Thursday, March 11, 2010

On Wave and the Final Project

I was just reminded by my trusty Tutor, Yanjie, that I have not been setting a good example for the class because I haven't blogged for a while.

Fair enough, so I blog. :-) [May this serve as a gentle reminder to the students that while they were exempt from blogging last week because they were expected to be working on their Final Project Proposals, they are expected to resume with their weekly posts this week.]

After reading some of the feedback from the midterm survey, perhaps I can take the opportunity to explain again why students are asked to blog: (i) because it "forces" reflection, which will help in learning (causes pain because learning takes effort); (ii) it helps many students improve their writing skills (yes, writing can be improved simply by writing more); and (iii) it helps me figure out what students are learning or are not learning.

Students who don't think blogging is of value to them or who have no time to blog, don't have to blog. Maybe they will take a minor penalty in the final grades for the class, but in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter. Students should just have the guts to do stuff they wanna do and find value in doing. :-)

Just one perspective to consider: suppose you decide not to blog because you don't like to write (which typically suggests that you don't write very well) then you have basically given up an opportunity to practice and improve your writing. Just think about who is paying the tuition. :-)

Anyhow, just did my first video conferencing lecture on Monday, "live" from Sydney! I thought the audio quality (barring a short period of static) was pretty good. The visuals however probably weren't too great.

I shan't go into too much detail about the talk, since the students are likely to say more. I would like to highlight three key points.

One, the Google Wave Active Robot API is really quite intriguing. Why? Because why Waves were in the past confined within the browser, the Active Robot API allows robots outside the browser to interact with Waves which are these logical conversations "somewhere in the cloud".

It seems to me that some interesting things can be done with Robots now (though I'm not entirely sure what) and I would like to encourage students to think of Waves not so much as this page in the browser but as "conversation objects". The Wave is really some abstract object and not just a browser-thing. Students should spend more time thinking through and try to understand what a Wave is.

Two, the principles of Wave-y extensions are pretty interesting and might perhaps be applicable to user interface and interaction design at large, instead of just Waves. Two key points raised: don't modify stuff by removing/reformatting the text. If you need to modify stuff, give users the choice. :-P

Three, lag is a huge problem for Wave at this point. That said, I believe that when the lag gets engineered away, there will indeed be some things that can be done better in Wave than in other media. One function that seems to be missing in Wave at the moment is search. There's a search facility to search in the Waves, but what I mean is that each Wave should have a in-page search facility to search within a Wave when the Wave gets long. Otherwise how to find stuff?

Hmm, just realized that maybe a Wave robot can do exactly that -- which in a way highlights an important feature of Wave over something like Gmail, it's pretty easy to extend. :-)

Alright, so much for Waves, some words of advice on the Final Projects since this week is the week where I meet with the various groups to do sanity checks:

Please do something you really believe in. I'm proud to say that after two years of CS3216, I've finally "figured it out" and I finally have the confidence to say that "students can do anything they want" (and still be reasonably sure that things will turn out okay). This is the chance for you to do something that you've always wanted to do but never found the time to do. This is the chance for you to do more than just another class project. This is the chance to work with perhaps the most motivated and talented students NUS has to offer on something that can make a difference. I think it would be criminal to settle for anything less.

Think Big, Take Small Incremental Bites. It's good to have a vision, but it also important to be grounded in reality. You have to learn to phase the implementation of the problem into small bit-sized chunks and nail them one at a time instead of trying to swallow the whole thing and choke. To do well for the Final Project, it's not about doing A LOT A LOT of work. Small projects, executed well can also find phenomenal success. However, it requires students to do a significantly larger amount of thinking than other class projects where the perimeters are much more clearly defined. Depending on the nature of the project, the considerations are different. Understand the problem; focus your energies on what matters most.

Deploy Early. The merits of deploying a working prototype early (within the next two weeks) cannot be overstated. In addition to being able to gather valuable user feedback early, it improves morale significantly and will allow students to avoid running into conflicts with the projects from other classes.

Have Fun! There are few things you will remember about school in a couple of years after you finish school. Believe it or not, many of you will remember the nights you spend with your friends in COM1. Remember you only live once. :-)

7 comments:

  1. This is the chance for you to do something that you've always wanted to do but never found the time to do. This is the chance for you to do more than just another class project.

    It is a chance to actually live a dream. To do something that makes sure I am not one of the mainstream followers. Quoting from Seth Godin's blog -
    The best part of college is that you could become whatever you wanted to become, but most people just do what they think they must.

    Perhaps it will give us a chance to explore more of what the passion is and even overclock our gently running brain CPUs to get the best out.

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  2. suka suka quote me again! Now you're reinforcing the stereotype that I'm naggy!

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  3. "...perhaps the most motivated and talented students NUS has to offer..."

    I believe there are many other crounching tigers and hidden dragons out there in NUS. What set the CS3216 students apart from the rest are their willingness & guts to step out of their comfort zone.

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  4. May this serve as a gentle reminder to the students that while they were exempt from blogging last week because they were expected to be working on their Final Project Proposals, they are expected to resume with their weekly posts this week.

    I think they are just trying to work smart like what u always emphasize? Cos final project is the most important now.

    Not implying those who blog are not working smart, maybe they just as devoted to blogging as to their final project. And blogging is a way of expressing urself like updating status, which many ppl like (if not facebook won't be so popular).

    Students who don't think blogging is of value to them or who have no time to blog, don't have to blog. Maybe they will take a minor penalty in the final grades for the class, but in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter.

    Contradiction to the reminder.

    Just one perspective to consider: suppose you decide not to blog because you don't like to write (which typically suggests that you don't write very well) then you have basically given up an opportunity to practice and improve your writing.

    But u are not grading them based on their grammar, vocab or spelling, so even they are wrong in these components they may not realise, instead they may practice the wrong stuff more. I think writing skills won't really improve much by a blog or two...

    I shan't go into too much detail about the talk, since the students are likely to say more.

    I think the talk should be placed while the assignment is still on instead of when the assignment is over. As most student would want to put focus on the final project now. Unless a grp wants to do Google Wave again for the final project... anyone?

    And the technical problems/issues (such as the lag in transmisison of slides) made it difficult for us to focus. Should have the slides ready for us to access before the talk.

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  5. @Li Yen,

    But u are not grading them based on their grammar, vocab or spelling, so even they are wrong in these components they may not realise, instead they may practice the wrong stuff more. I think writing skills won't really improve much by a blog or two...

    This is not primary school, "grammar, vocab or spelling" should be the least of your problems at this stage. Writing is about articulating your ideas clearly and figuring out what you want to write.

    I think the talk should be placed while the assignment is still on instead of when the assignment is over.

    If so, how is Pamela supposed to give you pointers on what you have done?

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  6. Hmm... those are actually part of writing and are important for articulating ideas clearly. But of course one can be imperfect on these and still express ideas well.

    In the email I read about Pam is going to blog about our assignment too... that would be quite good and clear actually.

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  7. When the wave gets long, why cannot just ctrl+f? :X It's fast!

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