Six degrees of separation

6 degrees of separation

As usual, according to Wiki, 6 degrees of separation is:

"The theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world, so that a chain of 'a friend of a friend' statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps"

We might also have stumble across this situation, where the person who we just met actually know someone who we knows. In my case, few that I remember are; my sister who found out that her lecturer during degree is actually my uncle's good friend. Another is my friend actually know my friend (not close enough) from degree studies, and the expert I interviewed last week is someone whom my friend has worked together during conference. See, others might have same experience and even funny story behind it.

The theory make us think and we can say that we are all actually related or connected to each other. The 6 steps show how close we are from each other. Besides that, this remind us that we must be humble and not belittle others as there are no big difference between us. Professor Albert-Laslo Barabasi from Northeastern University said that there is no isolate person in a network. Each person on the network depend on each other. We must question on how the person contact others. I have analyse a online forum network before, so, that is means, even there are so many isolate members in the forum, that doesn't means they are isolate. Behind that virtual activities, they might somehow communicate with each other, maybe through calling or meet at the cafe.

There is a video which prove the '6 degrees of separation' theory. A document which pass to a foreign country are able to arrive Boston through 6 peoples. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rzxAyY7D7k

The great things is this theory might also help in various field such as finding the solution/understanding the genetic disease, virus spread or military tactic in targeting influence people.

Learning analytics

Good day!

Today, let's talk a bit about learning analytics. Actually, this topic has been brought up during our interview with the Director of Centre of Teaching & Learning, few weeks before. It is interesting topic be discussed as e-learning has become more common as a medium in learning process. Now, what is learning analytics?

Let's take a look at wiki definition:

"Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs."

There are 4 importance thing here, which are:

-What you need to see

-Which data to be used

-What method/analysis/analytic tools you use

-What you need to do after see the result

The last part is where the process of "understanding and optimising learning and the environment".

An article (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/26/learning-analytics-student-progress) share on how an institution, Purdue University even has tools which will give their students warning about their learning performance through colour. The instructors, after told by tool will tell the student to improve when the student got 'red colour' if in high risk such as isolated or not participate at all in online activities. This show the advantage of learning analytics as it tell you what happened (the result) and what you can do. Other benefits, it is true that not only learning analytics help students improve learning performance but also other skills such as team networking or leadership skills, as there are many activities online are in group.

Nowadays there is a lot of tools provided for this purpose. Whether embedded in the e-learning (learning management system) or stand-alone tools. The instructor has wide choice in other to analyse student's performance and then do what is necessary to improve them. However, in other to give useful result, the provider of the analytics tools itself need to consider several things:

-Provide accurate result (involve correct measurement, algorithm and etc)   

-Not all user are tech geek, so the tools must user friendly

-The result patterns or visual graph need to be easily understand (as those result are usually for decision making)

To get the concept clearer, I want to share one example through this video (which I learned from: http://glassclassroom.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-glass-classroom-big-data.html). 

The glass is just the medium and technology which still far beyond achieve, but what need to be focused is how the information needed (result after data being analysed) can appear just in few seconds (yeah, that easy!) and the user can use for their own needs-mobile control, class attendance, energy control, patients status, etc.

If doing analytic by own is uneasy or not enough time, why not establish a department in institution which specialize in providing analyses results required by instructors through phone call or email or one click? (Anyway, this is just bizarre idea)

So, let's use learning analytic tools to learn more effectively and efficiently!

Interview session

As we've got students from other country, let's use English alright.

Yesterday two of our research team members conduct interview with IT officer..
The main focus of the interview is to get insight on proposed model for Master thesis.

But the issue or conclusion that we want to highlight in this entry is: the factor of passive usage of e-learning activity other than upload resources/notes. So, what the main reason?
From the interview, it is said that the root is the one who instruct to use the e-learning. As for student, if not because of marks which affect their grade, they won't participate in it (the activities). At the same time, they can't participate if the instructor don't even initiates the activity.

So, what the reasons instructor don't initiates the e-learning activity?
Let's look some of citation below:

“The fact that as yet there has been little use is not a lack of potential, nor a

lack of responsiveness from students – but a lack of skills and resources on

behalf of institutions to generate the right kind of materials that build on the

potential of the technology, and to integrate them in an appropriate way into

a teaching programme." (SFEU, 2004)

while

Fresen, 2010 said that even the technology has emerge rapidly, that does not imply that all academic staffs are able catch up.

Even if the institution are active in promoting e-learning activities, they must not forget to sharpening the staff's skill in those technology. There must be a way to make the staff willing (happily) to learn the tools and remember how to use it. Then apply it in the class without burden.

There is also quote:

“Unless a state of institutional sustainability is achieved, it is likely that e-learning activity

will in the long term be limited to enthusiasts” (Nichols, 2008, p. 598) 

Author want to share: 

"I just remembered the first time my mum got a tablet. She expressed heavily that using the tablet is difficult. After passionately taught her to just click few buttons, now she can't let go the candy crush game." :)

Tahniah..

Assalamua'laikum semua,
Sudah bertahun blog tidak dikemas kini. Tetapi ini tidak bermaksud group research tidak aktif.
Malah, ramai telah lulus viva dengan jayanya. Entri ini ingin mengucapkan tahniah terutama kepada mereka yang telah berjaya menghabiskan pengajian dan lulus viva. Tahniah! kepada (tidak mengikut turutan):
-Anis
-Shaf
-Ema
-Wani
-Iffa
-Zul
-Shariff

Tahniah juga diucapkan kepada Tuan Penyelia, Dr Shahizan kerana menyandang jawatan IT Manager di SPS tahun lalu? dan mendapat sebuah office yang nyaman dan pembantu yang ramai dan berdedikasi. :D

Tahniah juga diucapkan kepada Puan Lizawati dan Shaffika, kerana telah berbadan dua. Semoga sihat selalu!

Dan tidak terlambat untuk mengucapkan selamat datang dan tahniah kepada Waleed dan Mahdi kerana menyambung Phd.

Diharap, bulan dan tahun mendatang kita semua dimurahkan rezeki dan berjaya dalam bidang yang diceburi. Pengkaji akan berusaha mengemaskini entri untuk penyebaran ilmu yang bermanfaat terutama dalam bidang kajian.

Sempena menyambut Ramadhan tidak lama lagi, selamat berpuasa semua!

"No one can go back and make a brand new start, however anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."

- Carl Bard