Friday Review

It's been an intense week! In a harbinger of what is doubtless to come over the next two weeks this week has been filled with serious study and writing sessions. Here's the roundup.

Research

Things are progressing nicely with the FWK study. The background and significance sections have been written, to complete the first draft we just need to describe results of the beta test. David was able to pull together the raw information and I'll take a stab at processing it this next week.

Distance Education

Had a great discussion on copyright. It got me wondering about what would happen if copyright were limited to 10 years. I got a draft of the research paper for this class that I feel very happy with. There's lots of room for improvement yet, but I think it's going to be a valuable contribution to the field.

Open Education


This week we investigate an ongoing debate between David Wiley and Stephen Downes. I was very glad we reviewed it in class because some important clarifications happened for me. One was that BY-SA cannot be remixed with BY-NC-SA. The other was the saying that "For producers of content that will be used commercially the BY-NC-SA license makes sense."

Assessment

We are pressing forward in this class. I worked on analyzing a couple of articles in terms of their reliability and validity.

Research and Stats

This was a major focus this week. Four hours studying for the test and four hours taking it. It was a lot of work, but I really feel like I have a great understanding of correlation, regression and ANOVAs. I also made some great headway in my research project for this class as I found a professor who doesn't require any scripture study of his students--it will serve as the perfect control. I'll let you in on one other secret since you've read this far. I typically don't buy textbooks--if I won't use it after the course, why make the purchase? For this class, I borrowed the textbook from Cary (and was very grateful to her!) But I have enjoyed this textbook so much I bought it this week (on ebay) even though the class is ending because I love it so much. I know I'm a nerd, but there have been a couple of times when I've been reading it just before bed and haven't wanted to turn off the lights!