HCI Course | Initial Thoughts

With the gamification almost over (this coming week is the final week), the Human Computer Interaction course on Coursera is just starting! Back in the day (2003-ish) I was finishing off my undergraduate degree in computer science and one of my final courses was a graduate course on User Interface Design, which I really enjoyed! I liked the subject matter, and the course was taught by a professor that I really liked (he was quite talented!).  In any case, I guess that about high time that I got back into it!

Right off the bat I noticed three things:

1. There are fewer videos each week as compared to gamification;
2. Scott Klemmer is quite different from Kevin Werback in presentation style;
3. There are three levels of certification in the course.


This course runs for 8 weeks as opposed to 5 in gamification, and each week the videos seem to run for about an hour in total (as opposed to 2 in gamification). I actually didn't mind the 2 hours of video each week in gamification, I actually liked it.  I don't know why people were complaining :-)  I just wish I had access to them on Sundays, instead of Mondays, so I can view things before my work-week started :-)

As far as speaking and presentation styles go, I will have to get back to you on what I think of Scott :-)  He seems like an interesting professor, but I really liked Kevin's videos in gamification. He spoke as if there were an audience there live with him, whereas Scott seems like he is having a soliloquy (or he is Captain Kirk :-)  ) It will be quite interesting to see if his style changes throughout the course.

Finally, in terms of certification:
Apprentice track
Weekly quizzes (100%). Students who achieve a reasonable fraction of this (~80%) will receive a statement of accomplishment from us, certifying that you successfully completed the apprentice track.
Studio Track
Weekly assignments (culminating in design project) (worth 67%) and quizzes (worth 33%). Students who achieve a reasonable fraction of this (~80%) will receive a statement of accomplishment from us, certifying that you successfully completed the studio track.
Studio Practicum ONLY available to students who have previously completed the Studio Track. Weekly assignments (culminating in design project) (worth 100%). This practicum is designed for students seeking to continue developing their design skills through an additional iteration of assignments. Students who achieve a reasonable fraction of this (~80%) will receive a statement of accomplishment from us, certifying that you successfully completed the studio practicum.

I think that personally I will aim for Apprentice, and if I happen to have time, I will shoot for the Studio Track as well. The apprentice track (watch videos, respond to quizzes) should be easy.  Depending on what the assignments are, and how much time is involved, the Studio track may be a good extension, or it may be an incredible time-sink :-)

I am excited about this course!
Now...I just need to carve out time for my two current research papers....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latour: Third Source of Uncertainty - Objects have agency too!

Image
Continuing on my exploration of ANT, and asynchronous and indirect dialogue with Latour - this blog post will cover the third source of uncertainty, which according to Latour, is that Objects have agency too! As with the previous blog posts, I've pulled out quotes from the book that seemed interesting, or that I reacted to in some way, and I am responding to them here. no tie can be said to be durable and made of social stuff (p. 66) This quote seems to continue Latour's assertion that there is no such thing as "social" or "social stuff" and that "social", or the meaning of needs to be negotiated and better understood.  It also continues the thought that social can only be seen from the actions of its actors, the traces they leave behind, and that these bonds are not durable because they need continuous reinforcement. I guess Social is a perishable item. Left to its own devices, a power relationship that mobilizes nothing but social skil
Read more

MOOC participation - open door policy and analytics

The other day I was reading ZML Didaktik on the topic of MOOC participants. In MOOCs, one of the big questions is why are people lurking and not participating? If more than 500 people join a MOOC, why are only 10% contributing with any amount of regularity?  On the same blog, in a previous blog post, I had commented (it was an open stream of thought really) that perhaps there should be an open enrollment period, and then if the system sees that certain participants are bellow a threshold of activity, the system may give them the option to self-identify as a lurker, or un-register from the class. This line of thought went along a view that compared to the traditional classroom; in a traditional classroom students register for the course, they can attend classes for a week and then decide whether or not they want to stay with the course or not. If they do stay with the course they know that there is a certain amount of "lurking" that they can get away with, but they do have
Read more

You've been punk'd! However, that was an educational experience

Image
It's now the end of Teaching Goes Massive: New Skills Required (aka #massiveteaching) on coursera. Well, almost, we still have a couple of days left. I guess that the lesson here is that we were (the "learners") were punk'd† by Paul-Olivier Dehaye of the Univerisity of Zurich. After that last blog post (and subsequent pickup of the post by George Siemens and others) Inside Higher Education and the Chronicle wanted to chat with me about this MOOC experience. I only had time for one of the two before things went to press, so my 15 minutes of fame went to IHE.  Both IHE and the C hronicle have written about the topic, and have received some information from Coursera on the incident.  Others have also written about it (see here , here and here ) It's surprising to me that the University, and Coursera, waited until after this thing was a big issue in order to respond in the class, and clue people into what was happening. On Wednesday (day 3 of Week 3/3 of the
Read more