More Here, Less There (Ph.D. Year 1, Spring Week 5)

TLDR:

Last week I began examining the relationship between usability heuristics and educational technologies design. Celebrated my husband’s birthday with a fun trip out of town. I caught up on my homework that was due at the end of the week, and now need to do all the coursework that is due this week. It’s shaping up to be a very busy week. I finally beat The Collector boss on Hollow Knight (he killed me a lot).

For the Interested Reader:

Accomplishments

Are we missing simple usability considerations in the design of technology? Given the task to examine educational technologies design I decided the best place to start would be the simplest: to examine the relationship between usability heuristics and educational technologies. 

Celebrated my husband’s birthday with a fun trip out of town. I didn’t take any pictures, but we had tons of fun with the kiddos.

I still feel like I’m recovering from last semester. Though the more we progress in this semester the less angry I feel about courses. I’m not feeling my assignments.

What’s next

• Make notes and hypotheses about how simple usability heuristics can be molded for educational technologies.
• Coursework (two big projects, daily homework, and an exam)
• Personal goals

Roadblocks

I’m an all-in kind of gal, and so I’m having a hard time putting more focus on my research (for which you receive zero feedback on “grades” during the semester, you just get one at the end), and not doing all I can in my classes (for which you get told how “good” you are constantly, which I feel is really more of a reflection on how well the teacher is teaching/how interested the students are despite the teacher, than how “good” a student really is.). So I find myself doing less all around rather than more here and less there.

Star Struck! Meeting Julian Togelius (Ph.D. Year 1, Fall Weeks 11-13)

Oops, life got away from me, but that’s okay! Here’s a three-week update!

TLDR:

I had a minor procedure done (all went well), I updated my website with an about me, I completed and got rejected for the HERTZ, we didn’t have time to complete the AISL, and I got great feedback and direction from Tallie the librarian for my literature review! OH, and I met Julian Togelius the editor in chief for the IEEE Transactions on Games Journal! What?!?!? 

For the Interested Reader:

Star Struck!

I should preface: I don’t usually get star struck! But when I met Julian Togelius, I definitely felt the struckness!

Julian Togelius visited our university and I had the opportunity to attend the grad luncheon. He politely, and with good humor and an upbeat spirit, listened to and engaged with us and our research areas and ideas. It was a great experience. Afterward, he emailed me personally with two papers he had written on psychotherapy games (a core interest of mine), and I got to talk to him for a bit after his talk also. I was def star-struck. It was great!

Taking Time for Me

In my last post, I talked about being a woman pursuing both career and family goals: in that pursuit, I had to take some time away from school and I fell a little behind. I am all caught up now, if not with the all-star A’s I had before, I am feeling I need to push through so as to let other women know you can do both, and it’s okay to shift from one to the other. As a doctoral student being a 4.0 isn’t as important as it used to be, though I love getting my A’s, it’s okay to let perfection in the pursuit of better, more impactful things!

Accomplishments

I got rejected from the HERTZ!

We’ll be applying to the AISL (or another related grant) next year.

I took time for my personal and family goals.

The Marriot Library has FREE research consultations for students and employees. At the suggestion of my advisor I did one, not really expecting much. Boy was a blown away! I got SUPAH great guidance feedback from Tallie the librarian on my literature review. She definitely helped me frame my research question, get to my target databases, how to save my work, emphasized the Prisma (which I think will be a fun visual to include in my paper), and was in general fun to talk to and very supportive.

What’s next

Got to do these things:

• Start the meat of the literature review: downloading, reading, and writing
• Survive the end of the semester
• Register for Spring 2020
• Read the many papers that have been sent to me to read from my advisor, Julian Togelius, and my peers.

Roadblocks

I’m burnt out from the semester. My classes are only slightly related to my area of research and I’m getting really tired of reading and doing writeups on papers that aren’t even remotely related to my core area of interest. There’s a reason I didn’t go into writing, as much as I loved being an editor and journalist, I get really bored when writing and reading is all I do all day. This semester has been one very long reading-writing session. I’m all burnt out.

I need to work with Rogelio on what my schedule is going to look like next semester and how my work this semester can be carried into my lab rotation with Eliane next semester: I’m excited to see what we can possibly collaborate on.

MY FAVORITE SEASON! (Ph.D. Year 1, Week 5)

TLDR:

I wrote a very rough draft for the AISL grant. Narrowed down research questions and aims for systematic review along with a pretty comprehensive list of keywords and databases to search. I need to get the AISL proposal written up and fast. The deadline is next week and I need to somehow fit that in with my course load. Where has September gone? On the bright side, it’s officially my favorite season and my husband and I just passed our half-year wedding anniversary.

The Full Story:

Accomplishments

It’s officially my favorite season! YEAH AUTUMN! Pumpkins, cute jackets and boots, and bring on the hot chocolate! My husband and I just passed our six-month anniversary. (We’re not very good at celebrating on specific days, but we do celebrate!). We started our marriage with his favorite season — we married on the spring equinox — and now we get to celebrate the rest of our first year kicking it off with my favorite season. I picked a good wedding day. 

Last week Rogelio made me aware of the NSF’s AISL program and potential funding. AISL is “Advancing Informal STEM Learning” which is right up my games ally! He asked me to write up a 1.5-page draft proposal. We first have to compete with others from the University of Utah (each university can only submit three proposals for AISL funding). It’s final is due next week on Wednesday, Oct 2nd! Wish us luck.

With the help of my advisor, Rogelio, I narrowed down my systematic review questions, created aims, and with the help of others from the QED lab, I now also have a pretty comprehensive list of databases to search and keywords to search on. (Thanks QED lab!)

What’s next

Write up a hero narrative for the AISL. Get all my notes from the systematic review all in one place (they are a bit of everywhere right now). Somehow fit in my coursework and study for my upcoming midterms.

Roadblocks

I somehow have to fit writing up the AISL and do my research amongst many large projects from my courses. I can see now why taking three courses, two seminars, and doing research is a bit much. I am definitely feeling burnout. Mostly because one of my courses workload (just one) ate my weekend. 😦

 

The Plan and Burnout (Ph.D. Year 1, Week 2 & 3)

TLDR:

Finished semester plan. Main two research goals are to apply for outside funding and  write a systematic review.

This week I’ll create a set of research questions for a systematic review and begin applying for outside funding.

The Full Story:

Accomplishments

I have been reading meta papers and looking at different ways to read and write different kinds of research papers. I have decided this semester to focus on writing a systematic review in the educational games/intelligent tutoring systems area.

I also shared several of the games I made in 24-48 hours with my lab and discussed the design ideas and purpose behind each. It was a good review to me. My chosen area in games is for pedagogical reasons, however games have purpose far beyond just entertainment and education.

It’s one of the other things I did this past week was defending the rigor of games research. I have come across several researchers who use game terminology without actually understanding the field of games. It is particularly important to note that what many researchers have called “game design theory” is actually gamification. Without proper understanding of the difference of game design and gamification, the application of these principles can actually backfire and undermine the overall purpose of the application as a whole. 

Two books I am enjoying delving into are Dan Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, and Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers. Part of what I want to do as part of my Ph.D. is to define and further develop design principles for learning games.

Something I realized 2.5 weeks in is that if I don’t take time between research and coursework projects to work on personal & family goals then I don’t make progress my personal or family goals. The thing is research and school is that those things can balloon and take up all your time. It’s important to set appropriate boundaries for everything and not allow those things to consume your life unknowingly. With this in mind I was able to start making progress on personal and family goals as well which has made me feel better about my life overall since I am not ignoring important aspects of myself.

Finally, I finished my semester plan and have a clearly defined path to accomplish my goals this semester.

What’s next

Create a set of research questions for a systematic review.

Begin applying for outside funding.

Roadblocks

Adhering to my scheduled time blocks to accomplish different tasks. Issues here are: under/over estimating (mostly under) time it takes to accomplish tasks, unplanned activities (such as having to spend an extra hour getting somewhere, forgetting lunch, etc.), and burnout. The burnout bit is an issue for me when I’m working against a deadline and I’m sick of doing the task in front of me.

I think I have a solution, by switching up tasks, going for walks, taking time to eat, relaxing about perfectionism (which has been a big thing for me), but when you have to get something done and you need all the time you have been given to accomplish it burnout sets in…

This semester has also been a lot heavier on the reading/analysis then expected and not so much on math and programming. I have done little programming and not in any way that I truly enjoy, and I don’t have time to make games, which makes me sad. So yeah, burn out is an issue.