Part of my former student Pedro Campos Ph.D. research this is a theoretical model enabling a more sustained understanding of software tools and developers workstyles.
Check the associated survey results here and the examples related to our tools here.
Archive
HCIEd 2007 is the annual international conference of Human-Computer Interaction Educators from both industry and academia. This year the conference focuses on the theme of Creativity3: Experiencing to educate and design.It will take place in Aveiro, Portugal – 29th and 30th of March 2007.
A brilliant talk from Yale Patt – The future of “Computer * ” (Are we in serious trouble?) – about computer education avaliable from the Computer Society. Funny, insightful and discussing something which is particularly important these days in western european countries – the reduced number of students enrolling engineering degrees.
Music:
- Paul Simon – Surprise – I don’t fancy the earliest S&G albums but I’ve always enjoyed Simon’s latest solo albums. After the tropical landscapes of Rhythm of the Saints, and the African with Graceland he now partners with Brian Eno for a brilliant album;
- Ali Farka Tour̩ РSavane Рthis is a masterpiece from one of the most brilliant african composers of all times that recently died of cancer;
- Clap your hand and say yeah – Clap your hands and say yeah – this a 2005 record from a band almost entirely launched on the internet. A nice record which sound a lot like Byrne and Eno.
- Bob Dylan – Modern Times – another old timer that came back to the scene with another brilliant album.
Books:
- Malcolm Gladwell – “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” – another brilliant book from Gladwell, this time about how our brain thin-slices, which is “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and people based on very narrow ’slices’ of experience”;
- Barry Schwartz – “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less” – well I’m reading about decision making you might have guessed and this is an interesting book that explores why we have difficulties making choices with too much information;
- Gary Klein -”Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions” – another book about how people make decisions, this time Klein explores naturalistic decision making through a discussion of his own research with firefighters, nurses, nuclear power plant operators, pilots, etc.
Following the research project of Pedro Campos and Leonel Nóbrega some of my undergraduate students developed a Windows version of what we (at LabUSE) believe should be an easy to use and effective modeling tool.
You can download the first public beta at http://apus.uma.pt/~winsketch, let us know what you think of this prototype. There are also some videos available.
The brilliant college application essay from a student that any University would accept blindly.
I would at least…
Hugh Gallagher’s ‘College Essay’
3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:
ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
A cool video for a 3D Desktop prototype.
First Google bought writely
Now Google spreadsheets is announced…
One missing for a full feature Web 2.0 Office suite.
Microsoft is in deep trouble.
News this week about the W3C conference quote Tim Berners-Lee about the role the semantic web is going to have in the future of the internet.
“I think there’s a chance actually that we can do better this time around,” said Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989.
“I think it’s also possible we mess that up, and the Web 2.0 becomes a big mess of rather unreliable stuff which you end up having to go through with Google,” he said.
I’m not commenting on this, but it surely contrasts my own view about the Web 2.0 being all about enhanced usability, something Don Norman advocated recently at the interactions magazine in his column People: the way I see it.
My guess is usability will drive the future of the internet, it’s all about the users stupid (I will not mail Tim Berners-Lee on this). Check Pedro Campo’s CanonSketch project about our vision about the future of software design tools and how they could support the future of the internet with stuff like Adobe flex.
A long time friend Mark van Harmelen is back in the field after a period in his homeland South Africa helping setup a research project and also being involved in the Manchester Framework Project. Don’t miss his online lecture about Oohci (I’m maintaining Mark’s trend of not using all-capitals for methods).