I spent this whole week working on my final report, which I hope will become a conference paper. I began writing it a couple weeks ago, but this week I really dug into it. After a while of writing and thinking about the paper I just couldn't figure out anything else to write because I didn't have a conclusion. So I talked to Amy and she helped me write an outline and showed me where to begin. I started re-writing with the outline and wrote a bit slower this time. After I began fleshing out each section of the outline, the purpose of the paper became a little clearer to me.
Throughout this process of writing and rewriting this week I learned a lot. First, I learned that it takes months to write conference papers, it is not something that can be written in two weeks. So the paper that I turn in as my final report this summer may not be my final report, I can keep working on it. Also, if I want to submit my paper to a conference I'll have to continue working on it throughout the coming semester.
I also learned that dozens of potential papers could be written from the massive amounts of data we collected this summer, each one on a different topic. Right now I still don't have a clear thesis or conclusion in mind for my paper, but I have a good idea of the direction it is headed in. I am probably going to write a paper about students' views of jobs in the computing field or how students' designs developed and changed throughout the course of the summer.
In order to finish this paper I still have a lot of work to do. I am going to start by going through all of the student interviews we conducted this summer to find some major themes. Then I am going to pick a broad thesis and go back to my class observation notes to see which students and class days to further examine. Then I can re-read the interview transcripts, listen to interviews, and look at the video tapes from the class to find quotes that support my thesis. I also plan on going back to review the students' written work. Well, at least that is my plan of action for now, it could easily change as I am working on the paper next week.
I also attended some meetings this week, including our weekly ELC Lab meeting and an REU Poster Session. The poster session was very interesting because I got to learn about other research that has been going on here at Georgia Tech this summer. Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) is a program at many universities, where undergraduate students from that university or other colleges are invited to do a research assistantship for a period of time. This summer there were students working on studies about the academic uses of Facebook, the automation of assigning speeding tickets using traffic cameras, and even the usability of graphics software on SecondLife. Well that's it for this week; make sure to tune in next week to find out about my final week as a researcher at Georgia Tech.
Week 1
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Week 2
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Week 3
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Week 4
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Week 5
Week 6
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Week 7
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Week 8
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Week 9
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Week 10