CIMG1359, originally uploaded by gregwalsh. Using this apparatus, we are able to grow Janey 3 months in one night... Actually, she has jaundice and this is a pic of her in the photo-therapy light. She'll be here until tomorrow morning when she'll be evaluated for her BillyRubin count. Until then, she awaits take off.

CIMG1341, originally uploaded by gregwalsh. 5 lbs 1 oz Mary Jane Walsh is tiny.

This week, we talked about research ethics. It was pretty straight forward. We reviewed three different code of ethics from the following organizations: American Association of University Professors, American Psychological Association, and Association for Computing Machinery. They were, again, straight forward but it seemed like the APA had very strict guidelines. In class, we discussed that the more harm a group can do, in this case Psychologists, the more intense their ethical core needs to be. Conversely, a group may create an intense code of ethics to seem more important (I$m looking at you ALA). ...

This is an evaluation I wrote for class. I needed to ask the same reference question to two different sources. I chose the Internet Public Library and AskUsNow! The AskUsNow folks were at the Enoch Pratt Library and did a great job answering my question and finding me sources all at a distance: If you remember from my biography on the discussion board, my research interests are in using games for learning. My latest research project has been looking at using cooperative design to create an instructional video game. So far, the game that was designed has only come to life in the design team’s drawings and models. Eventually, I will need to build a working prototype that can be played, so, I decided to use this assignment to learn about a programming language named Python and its use in three-dimensional games. ...

This week, we talked about two readings: A truly useful bat is one found in the hands of a slugger by Grob, and Government information policy research: Importance, approaches, and realities by McClure and Jaeger. I thought Bat was a good article because it not only describes how evaluations can be used as a valid research method, but, it also had a How to succeed in business kind of vibe to it. ...

walsh65-R1-031-14, originally uploaded by gregwalsh. I try and take a picture of one of my cats when I am finishing a roll of film (I assume I will switch to the baby when s/he arrives). This one was the last picture taken this week with my Minolta Maxxum 5000 SLR. It’s a nice camera.

Our favorite Bloomsburg acting alum has been on CSI: Grissom’s last episode, House, and will be on Psyche this week. I was his RA in college…ok, not on my wing, but the other wing…and I was only an RA for one summer…but still. I may have been in a play with him, too…maybe not WITH him but in the same short play show. He is having the best month ever! ...

This week, we talked about the 1968 Borko article $Information science: What is it?$ and Henry’s $Influential evaluations$. The first article was an attempt at identifying exactly what information science is while the second article described evaluations as a type if research method. I liked the evaluations article more than I thought I would. As I started to read it, I couldn$t help but think that this material seemed more appropriate for Public Health than for Information Science (should I capitalize them???? I will$) The article discussed three ways that evaluations could be used: to identify the public good, to chart a course of action, and to modify a course of action. By looking at research and evaluating it, researchers are able to do these things. The part I will always remember about the article is that it referenced Stephen Glass’s article about D.A.R.E. in New Republic and yet we know that story contained material he just made up. Oh, and the Henry article was written in 2003 and Glass’s article was from 1997, the year he was busted. ...

My paper “Wii Can Do It: Using Co-design for creating an instructional game” was accepted to the CHI 2009 conference’s works-in-progress track. This is a big deal for me because the reviewers/judges were torn on whether or not it should be accepted (there was a lot of discussion), but, they all ranked me high in my writing skill. Take that 11th and 12th grade AP history teachers! Here is the abstract: ...

Today we talked about quantitative data via surveys. The two papers we discussed were John Bertot’s paper $Web-based surveys: Not your basic survey anymore$ from Library Quarterly and ‘survey research and libraries: Not necessarily like in the textbooks$ also from Library Quarterly. A couple of interesting topics were brought up: survey question changes in longitudinal studies, advantages of web surveys, and importance of quantitative vs qualitative. One of the things I$m going to try to do in this reflective journal is to relate what we talked about to my previous and future research. I have not had to do surveys yet for my research. Most of the ones I planned for the Qualitative class were just academic practices. I could see myself using a branching survey for my research on co-designing educational video games especially once the game is designed and it is being $tested$ with groups. A generalized survey could give me data on what kinds of video game systems are in the house hold, hours playing games, computers, economic data, etc. A post-play survey would give me some quantitative data with Lichert scales on the opinions about the game play. ...