Moving Forward

Today I had a good, albeit brief, conversation with my adviser. We agreed that it is possible for me to graduate by May 2009. In order to do that I need to:

1. Complete a 1 page project proposal to her by Jan. 7 (she said 31st but I'm aiming for earlier)
2. Apply for graduation by Feb 1
   
3. Draft by mid-March '09
   
4. Complete project & paper by April 15 '09
   
5. Java certification equivalency by April 15

The basic outline of the paper/proposal should state:

1. What's the need
2. What's currently out there
3. Why is this different
4. Why this design
5. What is the pedagogy behind it
6. How does this lead to the design principles

The above 6 points is pretty much exactly what I did for every game design class. She just made it sound so doable.

<exhale> How I've missed bullet points and deadlines!

Real Constraints and random thoughts

Real constraints - So ironic that I wrote about constraints yesterday. As it turns out, Columbia rescinded my email account which means that I cannot register for graduation. So I'm now in the process of getting that reinstated. Apparently there is a deadline! Hola!

I'm also having a conversation with my adviser next week -- so I better have something tangible to talk to her about.

Random thoughts about technology for learning
In thinking about using technology for learning, I think we often conflate the ways technology can be used. As communication productivity tools, technologies make communications quicker, & more efficacious. For example: webconferencing, or using Adobe Connect or Centra for lectures/information sharing; wikis for collaborative project management; blogs for one to many sharing; researching a topic or sharing tags with del.ico.us or diigo.

Technology as content - using Second Life to learn about SL or using programming to design games. Using online blogs, sites, etc. to learn about specific technical skills.

Technology as enabling learning - using technology to learn content more deeply - using games to learning financial systems; using modular online video to examine sections of content; using online cases (stories) to understand complex problems.

Technology as identity - this is perhaps the most difficult category to describe. Many people call this technology as social networking tool, but i think it is more than that. It is what Sherri Turkle calls the virtual identity, virtual leash or umbicial cord. It is life-on-line. It is how you feel about your avatar in SL or WoW or even Habbo Hotel. It is your Facebook profile, your LinkedIn status, your blog identity. It's about the care and feeding of the virtual self. This is the different roles you play in your virtual worlds. It is even you email persona. It's that other you. (That's why MikeB, one asks the oracle Google to divine your future for your virtual self.)

Random thoughts about the war(s) - The 3 trillion dollar war - by cash flow accounting - I heard an interview recently on NPR by the author of the 3 trillion dollar war. Did you know the government is using CASH based accounting *not* ACCRUAL based accounting to track the costs of the war.

Do you have any idea how insane that is? If they were a corporation, that would be illegal and it would be impossible to fully understand the financial status of the company. It means that when the government orders tanks for say $3 mil, the transaction is not recordeded as a $3mil expense, the transaction is only what cash was paid up front, say the downpayment of $300,000. The rest is accounted for when it is paid. What's recorded is only what is paid, not the full expense of the tanks. So how do we know how much is really being spent on the war? WE DON'T!!!

It's like giving a teenager a credit card, allowing them to spend willy nilly, and having them record the costs of their expenses as only the minimum amount they pay on their credit card each month -- their actual cash outlay costs. Unbelievably irresponsible.

This in addition to the fact that the gov't is borrowing most of the money from the Chinese to pay for the damn war. What's the collateral? Will they own the country if we can't pay?

It's so important to understand the difference between cash flow and accrual based accounting.

Time for constraints

At our last book club meeting we read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. It was an absolutely beautiful, unexpected story. In researching Ann Patchett, the author, I came across another book she wrote called Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face, a memoir about Lucy's life in the aftermath of cancer surgery that removed a part of her jaw. Since I was so mesmerized by Bel Canto I decided to read these two books, starting with Lucy Grealy's memoir and then reading Ann Patchett's non-fiction book about their friendship. I finished them both in a few days.

There is much to say about these two books, about love & friendship between two women (how I miss my close friends!), about the emotional, intellectual play of two writers, and simply about the work of being a writer. The everyday nature of writing for Ann Patchett, the divine inspiration and frenzied struggle of writing for Lucy Grealy. The role they played for each other, mentoring, inspiring, and pushing each other.

In my work, I look for divine inspiration where I am swept up in the ectasy of writing and creating. That rarely happens. But that is what I keep wanting (reminsicent of my post on passion in one's work.) I am torn between just getting this master's done, and creating a work of inspired art. This desire to create art, I know, is false in so many ways. First of all, it is form of procrastination, but most clearly it is just wrong -- a masters in educational technology is not art. It is, as hickcity reminded me in his comment, a career move. This is what I have to remember -- and I just need to get it done. Ann Patchett I learned is the writer "ant", day by day she plugs away, and creates beauty in her words.

Whether or not I create truth and beauty in my work, what matters at this point, is just finishing. I cannot turn this into a Nicole Brossard essay. The one paper I never finished writing in my undergraduate career was a 20 page paper on Mauve Desert, a book by Nicole Brossard, a Quebecois, feminist, lesbian writer -- in translation from French -- of course. I tried to write that paper, make it insightful and amazing, only to realize that I had nothing left to say. With angst and time I wrote myself into silence; I can't let that happen here and now.

There was a part in Ann's description of Lucy where, in order to finish her memoir, Lucy had to have deadlines imposed upon her, and have noise and chaos in her life creating pressure to write. I think I have a little of that in me. Work, school and New York created the perfect context for me to work -- albeit unbalanced and unhealthy. Palo Alto is just the opposite -- very little pressure, no real deadlines. I need to create a pressures and deadlines for myself, which I've tried to do in the past by creating reading timelines. Those only partially worked as I didn't focus on the core of the work -- the content of the design.

Applying for for graduation in the spring will create the desired deadline-induced anxiety and stress. I think, also, I need to just write the thesis about my project, and then find a way to create my project. It's a little ass-backwards but it may get me out of this rut by writing the ending first. I also need to get rid of one last nagging requirement and get certified in Java -- another deadline and stress.

Also it helps to get back to the routine of writing in the mornings --before the brain has not been numbed by the minutiae of life. So I begin again. Wish me luck.

Reflections on the Journey

Sitting in the sun back in Palo Alto and easing back into the unfinished masters & house renovations. To be honest, I never really thought about the masters or the house while traveling, I never got bored, never pined for my own bed, and came to the realization that the peak of civilization is a good, hot shower whenever you want. You can see some pictures from the travels by clicking this link to my Picasa web album site -- there is one set of photos for each country. Below is a pic that epitomizes each place for me.

Seville - life lived outside, warm and inviting. Narrow streets meant for walking, turning corners and suddenly seeing a doorway, an insight to another life.

Dubai - life lived inside. This is my favorite picture of the people in the mall viewing the people in the ski slope. None of the malls had windows onto the outside world -- what's there to see but other buildings and the dirty remains of a desert? And during the hot, hot summers windows become impractical. The ski slope is the Dubai we see on news reports -- this is the Dubai the emir wants us to know about. Not the crowded, congested Dubai where many live, or the endless apartments of Sharjah and Ajman. This picture of the ski slope reminds me of Second Life -- people standing around, unconnected to each other, watching and waiting for something to happen.

And then there is Paris -- romantic and cold (in all aspects of that word.) What more can I say? It was lovely to experience Paris with my partner, Peter as he re-experienced places of his youth, walking familiar streets, eating at familiar places. Unlike Dubai (which changed everyday) Paris was essentially the same as 20 years ago.

I'm at a loss of how to get this masters done.

Loss of momentum, loss of desire, and I question why I was doing this in the first place.