Notes on the memrise paper #1

Okay, just rethinking, restarting, getting going again  :-)

I spent a few minutes this afternoon trying to work on the data from the Memrise pilot study. After looking at the numbers and playing around with a little bit, what I can see is unless I'm doing something completely wrong, which I could check and probably should, it looks like the differences aren't statistically significant between the control group and experimental group. So when thinking about reformulating is the three hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1: A class that uses memrise as a vocabulary acquisition tool, will show improvement in their vocabulary knowledge.
• Hypothesis 2: A class that uses memrise will improve more than a class that is left to their own devices.
• Hypothesis 3:  Students that use memorized on a regular basis will improve to a greater extent than those who do not use that tool.
• Hypothesis 4: Students that use the memorized tools extensively will improve more than those who indicate substantial effort in traditional methods

 I think working through these hypotheses will get me started on the paper. But let me outline the what the data shows at this point:

• Hypothesis 1: Yes, statistically significant improvement
• Hypothesis 2:  no statistical significance, although greater improvement in the raw numbers
• Hypothesis 3:   need to figure out how to analyze that  [although step one is to decide how to differentiate the groups – I was thinking three. And then what statistical analysis would be used to see if there are differences between – I was thinking ANOVA]
• Hypothesis four: need to figure out how to analyze that, but steps in the process are same as above.

 Okay, that's a good start for right now. I should cook dinner :-).

getting back in the saddle

Perhaps it's natural for everyone to take a break from any sort of regular tasks that they have to do with her that's their sports training, their housework, even their family. Perhaps that's not universal ;-)

Regardless of other people's experiences and needs, I'm certainly a person needs to stick a break from writing a while, quickly at the end of a major project. That's where I have been lately.

So – at the risk of sounding like I come from Amarillo, Texas – I guess it's time to get back in the saddle!

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I would like to think a little bit about starting rituals in the few minutes that I have before starting my  "important" tasks. Would a particular can relate his the experience of waking up this morning and trying to get myself into "the writing chair."  On the positive side, there is something conducive to writing about a quiet house occupied only by the home of the various refrigerators, air conditioners, dehumidifiers, and electric fans of summer. This is a house that's free of the beeping of personal digital assistants built into our cell phones, and the prattling on of the "entertainment" on television,  the squeaks and screams of elementary school boy(s), and even the mundane, daily chit chat that grows to represent love within the family.

Waking up this morning and looking around the house, I realized that it  required – and perhaps will always require – a great deal of effort as a temporary single father to complete and overcome the daily life tasks in the room of things like:

• picking up the scattered refuse, the detritus, that seems to trail behind the fifth-grade boy;
• folding up and putting away the closed seem to have been hanging on the drying racks for as long as you can remember;
• washing and putting away the piles of dishes that seem to propagate like slime mold faster than you can ever paid it back;
• and well: social media .

In the end, getting to writing for me at least, and this morning at least, involved willfully forcing myself to look away from the handful of Tupperware that appeared in the sink out of yesterday's lunch box, the important work tasks that lie opened and half finished on my computer's desktop, and the family members who have their own hopes and plans for this little bit of free time early in the morning.

getting organized for fixing messy drafts

For this week's task, I actually have to have some product in front of me. Which I don't actually have at the moment.

 so for tomorrow I need to set my hands on products that I went to work on one to revise, organize and I'm guessing later on I will want to edit. So what are those products that are close enough to mess with?

• I have that one folder of something from my dissertation that I want to cut out.
• My dissertation itself needs to be  reformed and turned into an article.
•  I'm going to consider the work that I'm doing on Xiaofang's paper as part of this process.
• Given that caveat, there are other papers that I could work on in the same way including  Tom Clark's, and HJ's
•  a third possibility is to actually generate some text from either of the other two papers that I'm working on.

Okay that wasn't very much time, but it has been sometime editing :-).   [Xiaofang's paper]

writing quickly, again

Another session of freewriting.

Unfortunately, I have some freewriting thoughts in my head that are not directly related to the actual paper that I need to write, or any of the actual papers that I need to write. The thoughts that are running through my head are about how I am falling into the wrong direction with regards to blocking off my writing time.

I could go into detail about all of the things that I've been doing that are wrong,  but… I changed my mind, so okay lets go into those things that I've been doing that are counterproductive to writing:

• So I am not actually getting up in the morning. 
• I am putting off writing sessions to do trivial things like computer games. 
• I am putting family needs above writing needs. And that includes cases where the family needs themselves are trivial, they could wait 20 minutes for me to spend some time writing.
• And honestly, I haven't been focusing on this artificial writing task.

On the positive side:

• I have been able to do some of the writing tasks that need to get done which are not associated with the actual generation of a manuscript. By that I mean, that I have been able to spend some time on coding.
• I have been able to spend some time developing the project that needs to be developed for the memorized project.
•  In addition to that I have been able to do some work on editing Xiaofang's  paper.

So where does that leave me? I think that leaves me with going back to the rules. So,

• I am going to try and spend a couple of minutes of non-writing time before I begin writing time with deep breathing/meditation for a couple of minutes.
• I am going to elicit the support of the people in my family in working together so that I can have writing time and they will attempt to delay trivial interruptions to help me out with that.
• I am going to do my best to put aside the distractive toys that are embedded within my electronic devices that I used to do my writing.
• I am going to do my best to get to bed early. This will allow me to hopefully, wake up early
• In addition, I will try to do some time in the evening that will take care of the family responsibilities and household chores that our mind do. I will work on doing those tasks as as Pomodoro activities and try and spend 15 minutes or 20 minutes doing one, take a short break and then begin another task until they are all completed.
• I will recognize that some of the other tasks that are leading me down line of depression are beyond my control. 
• There is no way that I can do anything at all about what my administrators' are doing on the specific tasks. 
• Moreover, no amount of complaining or persuasion is really going to have any effect on them or change their mind. will

new stage: writing quickly

 I am not really ready for the free writing activity, but I'm committed to doing it.

What am I worried about particularly in getting these things written? I have at least three projects that are active. As I write this out, I will probably probably figure out that I have more than three. The three projects that come to mind are: the Second  Language/Third Cultures project with Ines, the memorize project with Ron, the editing of Xiaofang's thesis paper in order to send it out for publication. Now that I'm thinking, some additional projects that I would like to keep working on include: the revision of what I have been working on for my PhD dissertation, and the new project using Memrise in the classroom that I've been developing with Brandon and Justin. Both of those projects are in completely different stages, with the dissertation revision project actually just being a case of restructuring and revising for submission to the journal, whereas the Memrise project is just at the ground floor stages. However, I do feel like Justin and Brandon are much more competent collaborators in many ways in terms of understanding how research works than was the case with Ron.

So listing the projects, how does that help me move forward in terms of working on each one of? I think the first thing I wanted to do is make sure that I spend a little bit of time each day working on each of them. I wonder how to do that best? In some ways I think I might be better off trying to have three or four small writing blocks during the course of the day that I could get something to each project. Instead of what I can to do which is focused too much on one project and then get burned out on it. So I think  that what I want to do right now is finish the five minutes of free writing time, and then work directly on the coding that I need to do for the project on the second language and third culture.  (editing ended) And that would involve using to do's. In regards to the other two projects, that are fairly active, I just need to sit down for 30 minutes each day to the revision on Chalfant's thesis. So that will give me going in the right direction. Can I go back and be out of order for a minute I really need to force myself to get one of the transcripts edited each day for the second research culture project because I'm just not even getting one done in the course of a week.

The other project getting back on order again is the new project with memorized. The materials need to be set up and made available for the participants that's the first thing. The second thing I need to do now I think that's can be the first thing that I need to do which is to contact Jamie and see if she's willing to be data entry person for us.  five minutes are up.

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing IV

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing IV

This will be the last time that I will revisit this question of "how do I overcome the obstacles that I make and have to academic writing."

One thing that I haven't put down his perhaps the biggest thing that might be a strategy to overcome obstacles to writing. Ultimately, it's rather simple to conceive, although it may prove to be difficult to execute. Writing success, actual publication, regular rather than intermittent publication seems to me like it would prove to be more of an "obstacle breaker" than perhaps anything else I could conceive of in terms of rules or strategies. I am starting.

Before I go into the actual writing tasks that are unrelated to this philosophical writing task, I will look back over the rules that I've made in previous three posts and see how I'm doing on those regulations. I feel like I've been doing okay, but let me pause and look to see how I'm doing
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On the first day I decided to promise to regulate my "starting rituals." I seem to be doing okay with that, but it still quite hard – I remember my father describing -- after quitting smoking -- how he was still reaching in his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes 10 years after "kicking the habit." I wonder if those "procrastination habits" will be something like that. Will they be like the shape of the whiskey bottle to an alcoholic? [Forgive me for the inappropriate metaphor]

On the second day, I was hoping to meditate before I started writing. I didn't work out nearly as well as I had hoped it would. Too late now for today, but I will do my best tomorrow to start in the right emotional and psychological state of mind in order to clear my head of all the other crap. But I did do it on one day, it seemed to help make things work better. Today, however, Monday morning, it's a madhouse here, and I find myself walking around with my headset on dictating into the computer everybody gets ready for coming week. Perhaps this time block will not always work…

Finally, I am hoping to get  to bed early, or at least on time… Unfortunately, I haven't done very well at that at all. Last night was okay, but the night before was miserable in terms of staying up late and not getting to sleep… However, actually did a decent job writing yesterday, although it wasn't on the schedule :-(.

Looking back on today's writing, a lot of words fell out on the page in less time. That is certainly one of the goals of this project.

It was 25 minutes today.  This is last day; so I am going to add one last rule – continuing adding minutes, but breaking those minutes into the Pomodoro until I can be working on the order of two hours every day.

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing III

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing III

Today is supposed to be 24 minutes…

In some ways, I am recognizing that the biggest obstacle to my writing and publication is that last dirty bit: deciding it's time to write, and then getting the manuscript out. [I suppose there's a little bit after that which is the editing process, and even after that the review process; however, I'm stuck into projects right now the "now just write it!" Stage] So, my conclusion is that overcoming the inertia and getting words on the page IS a massive thing for me.

 Briefly, I will revisit those initial obstacles – at least that list that I generated initially – and think about the problem of "wanting to push the 'play' button instead of choosing to push the 'work' button."  I do not know that I have a good answer to this problem or a strategy to work on avoiding it.  Perhaps, this is a place where the "oneryness" skills might serve me well.  so far, in this get up and write every morning plan, I've missed a couple of days. And moreover those states have happened sort of randomly… Well in both cases it was after several consecutive days of writing – external factors seem to have a big impact on whether I was able to get up and do it as well. in both cases, one of the external factors was the fact that I simply couldn't get out of bed.

So that leads to another new rule:go to bed on time, or better yet early. I really have to go to bed at a reasonable hour especially after several days of cutting back on sleep. However, this may come into conflict with the other rule of washing the dishes before going bed ;-).