Assignment #8: Gang Leader for a Day

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1

The most standout part of this chapter was obviously Sudhir's survey and the responses to it. Sudhir is obviously very oblivious to persons outside of his own social class, and has very little tact. I also found it pretty shocking that J.T. accepted him so quickly.

Chapter 2

I was very surprised by the fact that J.T. had actually attended college, and had a fair bit of business sense. It was interesting to begin to see the relationships between those who lived in Robert Taylor and how they seemed to rely on one another. 

Chapter 3

The door to door vote solicitation was a very funny portion of this book to me. I found it so amazing  that these foot soldiers were asking the residents to do something that they had no intention of doing themselves, and knew absolutely nothing about. This is also when you begin to see just how paranoid J.T. is about losing his position in the gang. 

Chapter 4

This is the chapter that lends the book it's name, and also perhaps the one that shocked me the most. I found it hard to believe that Sudhir would accept the challenge of being gang leader for a day, as I would think that he should be a silent observer in his research role. By making decisions about the goings on of the gang, he could have really altered the culture of the entire organization. 

Chapter 5

This is when Sudhir's focus shifts from J.T. and the gang to the other residents of Robert Taylor, and specifically Ms. Bailey. I was surprised by Ms. Bailey's obvious favoritism of certain residents and willingness to take bribes. While she did do her best to care for all of the children in the building, their parents were subjected to the need to bribe her.

Chapter 6

In this chapter, Sudhir interviews the prostitutes of Robert Taylor, and I found this section almost comical because of Sudhir's basically nonchalant attitude toward the women. Many of the residents of Robert Taylor are quite angry with Sudhir throughout this chapter and he spends much of it attempting to regain their trust, but failing to do so. 

Chapter 7

The drive-by shooting in this chapter was very eye-opening to me. I had just become distracted from the very violent nature of this area when it popped up and reared it's ugly head again here. I was appalled by the attitude of some of the cops.

Chapter 8

The conclusion of this book sees J.T. as a senior member of the black kings and then attempting his hand at things like being a barber, Sudhir moving on to be a professor, and Robert Taylor being torn down. J.T. seems to be more aware of the fact that Sudhir is not actually writing about him at this point, but is actually attempting to be helpful regardless. 

Book Reaction

Not many professors or PhD scholars enter a poor, black, gang infested neighborhood for seven years to ask the question, "How does it feel to be poor and black?". Most studies are carried out in the safe and quiet libraries where academics address the root causes of criminality. This book is different, and that is absolutely what made it so great. I found myself relating to the "characters" in the book as if they were the non-fiction heroes and villains that I so love to read about on my own time. The scary part is that the villains are real and the stories of injury and death are not just words on a page. 

Even though the book occurs during the height of the crack/cocaine epidemic in the US, it was surprising to learn that mo one really gets rich selling drugs. Most of the foot soldiers barely make the minimum wage and still live with their mothers. But the street is the only place where they can get consistent work. That amazed me. I was also taken aback by all the scenarios in which Sudhir suggested that someone should call and ambulance and was immediately met with the words "They won't come here". I just can't imagine an America where that is a possibility. Today, if such a situation occurred, there would undoubtedly be some consequences for those who refused to act.

When it was mentioned that the solution to poverty in public housing was the destruction of the entire housing project and the forced removal of the poor from their homes, I was also shocked. It was called "the transformation plan" and involved replacing the projects with "mixed income" developments. In practice this made people from those areas refugees in their own city. It is a barely disguised land grab by property developers. How can it be acceptable to just force people out of their homes like that?

I would also like to mention that Venkatesh is best known for his contribution to the best selling book Freakonomics, which exposed the underground economy of the urban poor. He provides compelling evidence that drug gangs are a product of US capitalism. I absolutely love Freakonomics, personally, and was extremely excited to hear of this connection.

This book is an excellent read that I would recommend to anyone at all, and not just those interested in ethnography or anthropology. 

Assignment #7: Nonobvious Observations

The video assignment that we have participated in this week is a great way to force us to notice the less than obvious things that distinguish people from one another. We can easily tell who a person is by their appearance or even the sound of their voice, but take those things away and could you still distinguish between the individuals? From that persons own perspective, are you able to decide who is who? It is very interesting to notice things like where a person looks when interacting with others, when being forced to wait, or while walking. There are plenty of other small things like this that can easily distinguish people from one another, but they usually go unnoticed by the majority of people.

At one point in the book The Secret Life of Pronouns, Dr. Pennebaker mentions Sherlock Holmes and how his prowess as a detective was mostly because of his superb observational skills. I had to laugh laugh at that moment, because I had just been thinking of the new television Elementary featuring a modern Sherlock Holmes. The show is based around these spectacular observational skills possessed by Sherlock Holmes as a modern detective.

Assignment #4: Comparison: Design of Everyday Things vs. Emotional Design

I can see how these two books sort of contradict one another, but I also don't see why they can't peacefully coexist.  There were contradictory statements from Design of Everyday Things within Emotional Design, but if you were to sort of overlook the exact examples and take just the concepts into account, the concepts build on one another quite nicely. It is great to consider the beauty of the design as well as the practicality of design.In Emotional Design, Norman divides emotional affection into three levels – visceral, behavioral and reflective. The visceral level is initiated by the primary sensual perceptions – the appearance, sound, smell or even taste. The behavioral level reflects our immediate experience while using the product – if it is easy and pleasurable to use. Finally, the reflective level arises as a result of our observations of past experiences, of what we consider desirable and if the product can give us sense of achievement and self-esteem. In Design of Everyday Things, the brain is sort of barely mentioned.

Assignment #2: Book Reading: The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter by Chapter:

Chapter 1
I found the very first section called You Would Need an Engineering Degree to Figure This Out to be very interesting. I feel this way all the time, and now I realize that I'm not alone, and that I'm also not crazy or dumb. The story of Dr. Norman's friend who got trapped between the sets of glass doors was very relatable and realistic. I've found myself in a very similar situation with "automatic" doors that only work if you approach the correct side, but no clue as to which side that might be. The idea of affordances, that an object should really only have one intended use, was extremely useful.

Chapter 2
The description Aristotle's Naive Physics and the bullet and running with a ball examples were so intriguing and frustrating. I had never before contemplated these examples and on first guess, missed both. After Dr. Norman explained, the answer became obvious to me, but I was upset with myself that I had missed them in the first place. The concepts of learned and taught helplessness helped me to understand my servere dislike for mathematics.

Chapter 3
The fact that I have looked at a penny and a computer keyboard so many times in my life and could not tell you which was Lincoln's head faces or where the letter 'f' is located without looking at them is amazing. The human brain really is spectacular. I also found the coin confusion stories very relatable, as I have been known to mix up Canadian money with American money and pay way more than I should have for items. When Dr. Norman was discussing the number of things that we are asked to remember, I realized that I really do have quite a remarkable ability when it comes to those things. All of the things that he mentioned in his list, I was able to recite from memory without hesitation. The natural mappings section was also quite interesting. Easily my favorite part of this chapter, and the book in general, is the basic description of a cell phone.

Chapter 4
All of the talk of VCR's in this chapter is very comical. I realize that the concepts of the book still apply very well to our world today, but the fact that this is such a new technology at this time is entertaining. I really liked the constraints section and the Lego example. Overall, though, this section was really just a reiteration of the very first chapter. I did really like all the door examples, and I now find myself over thinking the operations of doors every time I use one. The switch control issue was also very interesting to me. the way that he implemented the light switches in his office was very useful. The ideas visibility and feedback are absolutely necessary in the use of any item.

Chapter 5
This particular chapter succeeded in making me feel much less like an idiot. I know that I frequently make mistakes, and that many of them can be explained away is a relief. I came across a statement in this chapter that I found really cool, but that could have used a bit more explanation. To paraphrase, it was basically that you do not make as many mistakes when you are first learning something. I believe that is might mean that when you are first learning something, nothing is habitual yet, therefore fewer mistakes are made, but I would love to know what Dr. Norman really meant. I felt as though I was laughing and thinking "I've done that before" after just about every mistake or slip example.  

Chapter 6

This was the first chapter in which Dr. Norman really cut designers some slack and admitted that it is very difficult to decide what the best design for a product will be. The whole section on faucets was perhaps a bit excessive, but also very true to reality. It is very rare that the same faucet setup is encountered in a different building. There is such a huge array of faucets in the world that I can see why such a large section was devoted to them. I found the idea of creeping featurism quite relatable being as I am a software consultant presently. There are always new features added to a new iteration of the software I develop because the client wants it, even though we had previously decided that it was unnecessary. Dr. Norman's description of computers and problems associated with them quite surprised me. Almost everything that he said about them was still true today.

Chapter 7
I found that this chapter did a good job of bring the book together and wrapping it into a neat little package. I found the part about the way we become attached to doing things very interesting. It is very true that change can be very scary and even frustrating when it comes to something that has been the same for a long while. I was surprised that Dr. Norman was opposed to the idea of a Smart Home. I find this idea extremely appealing, and I get excited when I hear or read about some new technology that is designed to help this become a reality.

Book as a whole:
Overall, I found this book to be a great read with very many interesting and relatable topics. The idea that the problems might usually lie in the design of the object being used had never occurred to me. I was certainly one of the droves of people blaming themselves for making mistakes when, in fact, the fault lies in the design of the product and not the user. It took me about a week of trial and error to figure out my alarm clock. And, now I am convinced that this book has caused some sort of malfunction is said alarm clock. Since placing this book on my night stand, my alarm has been changing time at random intervals throughout the day. Of course I realize that the this is simply a chance occurrence, but you must admit that it is rather ironic. Dr. Norman does a great job of describing why and how we successfully and unsuccessfully use everyday objects with the great examples that are so relatable. His stories are usually accompanied with an explaination of good design human behavior. For example, the fundamental principals of designing for people are to: Provide a good conceptual model, make controls visible and to constantly provide feedback to the user. Dr. Norman reiterates his points at the end of the book by listing the seven UCD principles for transforming difficult tasks into easy ones:



1. Use both knowledge in the world and in the head

2. Simplify the structure of tasks

3. Make things visible

4. Get the mappings right

5. Exploit the powers of constraints-Natural & Artificial

6. Design for Error

7. When all else fails, standardize



In general, I think that this is an extremely useful method of approaching things. Simplification is really the key to everything, and given adequate instructions for the approach, things become much easier. The book as a whole is fantastic and very readable.

Good Designs:

Dog crate

This is my puppy Brodie and his crate. I feel that his crate is designed very well. It has 2 doors, so that it can be place in almost any area, but still be usable. The best part about the design of this crate is the closing/locking mechanism pictured below.  

It has great visual feedback that the crate door has closed and makes a sort of metal clicking noise when it is slid in all the way. 

Shampoo/Conditioner Bottles

These bottles are easy to use and well designed. They are curved so that they fit together in the smallest possible space, which is very convenient. It is also great that the conditioner bottle is designed to sit "upside down". The lid of this bottle is on the bottom, so that the conditioner is always right at the bottom and you don't have to do the awkward slippery bottle shake every time that you wash your hair. While the shampoo bottle is designed to sit "right side up", it is possible to flip it over when you are running low on shampoo, because the lid is flat on top.  The caps or tops of the bottles (pictured below) are also well designed.

It is very obvious where you should push when you want to open these bottles as there is a small indentation there. They also make a nice clicking noise when they are both opened and closed so that a user knows they have done so properly. 

Salt and Pepper Shakers

It is very easy to distinguish which shaker contains the salt and which contains the pepper. The conceptual model made by a user is almost without fail the correct one. 

Retractable Leash

This leash is great because it is so easy to use. There is only one button and one latch (pictured below) to operate the features and it is obvious what there functions are. 

When you want to stop the leash from releasing any more slack, you simply depress the button. If you want to lock it in that position, you depress that latch and the leash stays. It even makes a click noise when it has been locked. 

Desk Lamp

This is the lamp on my desk at work, and I feel that it is very well designed. It features a very useful knob that controls the intensity of the light. As you turn the knob clockwise the light gets more and more intense, and as you turn in counterclockwise the intensity decreases. It can no longer turn clockwise when the light is at full intensity, and makes a click and can no longer turn counterclockwise when it is all the way off. This lamp also features two outlets on the back where you can plug in anything that you like. 

Bad Designs:

Hall Light Switches

This light in my hallway is so very confusing. Each of the light switches or controls circled in red controls the light circled in blue. This hallway is literally about 5 feet long, so there is no need for it to have a switch at each end to control this light. I would be happier with it if it only had the one that is actually on the light itself. Fact is that one of the switches is always in the off position and one is always in the on position, no matter if the light is on or off. And the control on the light itself further complicates things by having no visual cue as to what mode it is in. If that bulb ever burns out, I might never know because I will simply not be able to tell if one of the switches has been operated incorrectly. 

Scentsy Warmer

 The on/off control for my scentsy warmer is badly designed. There is no visual cue as to whether the warmer is on or off. It is also positioned badly at about 6 inches down the cord. This is hard to access as it normally falls behind my television stand and I cannot reach it.

Vehicle A/C Controls

The way to control my car's air conditioning system still baffles me after over a year of ownership. While the ability to choose the temperature for each side is extremely convenient, there is also this little control at the vents that affect the air temperature (pictured below). 

I just can't get it right, and the temperature changes based on the setting of this twist knob, so there is no way that the temperature you have set is the actual temperature inside the car.

School Desk

This desk is just an example of similar desks that I have used before that I find to have a very poor design. Given that you lean too far back in the seat, the entire unit comes crashing down on you. The curved leg design looks nice enough, but it is much to easy to "rock" backwards and fall on your back. 

Storage Door

This is the door to the storage unit outside my apartment. While it is a perfectly nice door, it has no handle, only a lock. The door swings out toward the person opening the door, so if it were ever to get stuck, there is really no way to get it open. While the lock area does have a protrusion, it it very difficult to grasp and pull. 

Assignment #3: The Chinese Room

I believe that I agree with Dr. Searle's argument, but I must admit that I am still a little blown away by the whole concept. I didn't actually realize that there was an argument at all on this particular topic. Perhaps I am showing a bit of ignorance, but I believed that it was just common fact that a computer was incapable of "thought" as a human is. That there are those who would argue otherwise completely amazes me. 

The "other minds" argument was easily the most interesting, in my opinion, and I found it down right frustrating that Dr. Searle basically passed it off as not worth his time. There really is no way to know if the way that some other person understands is the same as the way that someone else understands. Except for the way that it is perceived that they understand, there is no way. Who is to say whether or not the computer understands except the computer itself, which is of course not to be believed. Mos of the arguments surrounding the theory are circular and thus can not in present times be proven or disproven. 

I also found the Zombie argument outlined in the Wikipedia article to be rather interesting. This seemed extremely preposterous when I first read it, but the more I think about it, the more plausible it seems. Mutations are by no means uncommon, and given that such a mutation did occur, I have no trouble believing that a "zombie" would insist that that it had the consciousness of humans. 

The syntax versus semantics argument was well put, in my opinion. It is almost exactly this idea that led me to believe that it was obvious that computers couldn't think. There is no way that a computer program could mimic the way that every individual person has a very different and unique interpretation of any one symbol. Take the hamburger example from the example story. The combination of hamburger smells, tastes, sounds, and images that come to my mind when I hear or see the word hamburger are not the same on two different occasions, let alone the same as someone else might have come to mind. To mimic that in a computer program would be next to impossible.

Personally, I don't believe that there is any need for strong AI as described by Dr. Searle. The "weak" AI is more than sufficient. The ability of computers to even mimic the abilities of the human mind is phenomenal.

Paper Reading #5: `Timid Encounters': A Case Study in The Use of Proximity-Based Mobile Technologies

Intro
Author Bios
Christian Lipcoppe - Christian is a Professor of Sociology of Information and Communication Technologies and the head of the Social Science department at Telecom Paristech in Paris, France.

Yoriko Inada - Yoriko is also a professor in the Department of Social Science at Telecom ParisTech in Paris, France.

Summary
This paper reported a comparative ethnographic study of a proximity based mobile video game (called Dragon Quest 9) in Japan. The Nintendo DS game terminals may ‘recognize’ one another and allow players to exchange game resources when they are close to one another. Players who are within about 20 meters of each other may participate in multi-player gameplay. When within the same range, a window pops up on the screen with the name of the other player’s game character and description. When this occurs, the player may go to the place in the game called ‘Rikka’s Inn’, where the other player’s avatar appears. By clicking on it, the player’s profile and tag message appear. During the event, some of the resources of the player who has just appeared may get transferred to the initial player. The game only allows three connections of this type at any one time, and the screen needs to be refreshed before allowing three more to occur. There are specific incentives in the game for users to assemble in groups. For example, the cellar and first floor of the inn, which usually remain hidden, may appear when there are several players close by whose avatars have entered the inn.

It is, however, possible to ignore interaction requests from players, unlike the real world where such a thing is obligatory. One issue that arises is that it is very simple to identify possible persons withing the game in the "real world", and players lose their anonymity.

Related Work
Diaz, L., Ekman, U. (2011) Introduction to Mobile ubiquity in public and private spaces

De Cindio, F., Foth, M. (2007) Digital cities 5 : urban informatics, locative media and mobile technology in inner-city developments (Workshop)

Drucker, S., Gumpert, G. (2010) The Urban Communication Infrastructure: Global Connection and Local Detachment

Gordon, E., Silva, A. (2011) Net locality: Why location matters in a networked world

Waltz, S. (2010) Toward a ludic architecture: the space of play and games

There is no directly related work, so it would seem that this is in fact a novel idea.

Evaluation
There was no formal evaluation completed, other than observation of players participating in the game. There arose certain subsets of the population who played the game very frequently and subsets who were not so fond of the proximity feature, thus did not play.

Discussion
Seems like an interesting idea, but also has some drawbacks. 

Paper Reading #4: Homeless Young People on Social Network Sites (Blog #4)

Intro
    Author Bios

Jill Palzkill Woelfer - Jill is a PhD Candidate in Information Science at the Information School at the University of Washington and an affiliated graduate student in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Canadian Studies Center. Her primary research focus is improving situations for homeless youth. She has a cat named Tigger.

David G. Hendry - David is an Assistant Professor at the Information School, University of Washington. His primary research focus is improving situations for homeless youth. Jill has worked with David on quite a few projects.








Summary

Studies show that homeless young adults use social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter) and face similar challenges as college students who are transitioning into a work place. That is, they struggle with keeping a profile that is forced to sever multiple social spheres.

 It is estimated that up to 1% (about 3 million people) of the population of the United States is both young (under 30 years old) and homeless at some point in the year. This is rather a sizable number of people, so it is very easy to justify a study on their social networking habits. Findings suggest that these social networking sites are very beneficial to the homeless young people who might otherwise only have contact with others on the street. After interview and use evaluation, individual profiles were created for 8 of the participants. Their main uses for social networking sites is outlined below:
Bernie: Family, Tech Savvy and Survival
Lulu: Facebook for Friends and Life
Jazz: Multiple Selves
Mary: Street Friends
Sheri: Multiple Profiles for Different Audiences
Marvin: Friends with Everyone and a Better Life
Roger: Facebook is like Crack
Chip: Skateboarding and Couchsurfing
You can see that each of these individuals is using social media for slightly different purposes, but they do have some commonalities. They all seem to be dealing with identity problems in some way, attempting to further develop their social ties, and manage their affiliations. 

Related work
Bailey, S., Ennett, S., Federman, E. (1999) Social network characteristics associated with risky behaviors among runaway and homeless youth

Hoyt, D., Johnson, K., Whitbeck, L. (2005) Predictors of social network composition among homeless and runaway adolescents

Passero, J., Zax, M., Zozus, R. (1991) Social network utilization as related to family history among the homeless

Tyler, K. (2008) Social network characteristics and risky sexual and drug related behaviors among homeless young adults

Hersberger, J. (2003) A qualitative approach to examining information transfer via social networks among homeless populations

Barman-Adhikari, A., Monro, W., Rice, E., Young, S. (2010) Internet Use, Social Networking, and HIV/AIDS Risk for Homeless Adolescents

While it was slightly difficult to find directly related work, all related work found was nearly identical. The research idea does not seem particularly novel.

Evaluation
Twenty-three participants of varying ethnicities were interviewed in groups of same-sex individuals featuring 4 participants each. There were 11 women and 12 men with a mean age of 21.7 year old. The interviews consisted of questions about the uses, benefits, and harms of social network sites and how people present themselves online. Qualitative analysis of these interviews showed that young people explore their identities, cultivate and exploit social ties, experience interpersonal tensions, manage incompatible audiences, and respond to shifting affiliations and transitions.

Discussion
I find the social media research geared specifically toward homeless youth fascinating. It is a great way to get a look into the mind of any young person, and that is a great way to go about helping to meet their needs. 

Paper Reading #3 “Oh, dear Stacy!” Social Interaction, Elaboration, and Learning with Teachable Agents

Intro
Author Bios:

Amy Ogan - Amy is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

Samantha Finkelstein - Samantha is a Doctoral Student in the Articulab in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Elijah Mayfield - Elijah is a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University at the Language Technologies Institute in the School of Computer Science.
Claudia D’Adamo - Claudia is a Psychology and Computer Science double major with an interest in Human Computer Interaction at Wheaton College and a research Assistant at Carnegie Mellon University.
Noboru Matsuda - Noboru is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Justine Cassell - Justine is the Charles M. Geschke Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.


Summary

The main focus of the paper was to gain insight on how peer teaching affects a child's learning of a subject. The researchers focused mainly on correlations between increased cognitive or meta-cognitive reflection moves, inside-system versus outside-system language, and increased social moves with the learning of children.  This was tested using a system called SimStudent. SimStudent is basically designed to test a "think-aloud technique" of tutoring.

Stacy is a simulated student who was based on a Nintendo Wii character. 

The study featured two sessions that were split between two days. 12 (2 girls and 10 boys) students between the 7th and 10th grade were studied for these sessions. Before beginning the first session, Stacy was programmed to know only basic operations.  On the first day, they were asked to take a pre-test in algebra, then given study instructions, and finally tutored Stacy. These study instructions simply told the students to teach Stacy how to simplify linear equations. On the second day, the same students tutored Stacy immediately until she could pass 4 quizzes or until their time of 45 minutes expired.  Finally, the students too apost-test in algebra and
 were interviewed.
The inside-system versus outside-system language refers to using pronouns like "you" versus using pronouns such as "she". Researchers thought that participants would learn more when inside-system language was used. The inside system language insinuates that the participants have formed some sort of a bond with the system.

Related Work

Biswas, G., Bransford, J., Brophy, S., Katzlberger, T., Schwartz, D. (1999) Teachable agents: Combining insights from learning theory and computer science

Blair, K., Schwartz, D. (2007) Pedagogical agents for learning by teaching: Teachable agents

Biswas, G., Bransford, J., Katzlberger, T., Schwartz, D. (2001) Extending Intelligent Learning Environments
with Teachable Agents to Enhance Learning

Biswas, G., Davis, J., Leelawong, K., Vye, N. (2002) The effects of feedback in supporting learning by teaching in a teachable agent environment

Chou, C., Chan, T., Lin, C. (2003) Redefining the learning companion: the past, present, and future of educational agents

Chase, C., Cheng, B., Chin, D., Dohmen, I., Oppezze, M., Schwartz, D. (2010) Preparing students for future learning with Teachable Agents

Pareto, L., Schwartz, D., Svensson, L. (2009) Learning by Guiding a Teachable Agent to
Play an Educational Game

Belynne, K., Biswas, G., Bodenheimer, B., Bransford, J., Davis, J., Leelawong, K., Vye, N. (2003) Intelligent user interface design for teachable agent systems

Biswas, G., Blair, K., Leelawoong, K., Schwartz, D. (2007) Animations of thought: Interactivity in the teachable agent paradigm

Biswas, G., Leelawang, K. (2008) Designing Learning by Teaching Agents: The Betty's Brain System

This is obviously not the most novel of concepts, but the approach to the study was a new one.

Evaluation

The evaluations completed on this system were both qualitative and quantitative. The scores on both the pre-tests and post-tests were recorded as well as the students interview answers and all of their remarks during tutoring sessions. The participants remarks were categorized and given numeric values based on these categories. These categories were as follows:
1. social: positive - hope, encouragement, excitement, or negative - threats, frustration
2. tutoring: examples, elaboration
3. alignment: based on pronoun use - inside-system - you, we, outside-system - she, it
4. cognitive: simple - "she understands", elaborated - "she doesn't understand distribution"
5. correctness: evaluating Stacy's knowledge as either correct or incorrect
These numeric values were used to create the following chart:

Discussion

I found this to be an extremely interesting topic, because children and their learning at young ages is so often overlooked. Any new strides made in this area is welcomed. It is something that even I should keep in mind as I approach my studies from here.

Paper reading #2: It's Complicated: how romantic partners use Facebook

Intro
Author Bios: 

Xuan (Sharon) Zhao - Xuan is a first year Ph.D student in the department of Communication at Cornell. In addition to her work with social networking research, she plans to work on interactive media designs guided by the study of how social interaction in video games and immersive virtual environments affects individual’s real-life experience. She is also a very talented artist.

Victoria Schwanda Sosik - Victoria is a third year PhD student in Information Science, minoring in Communication, at Cornell University. In addition to her work with social networking and its affect on relationships, she has explored how people use persuasive health technologies such as Wii Fit and how these technologies can better support people in attaining physical wellbeing. She has been a competitive figure skater for 14 years.

Dan Cosley - Dan (aka DanCo PhD) is an assistant professor in Cornell University's information science department. He is currently working on a project that helps you to remember good times by sending occasional e-mails to trigger memories. He said of its name, "The project I'm currently most excited about is code-named Pensieve until we get sued by J. K. Rowling."




Summary

This paper explored the many different affects that Facebook can have on a couple and their relationship. This included tracking use of particular features and the relational significance attached to those.  They found that particular facebook features, such as photos or wall posts, each had a different associated meanings.  Relationship statuses are a way to let the entire electronic world that you are "on" or "off" the market.  Participants in the conducted study had a tendency to either felt as though their relationship was stronger or less strong depending on the relationship status chosen by their partner on facebook.  Friending partner's friends was also viewed as an extremely significant step in a relationship. It was stated that the participants felt as though they were further committing to their partners when they added their friends as well, because they were creating other ties to that person.  Photos were viewed in almost the same was as a relationship status update. By posting photos, participants felt that their significant others were acknowledging and therefore improving the relationship.  Wall posts were generally not very widely used by the participants to express relationship related things, and if they did, it was in a subtle way. Wall posts were seen as too public to divulge intimate details. Strategies for managing the tensions related with facebook and relationships.

Related Work
Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S., Passerini, K. (2007) Trust and Privacy Concern Within Social Networking Sites: A Comparison of Facebook and MySpace
Joinson, A. (2008) Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: motives and use of facebook

Hewitt, A., Forte, A. (2006) Crossing Boundaries: Identity Management and Student/Faculty Relationships on the Facebook

Cha, M., Gummadi, K., Mislove, A., Viswanath, B. (2009) On the evolution of user interaction in Facebook

Mazer, J., Murphey, R. Simonds, C. (2007) I'll See You On “Facebook”: The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate

Grasmuck, S., Martin, J., Zhao, S. (2008) Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships

Calvert, S., Pempek, T., Yermolayeva, Y. (2009) College students' social networking experiences on Facebook

Bugeja, M. (2006) Facing the Facebook

Arseaneault, J., Orr, E., Orr, R., Ross, C., Simmering, M. (2009) Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use

DiMicco, J., Millen, D. (2007) Identity management: multiple presentations of self in facebook

There are plenty of works related to Facebook, in general, but almost nothing related to romantic relationships specifically.

Evaluation

Evaluation simply involved asking participants to keep a 2 week journal of their feelings when making decisions about creating (or not creating) facebook content, and also the reasons behind these decisions. This is obviously both subjective and qualitative.

Discussion

I find this topic extremely intriguing since I use facebook every day. I most assuredly make the same decisions and have similar feelings to the participants involved, but I never particularly thought about it until reading this paper. I would have liked to have seen a bit more in depth and less emotion related research on the topic.

Paper Reading #1: SpeckleSense: fast, precise, low-cost and compact motion sensing using laser speckle

Intro:
    Title: SpeckleSense: fast, precise, low-cost and compact motion sensing using laser speckle
    Reference Information: Research for this project took place primarily at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, MA, USA, but portions also took place at Comenius University DAI in Bratislava, Slovenia.
    Author Bios: 
Jan Zizka, Alex Olwal and Ramesh Raskar are a team of MIT researchers who have worked together on a few motion sense and also sound related projects together.

Summary:  

Technology such as smart phones and optical mouses have made highly sophisticated sensors and cameras very accessible and also very affordable. Laser speckle is basically the process of shining a coherent light source (or a regular laser passed through a diffuser) onto a surface or object and reading the resulting reflected light waves with an image sensor. The different light intensities result in a grainy, high-intensity image or "speckle".

Photos from SpeckleSense article

The research team tested the SpeckleSense motion sensing in a variety of different ways which are outlined and demonstrated below.

 

 

 

From SpeckleSense article

The team simply used the optical sensors in mice for the development of each of the prototypes they developed to demonstrate the usefulness of the SpeckleSense technology. The prototypes developed were TouchController, Mobile Viewport, and public display interaction.  The TouchController was created using an Apple Magic Mouse and adding the SpeckleSense technology.  It was implemented so that the multi-touch functionality could be combined with mid-air motions to manipulate a 3D viewer. The Mobile Viewport combined 3D tracking with mobile phones. An example of its use was in a photo viewer, where the phones distance from a surface controlled the zoom level of the image. Finally, SpeckleSense was used to improve public display interaction. Rather than a user being able to touch an interface or be required to mouse click on a screen, the system reads their hand motions and interprets them.

Related work: 
A method for processing laser speckle images to extract high-resolution motion - Andrew Houghton, Graham Rees and Peter Ivey (1997)
This paper discusses the use of laser speckle images to do motion detecting as well, but takes a pixel computation route rather than a light sensor. 

Robust technique of analyzing and locating laser speckle patterns for optical computer mice - Chih-Ming Liao, Ping S. Huang, Yi-Yuh Hwang, Ming Chen, Chung-Cheng (2009)
The difference here is obviously that this paper discusses the use of the laser speckle to improve the quality of optical mice. 

Minput: enabling interaction on small mobile devices with high-precision, low-cost, multipoint optical tracking - Chris Harrison, Scott E. Hudson (2010)
This is very much the same concept, but it is not quite as quick, as it implements optical sensors rather than the laser speckle. 

A laser speckle pattern technique for designing an optical computer mouse - P. Popov, S. Pulov, V. Pulov (2004)
The difference here is obviously that this paper discusses the use of the laser speckle to improve the quality of optical mice.

Statistical properties of laser speckle patterns - J.W. Goodman (1975)
This is simply a discussion of the laser speckle and not a motion sensing idea. 

Speckle in Ultrasound B-Mode Scans - Christoph B. Burkhardt (1978)
This paper discusses the laser speckle technology as used in Ultrasound image retrieval. 

Focus-position sensing using laser speckle - Joseph L. McLaughlin (1979)
This paper is simply discussing the ability to determine surface position with respect to focus.

Real time velocity measurement for a diffuse object using zero-crossings of a laser speckle - N. Takai, T. Iwai, T. Asakura (1980)
This paper discusses the use of the laser speckle to measure in-plane velocities rather than motion sensing capabilities. 

Accuracy in electronic speckle photography - M. Sjodahl (1997)
I am sure that the research from this paper was very useful in completing the motion sensing experiments of SpeckleSense. 

Visualization of retinal blood flow by laser speckle flowgraphy - H. Fujii (1994)
This is very similar to the Ultrasound implementation of the laser speckle. 

Evaluation:

The evaluation of SpeckleSense completed by the team was very minimal, and was qualitative and subjective. Five colleagues of the team were asked to complete the initial feedback evaluation. These colleagues were all males between the ages of 25 and 35 who had prior experience with motion controllers and mobile phones with multi-touch displays. These men were simply asked to interact with each of the prototypes and give and negative and positive feedback about the systems as they used them. The team plans to conduct more extensive user studies, but has yet to do so at this point.

Discussion:


I found this article to be absolutely fascinating. The fact that we are so very close to this 3D motion sense technology being in our pockets is amazing to me. I believe that the TouchController would be a phenomenal tool for giving presentations among other uses. The only thing that I found disappointing was the lack of variety in the test subjects for the evaluation of these prototypes. It would have been interesting to learn if the systems are intuitive and easy to use for the "average" user. 

Blog #0: Intro to Heather

Howdy! My name is Heather Thompson, and here is a bit  more information about myself.
Photo:

 I am pictured here with my Yorkshire Terrier Brodie.

E-mail address: heather09@tamu.edu
Class Standing: 2013 - 4th year Senior
Why are you taking this class?: I have elected to take this course because the idea of improving human interaction with computers fascinates me. Learning that CHI or HCI can be considered more of a means of facilitating human to human interaction really excites me, and makes me that much more sure that I have made the right decision by chosing this course.
What experience do you bring to this class?: I have worked as a part time software developer for a small (but very quickly growing) custom software consulting company called CAPSHER Technology for the last 2 and a half years. I have programmed in a multitude of languages and have at times been involved in the user interface planning process for projects.
What are your professional life goals?: I would love to continue my career as a custom software developer, but perhaps at a larger company.
What are you personal life goals?: My personal goals are simple because I like to take one day at a time (but still have a plan for the future). Currently, I want to stop biting my nails so that my nails look great on my Aggie Ring Day, November 9th! Whoop! I would also like to do my very best as an Executive Committee Member of the Aggie Orientation Leader Program, and also as a Manager of Theatre Operations for MSC OPAS.
What do you want to do after you graduate?: I am the type of person who plans for everything, and I have a 10 year plan (but I do realize that things can change). I would like to get married, work for 3-5 years in a position like the one that I currently hold, have or adopt children and stay at home with them until they go off to school, then teach Computer Science at the high school level.
What do you expect to be doing in 10 years?: As I said, I expect to be teaching high school Computer Science and raising children.
What do you think will be the next biggest technological advancement in Computer Science?: I think that the next big advancement in Computer Science will be something like machines that are capable of decision making.
If you could travel back in time, who would you like to meet and why?: As difficult a decision as this is, I believe that I would choose to meet Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss. I would love to learn about his love and enthusiasm for children and teaching them. I know that there are certainly far more sophisticated answers to this question, but I believe that it is important to have whimsy in your life every day. By making a more "mature" decision, I might shatter my images of the people I look up to in history, and I have no desire to do that. I really do believe that ignorance is bliss in many situations.
Describe your favorite shoes and why they are your favorite.: My favorite shoes are a pair of pink and black converse tennis shoes. They are not the traditional chucks, but more like a running shoe, and are made of an awesome mesh-y material. I received these shoes as a Christmas present when I was in the 5th grade, so they have been with me through a lot. They are my "lucky shoes", and I wear them in all situations in which i could use a little confidence boost (when they are appropriate, of course).
If you could be fluent in any foreign language that you're not already fluent in, which one would it be and why?: I would love to be fluent in German, because my boyfriend's family is from Germany, and it would be great to be able visit there and learn more about his history.
Give some interesting fact/story about yourself: During Gig 'Em Week of my very first year of college, just after getting back from Fish Camp, I got a tattoo on my foot. The part of this story that I sometimes omit in order to make it look like I am much more a "rebel: then I truly am is that my dad and I had been designing the tattoo for the last 3 years, and I had it done as a surprise for him for his birthday. He and I plan to get matching Aggie T-star tattoos when i graduate from A&M.