In many of my classes it was actually mandatory to have a phone interview with them at least once during the course.

Theme 4

 Fernanda

I have to agree with you that coming from a social science background I was slightly confused on the ActDresses article. I understood the concept in regards to children's toys but I wasn't sure if the concept was a good idea when applied to appliances like the vacuum cleaner. How can a vacuum act shy? I prefer my electronics without "emotions."

Media Manager Master (Florian)

I think the research in the paper you choose was very thorough considering it was using triangulation to collect the data. This helps increase the credibility and validity of the results. I am wondering if they can some sort of conclusion they gathered from their data?

Love L.

You might not have learned much new material about qualitative research from this paper, but I did learn that there was a communication problem between Directors and Composers. I agree that a larger number of participants in the study would have helped the readers of this paper take it more "seriously." Even possibly adding  another composer so that we weren't just getting the reactions of one could have made the study better.

In response to Joel A.

I don't think television is being replaced by online content but the medium of television has changed. Many people now view television content on-line as well. My bachelor's was in television production and my passion in that was always to not only entertain but to educate as well. Television can be an extremely effective learning tool and I think this article was trying to get producers and directors of the content to pay more attention to this.

Theme 5

Tian

Not all prototypes need user testing but, I think for the type of technology they were testing that the focus group test was an important step.  I'm wondering though what sort of ASR type technology needs to be used at a cocktail-party? Seems like an odd location to me.

Bartosz

I think your choice of article went very well with Haibo Li's lecture since he discussed similar vision tracking technology. However, I am wondering did they implement any type of prototype? What kind of experiments were tested by users?

 In response to Media Manager Master (Florian)

The only problem with having higher expenses on a more functional prototype is the possibly of failure within that prototype. However, I do agree with your point. If you are going to spend the money on a prototype might as well make sure you get the most bang for your money.

 Beau A

As you know from the seminar, I found your article interesting. Again, I think it's quite funny that I had seen a short video about this exact robot the week prior. I think it was a very clear and straightforward approach to design research and the creation of prototypes and besides the chemistry and engineering part, quite easy for us to understand the concept of design research. And as promised, a link to the video of the robot in motion. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DsbS9cMOAE

Reflections on Theme 5

This week we focused on Design Research which is about the actual design of an artifact. Haibo Li's lecture was about idea to prototype. He touched on design technologies and prototype research. He discussed that in order for design research to be successful you must filter the ideas, validate and find proof of concept, evaluate usability, and communicate. He used the example that you can't outrun a hungry bear, but the solution may be viewed as different by different people. He said we are all blind and suffer from tunnel vision and will all make mistakes if we just use our eyes. He also mention that its not just about doing the right things but most importantly doing things right.

I liked how the seminar was structure this week in creating a visual representation of our research papers in our groups. Beau had a very interesting article about a soft bodied robot idea presented by Harvard and made into a tested prototype. I had actually just watched a video earlier this week about this exact robot and just thought it had looked really neat and offers many possible functions for the future. Their design research in this article was pretty straight forward that was essentially idea to prototype.

Theme 5: Design Research

Last week's reading of Ylva Ferneaus paper gave us a glimpse at design research. Réhman, Sun, Liu and Li take us further into understanding design research with their article Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. Their paper discussed their prototype and design research methods to test how mobile phones could add in the experience of watching football games by adding vibration.

I think especially in design research prototypes play an important role. For example, Ylva's research had non-functional prototypes that could only give them a general idea of how their idea would look and work. On the other hand, Haibo and his colleagues made a functional prototype that I feel provides more practical data and more information can be presented. Personally, I would give more credibility to those that made a working prototype over just a display because it actually shows that they went through all the steps and not just the motions of their own research. 

Even though prototypes aid in research, they also have limitations. They are essentially a work in progress and like any other types of research methods, can have their flaws. Since prototypes are used in early stages of research, they are usually far from the desired end result and this may even effect some of their evaluations. Prototypes can also be expensive and time-consuming and this may have negative effects on the research.

The article I choose this week was IntellBatt: The Smart Battery from the IEEE-Comptuer Society Journal. This article discussed their proposed design of an intelligent multiple cell battery that would sustain a longer lifetime and optimize capacity and charge. They made a simulation environment for the IntellBatt that would mimic the behavior of real cells and evaluated the current trace from a portable DVD player. The theory motivating this design research was improving upon Battery-Aware Task Scheduling techniques to produce a safer and more efficient battery. 

Mandal, Suman K., Praveen S. Bhojwani, Saraju P. Mohanty, and Rabi N. Mahapatra. "IntellBatt: The Smart Battery." Computer 45.11 (2012): n. pag. Web. <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.focus.lib.kth.se/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5374361>. 

Reflections on Theme 4

Seminar on Qualitative methods in media technology research
During the seminar this week we discussed more in depth the particular qualitative research method we found in the articles we choose to read. Sorting us in groups with different methods really helped get a grasp on each of them. My group discussed quite a bit about face-to-face interviews and how you can get a better first response answer than over a mail interview. However, face-to-face can also be subjected to personality problems between the interviewer and interviewee. We also talked about the similarities between interviews and a focus group but, the main difference being that an interview is more of an individuals thoughts and opinions while in a focus group in tends to be that of the group or "group think." Also, we chatted about the randomness of choosing people for interviews and focus groups. Triangulation was also brought up in the seminar and seems to be a very thorough type or research. Triangulation or cross examination cover two or more methods are used. If multiple methods achieve the same findings then one can be more confident about the subject. If multiple methods lead to clashing results then it can lead to maybe a re-framing of the question being asked.

Lecture on Qualitative methods based on concepting, tinkering and critique

To be honest I felt Ylva Ferneaus lecture was slightly a waste of my time. For most of it she just went over the presentation of her paper and having read it, I felt it was just repetitive information. I did find the concept of her paper quite interesting and understand a bit more about design research.

Theme 4: Qualitative Methods

The article I choose this week concerning qualitative methods was Entertaining ideas: social issues in entertainment television from the journal Media, Culture & Society. The aim of this article was to further explore the possible educational potential of entertainment television. Entertainment television programming is not just for amusement but also touches on current social issues, even if their ways are somewhat unconventional.

The Method
They based their research off of 15 in-depth interviews with media professionals such as television writers,  directors, and producers about how they balance making entertaining television as well as their responsibility to a unique media space for representing it as a social tool. The interviews focused on television programs that challenge traditional media framing of crimes against children, immigration, and disability within British television. These are the questions asked of the professionals in the survey:

1. Do media professionals recognize these representations as unconventional?
2. What does the research process suggest about the value of these programs?
3. Do media professionals understand their work as educational?
4. What do media professionals hope or expect viewers to get out of these programs?

By asking these questions they were hoping to fill a gap between entertainment-education information and media dissemination. All interviewees did acknowledge the unconventional design of their programming even if that wasn't their main goal. Also, the professionals do take notice when developing a program that they need to address the gaps created by the typical perspectives held for topics such as immigration and disability and research must be conducted on their part to aid in entertainment-education. For instance, media professionals sometimes choose actors with a certain disability to portray a character with the same affliction where the actor can draw from their own personal experiences to add to the creative process with more accuracy.

The benefits of using interviews in qualitative research is the in-depth, personal experiences and viewpoints that can be contributed to research. This can be quite helpful in research regarding social sciences because sometimes there is no concrete data with which to calculate a conclusion from. One disadvantage of qualitative interviewing is that they can be subjective and results can be complicated by the personalities and mood of the interviewee.

Reading assignment

The article on Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming was a very interesting article as I never thought about using RFID-type comic book style commands on a vacuum cleaner. I think the kind of interactions they are looking into are probably better suited for children's toys, such as the Pleo and I don't really want my appliances reacting to me with human-like "emotion" commands. However, maybe the study of this different type of programming could lead to a more functional uses for actDresses and similar technology.

 Klein, Bethany. "Entertaining Ideas: Social Issues in Entertainment Television." Media, Culture & Society 33.6 (2011): n. pag. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. <http://mcs.sagepub.com.focus.lib.kth.se/content/33/6/905.full.pdf+html>

Reflection on Theme 3

I enjoyed reading both articles this week but I felt neither one went into much depth explaining Quantitative methods. Lowenthal and Leech's article covered mostly the difficulties of doing mixed research. The guest lecture from Martha Cleveland-Innes was much more focused on her research as well as using quantitative method. I remember her posing the question if online learning was better than face to face. Most of the class was quiet with that answer because it is based more on people preferences on learning styles. I have taken making online classes since high school and throughout my undergraduate studies and I have enjoyed them immensely. Just like with face to face learning, it depends on the ability of the professor to make it an enjoyable class or not. I have had both good and bad teachers in a physical classroom as well as online. I look forward to Martha's future research on this subject and what changes may arise from it.

I had never heard of or used SPSS before the lab given by Ester Appelgren. SPSS stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and is a software for statistical analysis. Ester explained that software like this comes in handy for journalists who don't like working with numbers and statistics (neither do I).  We played around with the data, made comparisons of variables, made charts, etc. I don't feel that this small lab taught me enough on the subject but it was a nice introduction to a software that I may possibly have to use in the future.

I feel this week's readings, lecture, and lab was only dipping a toe into a much larger pond of information but has given me tools and direction to seek this topic out more.

Theme 3: Quantitative Methods

In this weeks reading, Lowenthal and Leech's article, Mixed Research and Online Learning,  discusses the advantages of using mixed research methods as opposed to one method in order to conduct research on online learning. The article mentions that many past studies on online learning are flawed in the sense that they are comparing online learning with face-to-face learning, which is essentially like comparing apples to oranges, they just aren't the same. Another problem Lowenthal and Leech mention as to the methods that prior people have used to gain insight into online learning "have failed to employ robust research designs or control for extraneous variables (3)." They also claim that although survey data and content analysis have their place in online learning research, they do not cover all the bases. They suggest implementing design based research to get a more thorough view on the subject.

Lowenthal and Leech's description of mixed methods was predominantly the use of quantitative and qualitative methods. They called it the "third paradigm" and that it should be considered in situations when it is appropriate. It does make sense to me that in order to get a more comprehensive view of something, you should look at it from as many angles as possible.

I believe the main reason for this article was not so much directed at online learning, but at how to best go about using mixed research as it is quite a difficult task. So their article was basically to bring many thoughts of conducting mixed research together in one paper to hopefully aid in promoting it as a viable research method.

The other reading from Cleveland-Innes and Campbell focused more on actual quantitative research done in regards to online learning and emotions. In their article, Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment, they sought to understand the connections experienced during online learning. What I found interesting is that they could take emotional responses and turn it into data. As they mentioned, emotions are part of the human experience but its hard to see them as something that can be measured.Their hope was to have more thorough results in regards to online learning because they chose to incorporate emotions which many others do not see as affecting ones ability to learn. Their first phase took a more qualitative approach by analysing conference transcripts in phase 1 and a more quantitative approach in phase 2 by using an online survey. Their results did indicate the presence of emotions between both teachers and students when it concerns learning online.