"ek beedi"

Design For Disaster

2008-07-11T13:33:00.003+10:00

Vendy Oliver did his Masters by Research project at RMIT - Industrial Design. He went to Aceh to do his field work - six months after the Tsunami in Banda Aceh. He came back and submitted his project - and has recently uploaded his Video of the project. You can see the first part here and then click on the link HERE to go to youtube to see the other 4 parts.

Vendy's Examination

2008-06-03T08:24:00.000+10:00

Vendy had his examination yesterday. And he was notified that he has passed.
Congratulations Vendy!

Now I need to do the next steps on thsi initiative:
1. We are doing a joint paper: 'when God's teardrop exploded'
2. And I have agreed to be part of/ coordinate a project to build a school in Wenchuan county in Sicuan Province, PRC.
3. I am keen to do a book taking off from vendy's visual material.

The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research

2008-06-03T08:22:00.000+10:00

"Authentic and practical, this book demystifies classroom research without making inquiry overly simplistic. Loaded with examples from actual inquiries and drawn from experience working with hundreds of teacher researchers, the authors' advice is refreshingly jargon free and clearly explained."
The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research: Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Through Practitioner Inquiry (Hardcover) by Nancy Fichtman Dana (Author), Diane Yendol-Hoppey (Author)

Submission and Examination

2008-05-27T09:17:00.000+10:00

This is the page you need to look at - to know all about submission requirements. This is in 'research-current students-submission and examination'.

Another way to get familiar with what the final outcome will look like - is to go to past PhD theses' though the library site.

video prototypes

2008-05-16T12:36:00.000+10:00

I've started a playlist of video prototypes on youtube.. some cool stuff here, particularly the UX design for diabetes management devices..

Literature Review

2008-05-16T11:10:00.000+10:00

Here is a good link to how to do a literature review.
1. This handout will explain what a literature review is and offer insights into the form and construction of a literature review in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
2. A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Read more ...
3. Wikipedia/ A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge on a particular topic. More ...

Design for Disaster

2008-04-12T19:20:00.000+10:00

Derrida - Fear of Writing

2008-04-12T19:16:00.001+10:00

On Writing

2008-04-09T20:27:00.000+10:00

Advice on academic writing: http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/advise.html

A particularly good piece on 'paragraphs': http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/writing/paragraphs.html

Writing Resources

2008-04-03T11:21:00.000+11:00

New resource site from Scott. Writing Resources.

Complexity and Ranjan

2008-03-28T16:26:00.000+11:00

MP Ranjan at NID teaches a course called Design concepts and concerns and this course has a blog. Very impressive. Click here to view.

The Shock

2008-03-19T18:06:00.000+11:00

Vendy - we talked today about - what you see is not what the real is. And in the context of the Tsunami we discussed how there is a lot going on - as in how the Tsunami offers an opportunity for powerful interest groups to wrest control of land and resources. In SriLanka this was the waterfront - see Naomi Klein. Also she mentions this in her video:

Restoring?

2008-03-11T10:29:00.001+11:00

My reading and writing from last November to recent opening critical thoughts, questioning, and examining the ‘development’ definition, and the way it’s promoting to ‘improve the quality of life’ for the wider communities in developing countries. Historical and current practices of this discourse, as well as, the futuristic vision providing clear contradiction between the ‘must’ from Westernise point of view ‘based on majority of theory and practises in field’ and what the ‘others’ their thoughts, practises, and interactions. In other words, I started the journey of thinking that ‘restoring’ could be better term than ‘development’ according to my recent research directions……

EndNote X1: Manual Data Entry

2008-03-06T17:00:00.000+11:00

EndNote has training Videos online. Check it out HERE!

They have locked/ disabled the 'embed' function so the link above will have to do.

disaster relief

2008-03-06T10:57:00.000+11:00

industrial design for humanitarian aid

2008-03-06T10:55:00.000+11:00

Solution Twin Cities

How to write a paper

2008-03-06T09:36:00.000+11:00

Click here for my post.

Basic blogging with Blogger

2008-03-06T09:30:00.000+11:00

Sustainable Fashion

2008-03-06T09:21:00.000+11:00

Meet the conscionable designers behind Moral Fervor and learn how their use of renewable fabric are becoming a fashion trademark.

Parts of a thesis

2008-03-06T09:09:00.000+11:00

Literature Review

2008-03-06T09:00:00.000+11:00

How to Write an Arts and Culture Review

2008-03-06T08:59:00.001+11:00

Article Creator

2008-03-06T08:53:00.001+11:00

White Smoke

2008-03-06T08:52:00.001+11:00

Knowledge Navigator

2008-03-06T08:48:00.000+11:00

Writing a Paper

2008-03-06T08:45:00.001+11:00

See more resources at Expert-Village

Buzan on Mind Maps

2008-03-06T08:41:00.000+11:00

LF: Mess etc

2006-06-05T10:41:00.000+10:00

That was quite an intense panel encounter. A few things I would like to bracket and amplify.
1. There is an instrumental discourse in the upgarde process. This needs revisiting - so lets talk about it. There is the proposal, but on the Masters front there are a set of issue that need attention: Publication, References, Mapping of content.
2. Re Publication: It would be good to take up the two papers - LCP and Blog - in all seriousness. And finish them with a change in focus.
3. The research has probably got to be presented as a project and a marginal discourse. So rather than all Design education is like this ( which then invites a qualifier 'so proove it') - it is better to state the problem as - "contemporary situation is like this" and so "the quest is for a way to contruct a local contextual community discourse". The learning aims are part of a separate discourse. The research question then is " what is a people orientated way to attain capacity".
4. My work I have seen as capacity development - this is development studies jargon. But is worth exploring as an objective. "I am doing a capaacity development project". So supervisor in Globalism Institute and not in education theory.
5. Two things happen in projects - the actual thing (thick description - of Blogs), and the abstract critical discourse (what is going on is trhis). Critical discourse has new 'terminologies' and new 'procedures/ methods'.
6. My project called "yssem sessecorp" is about developing a toolkit which I call -"esuom". I will use this tool kit (in my teaching practice) and evaluate the results. You are in effect meeting a fundamental criteria of objectivity.
7. Then you visit the question of: Is this toolkit only relevant in your practice to acheive a particular result? OR is it generalisable for adoption by a slightly larger community.
8. You are curious about ...
9. You want to set up ...
10. You want to see the results ....
11. You will conclude .....

Now what I am proposing is that the two papers - blog and lcp - be revisited on the basis of 3 to 11.

I would like to do this with you/ in collaboration.

(At the end of this process you may have the opportunity to revisit the PhD plan)

Vendy

2006-06-05T10:00:00.000+10:00

Thank you Vendy, That was a very good presentation at the GRC.

Your panel was: SV, MD, MW, Cameron Tonkinwise.

A few things came up in your presentation (not in this oreder!)
1. You have a good Photo essay. You can improve the quality of your photoessay.
2. Would you like to go "under cover" and do the next phase of the building project?
3. Do you want to go and do the "calssical" approach of Industrial Designer intervening in a 'developing country' and in a 'disaster area' (SC's honors project.
4. Do you want to take up 'shelter' and 'architecture' as you area - and will this eman that you are offering a view that is counter to 'Architects without frontiers'. Would you like to meet the AWF people?
5. Will you make a "Manual" for intervention? Like the RRR manuals for disaster relief.
6. What are you going to do now and where are you going to end up?

Let us meet and if you would like it I can ask SC and LF to participate in a brian storming of options. And then we can do a bit of scenario thinking upon the options. And see how you go ahead.

At this stage the fact that you have done the field work is quite awesome. Good on you Vendy.

Dear Vendy

2006-03-02T11:36:00.000+11:00

Great to hear that you are embarkign on yet another adventure. Here are a few things that will help you along the way:

Try and write to me about:
(a) what have you done till now, and
(b) what you plan to do to finish.
(c) then on a separate try and explain why what you have done is good for the people of Aceh, and
(d) why what you have done is good for the professiona of Industrial Design.
I will read this and give you feedback on what you need to do.

This will help you think of your project as a Masters.

Do you have access to a computer? If Y start writing your report. See this for help.

Put all the documentation in end note if you have a computer. Or else use Cards and put stuff in it, and keep all photos in many marked folders, with date and place on each. All this stuff you can put into endnote when you get here.

Think about your end result.
You will make
(a) a report,
(b) and exhibition if you have lots of photos,
(c) many presentations ( the school and university is very interested in your project and would like to know more) and (
d) a small video film if you have stills/ video footage.

I will help you with all the stuff. Do not worry about the execution of the end result. Just collect all the raw data/pics/information and stories systematically.

And keep putting stuff into your journal

Research is tough

2005-10-04T20:00:00.000+10:00

Research is a tough thing to do - if only because it immediately goes into some other professional paradigm. And the desire to do it disappears. Design people do things because they are passionate and excited about things - chiefly change or signature objects. How are these things to be constructed as research.

This can be done post facto but how does one do it before the fact?

thinking about research

2005-09-20T23:48:00.000+10:00

ek beedi
Thanks for the last few posts, I am begining to get it together, and I think (hope I will have something a litlle more substantial for friday.
I have been going through the blogs, looking at why they have become what they have become, and the conditions and inputs that have made them what they are.
I have started seeing some patterns, especially interms of gender and personality type, that while fairly logical have some interesting manifestations beyond the blogs. The role of the male (especially the "bloke") in this is interesting as the blog doesnot seem to capture he who has no need to voice, and so perhaps they are disadvantaged by this medium. Blogs also tend to work well for those who are actually intuitavley creative and not just 'creative' as afunction of identity, these are generally the quieter ones, the ones with not much to say face to face.
The other aspect is the way in which bloggers do not delete posts after they have been read / expressed - so even if they are completly meaningless there is a sentimentalty about blogging that counters the disposable nature of information on the WWW.

Other sides to it are coming a long, but I do feel a bit lame not blogging as often as I have been, but I suspect that reading other peoples bloggs soon turns you away from constructing your own, so there is a level of intraspection required for succeccfull blogging (if there is such a thing).

The design dissent blog is really quite odd for a blog, and in no way representative of the blogging phenomenon - so something else is going on hre and the only thing that I think that it can be is that this is a community voice and not an purposeful (singular) soapbox- again an interesting development.
Speak about it friday
Hope all is well

solving tough problems

2005-09-18T05:29:00.000+10:00

the building now has wirelss: So what?
1. Scenario 1: BAU- Business as usual. just put up signs and only mark and chijoff use the facility.
2. Scenario 2: Incremental change from staff in teaching practices and content. ditto from students.
3. Scenario 3: new paradigm and a new community spririt.

I am focussed upon 3 and plan to fail - so here goes:
1. 170 - 200 students in dec.
2. Of this lot say 50 have lap tops. This category I will call Eagles. with eagles we have to get them to adopt wireless - training, then making sense of why it is useful, then starting to use it.
3. Of the remaining 150 I will make three categories: magpies (who can afford it and have been putting it off, so will now get laptops), seagulls (undecided and feel it is too much money, also not very much into computers), pelicans (have never considered lap tops and have lost of reasons for not having one, also feel they will be very strained financially if they get a laptop).
4. The way forward for each of these categories is to make lists and get staff to volunteer to start a conversation. 10 staff - 20 students each. Can do?
5. I will also have to write a letter explaining how the program is going to into an 'enabling mode' to help facilitate the students transiting thru to wireless.

Then to get the laptops; to collectively connect students to suppliers.
1. are there chinese laap top mfrs who will make a bulk deal?
2. What sort of deal will apple do?
3. what sort of deal will acer/ibm/hp/compaq/benq/sony/sharp do?
4. start talking to these firms to do a deal every year.

start a discussion about the significance of the wireless for the 87 community.

On the construction of Projects

2005-09-16T07:36:00.000+10:00

Things that we do need to be constructed as projects - is what I said to the 2nd years. I was talking about their growth thru the semester. Looking at something like 'improving my creativity' can happen easily when bracketed as a distinct project.

Which then raises the issue of 'how does one set up projects?'

I am doing a session next wed on this: setting up projects.

And will chiefly draw from my experiences of setting up and creating projects.

Discussion will be much appreciated.

On Research

2005-09-14T10:38:00.000+10:00

Research is a thing we do. And needs to be taken seriously as a different way. Different from the way we do other things. It may be a good idea to start by saying 'I do not know how to do research' and thus allow ourselves to start as a novice and be open to learning.

The masters is both about the 'way' and about the 'content'. For me it is the WAY that is important - content is your business. This is a radical position - but it focusses attention upon the task in a very different way then when you say 'that is my taget, now how do I get there'. But the other way - the process centered approach - looks at the 'way' something is done and constantly in this we surprise ourselves. We are looking and the strange is not inconvenient but interesting - and possibly the beginning of something.

My rule to amplify the marginal is a way - and it has served me well.

The way of drinking of coffee - the going outs, the cliques - defined the community and the curriculum. Much the way that Liam, Simon and Soumitri hanging out (because of being a masters coll group) is determining something. Like small threads of antagonism and ill feeling.

What are the marginal things you ahev picked up, bracketed and how are these to be amplified.

I have collected some stuff here to help you get a research head set. This is one way of doing it. Another could be to watch CSI, and another could be Hustler. For now hope this helps.

Basic Steps

Vietnam yesterday and Today: May be useful to look at this for both Chian and Tsunami

Poster Presentation of Research Work

Advice on Research and Writing

How to Do Research

How Do I Do Research?

Survey Design

Educational Tips: How to do World History research

How You Can Help The Victims Of Hurricane Katrina

The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It

Top: Reference: Education: How To Study: Postgraduate Research

Documentation Guidelines for citing sources and avoiding plagiarism

So you have to do a Research Project?

A Guide for Writing Research Papers

How to Do Research

Countdown

2005-09-14T10:33:00.000+10:00

Its 14th September today.

I am now going to step out of my office and ask you to come in on this blog. Face to face in addition to the digital.

I would like to hear where you are at and 'raves and rants' re what is happening with the Masters.

1. Put yourself in my shoes and see what it looks like.
2. I would like to deliver unto the GRC some stellar performances from this side. That is just ego but I do not have the ability to sit by while we work towards somethig ordinary.
3. Friday is two days away.

And what can I look forward to for Friday?

Blogger for Word tes

2005-09-02T22:44:00.000+10:00

Blogger for Word test – will delete

My long neglected blog

2005-09-02T18:41:00.000+10:00

Hivedymanics once a day at the very least.

Lists

2005-09-02T18:05:00.000+10:00

1. Try to uncover what has contributed to blog mania within my teaching practice / community beyond the point of instagation - compile moments, points of clarity (emergence), reflect upon, currate, exhibit.
2. Write up failure test to IDDLS - the who and why of it.
3. Assemble test case (Peg study type interwoven) design theory / thought / action point.
4. start inhabiting and seeding wikipedia and others
5. Categorise behaviours of blogging and design
6. make something
7. document everything on Hivedynamics
8. get it together
9. stop getting distracted by technology (eg scanning my head)

To get things started

2005-08-29T09:49:00.000+10:00

on this new colloquium blog I have only this to offer - for now.

Lets talk

2005-08-27T19:35:00.000+10:00

Watch this space ...