Autopsy of Me, Myself, and I

More Nuclear Power? yes, Yes, and YES, please!

2009-11-04T13:28:00.001+02:00

I think that I am in a dire need for a color analyst's help, you know the ones, who help you to find the power of colors in your life. The reason for this is that lately it has been so sadly that every time, when I happen to hear comments coming from a Finnish political party that uses green color in their symbols, I get an acute case of nausea.

Latest case that proved this to be true has been the discussion related to the number of new nuclear plants needed in Finland in future. A voice from yesterday's world said in media that he is willing to consider one additional plant, where as voice from some kind of cuckoo wonderland having nothing to do with reality said that she thinks no additional plants are needed in Finland.

Personally I find it very odd in first place, if politicians would now cast in stone some figure, such as 1, which would then limit the number of new nuclear plants allowed to be built in Finland in near future. The reason, why I find it odd, is that in my opinion, if all the applicants fulfill all the necessary demands set by legislation and have the necessary funding and plan for future waste management in place, then all of them should be granted the permission to build the plant. In free market economy, which I hope also Finland is, it should not be the politicians, who check their crystal balls and say how many new plants are needed - that is how things were ran in late Soviet Union, and mostly they were ran very badly.

Secondly, the energy coming from potential new plants would not be only added up to the present energy pool, but it would actually have to cover several sources that are now present, but will not be there in future. These include e.g. electricity imports from Russia and its not-so-up-to modern standards energy plants, old Finnish power plants still using fossil fuels, and the two oldest Finnish nuclear power plants that are during the coming decades slowly coming to the end of their life-cycle. Additionally, it is just fair to assume, that our life style in future will not turn into less electricity intensive, but it is more likely that the development will be contrary to that. One example is the common belief that more traffic in future will become ran on electricity instead of relaying on fossil fuels. All these things combined mean that there is demand for more energy in future, and this is also development on which the permission applying energy companies are putting their bet on, when calculating returns on their huge investments.

Thirdly, building nuclear plants will provide a great opportunity for Finnish companies involved in these projects to develop their capabilities and know-how in an area, which will be in great demand in future. There is great need for major scale electricity production in developing countries such as India. This need cannot be covered with solar or wind power, but nuclear plants, plenty of them, are needed. These kinds of projects taking place abroad offer opportunities also for Finnish companies to sell their accumulated knowledge. And in addition to exporting know-how, if there is energy surplus after all the national demand, there would be interesting opportunities in Baltic countries, where we could sell reliably produced energy, when they have closed the Soviet-era remnant, Ingalina Nuclear Power plant. Furthermore, unifying electricity markets in Europe offer additional interesting opportunities for Finnish electricity companies to sell their production, whether it has been produced from renewable sources or by splitting of nuclei.

Lastly, it is important to acknowledge that even if we solve our macro level electricity production needs with nuclear energy, there are still lot of local or micro level energy and electricity production demands that need to be covered through other means than by nuclear plants. Such local production is important e.g. from national security perspective, where nation's complete reliance on small number of large energy production plants would be a major risk taking. New local level power plant investments should mostly include either plants burning household waste or renewable energy plants based on for example wood pellets, solar panels, or wind mills. Such local demand, which would be in addition to the present and future global market demand, definitely would support Finnish companies working on those business areas and developing new technologies. Furthermore, as there seems to exist some demand from households and SMEs for energy produced from renewable energy sources, there will certainly be electricity companies that will supply that demand.

Does EU Have Hidden Agenda?

2009-08-29T22:13:00.008+03:00

On this summer I was lucky to enjoy my holidays in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which is by some sources regarded as the pearl of the Adriatic Sea. Based on my week long experience there, I am tempted to accept that as an actual truth. People that I met there were calm, straightforward, and honest giving one enough personal space without any traces of in-your-face attitude. During my stay in Croatia, I had also an opportunity to visit the neighboring country of Bosnia-Hertzegovina and its city of Mostar. Mostar is well-known for its historical monument, the old bridge and as a place, where bloody war raged during the early 90's.

While I was staying in Dubrovnik and during my visit to Mostar I engaged in a dialog with local people concerning their thoughts about EU in general, Euro as a possible future currency, and how they see the potential enlargement of EU to their countries. The response that I received was to some degree surprising. I received uniformly negative input both on Euro and on the enlargement. People saw that these things will happen regardless of their opinion, but they considered it not to be a positive thing for their countries. Of course, some positive things such as freedom of movement were mentioned by those people, but that did not change the negative undertone. The most interesting feedback I received from a muslim tour guide, who wondered about the potential hidden agenda underneath EU. That made me wonder, what would such agenda be, if there would be one?

After good 15 minutes of pondering, the following couple of ideas came up to my mind:

First of all, in order to be major player in future's global political arena, EU needs to have economical, political, and military strength in addition to comparatively large population and geographical reach. This all is needed in order to be able to ensure the necessary energy resources for EU countries now and in future, tie Russia strongly to EU to support the continuation of peaceful co-existance, and allow EU to be formidable player in all coming political situations. To be able to attain these kinds of goals, it would definitely mean including for example Ukraine (for the geographical reach and correction of some decades old mistakes) and Turkey to EU member states in near future.
From already a bit worn out clash of cultures perspective, inclusion of partly muslim Balkan states and Turkey to EU would both allow EU to engage in more constructive dialog with religion driven muslim nations, especially Turkey having the bridge builder role. Additionally, Turkey offers very good number of relatively well educated young people to support the graying job markets of old EU member states. Lastly, the inclusion of large number of muslims to currently prevalently christian EU would help in moving EU as an institution to more secular direction as there would no longer be a single "god" entity to which most citizens would relate themselves to.

I don't think that these matters mentioned above qualify as being part of any "hidden agenda" :), but from my vantage point these things seem like plausible scenarios for EU's future development.

Someone Else

2009-07-31T23:09:00.006+03:00

I have lately been getting some serious allergic reactions, when following Finnish media discussion regarding the recent events in Afghanistan that involved also Finnish peacekeepers. The key topics in media have included whether Finland is being at war and whether we should discontinue our participation to multinational peacekeeping effort taking place in Afghanistan.

To my great disappointment, it seems to me that there are great number of Finns, who think that there should always be someone else, who should take care of the problematic things in the world. Whether it is about supporting poorer nations in EU through paying larger share to the common EU budget, taking part in UN efforts to support developing countries in their struggle to survive, or sending our troops to peacekeeping missions lead by NATO or UN, there is always number of people crying - why should we bother, wouldn't someone else take care of those things instead of us?

Taking only look at the peacekeeping missions, I truly believe that the operations that we Finns take part in militarily are for the better of the people living in those countries or areas. Who can honestly say that for example Afghan people, especially women, would be better off under the fundamentalist rule? Therefore, it is quite difficult for me to comprehend that media is littered with pessimistic "troop withdrawal" kind of writing, where as true support to our troops, or thinking of strengthening them in order to help them in their difficult situation is basically completely lacking from public arena.

It is certainly true that there are many motivations for the western countries to be in Afghanistan or in any other conflict. For example, in our case our homeland defense will benefit, when our troops will get more experienced by serving in surroundings that resemble the actual war situation. Additionally, by our participation we publicly announce that we are one country in the set of countries, who are willing to take part in common efforts, when there is need for it. Even in such cases, where there is a great possibility for the worst case scenario to take place - taking losses for the greater good.

Needless to say, by participating to common efforts and by binding ourselves strongly to the western collaboration platforms, we are also trying to secure support to ourselves, if we ever happen to be in need of such. So that someone else would actually bother.

Changes..

2006-10-25T16:13:00.000+03:00

It was a great, long summer that I had this year. I managed to escape the yearly slush of Joensuu's spring to equatorial Africa for more than two months and came back to Finland when the Finnish summer showed its best. Furthermore, I took 6 weeks of paid and well deserved holiday, the first real summer holiday for some years. During the summer holiday I also got a chance to spend two weeks in States, which was a great and temperaturewise very warm trip. But all great summers have got to end at some point, as did mine too.

Six weeks of paid holiday sounds great and it surely was, but of course I could not just take it easy and relax. It offered me a great opportunity to finally finish my remaining studies and graduate. I took advantage of the opportunity that I had and got my degree officially on 1st of September. That same day marked what I thought to be my first day of unemployment after finishing working for continuous string of short-term employment contracts at the University. Things turned out to be quite different, my friend Pasi tipped me off a short-term job as a researcher at Häme Polytechnic, which I eventually took.

I have enjoyed working past couple of months for the Häme Polytechnic. The people that I have worked with have been good team players and we are together creating a great solution for the problem that sparked our work. Furthermore, the work has been very flexible. I have been able to work from home, which meant that I did not need to move all the way to Hämeenlinna for 2,5 months contract. But this phase is also coming to its end by the mid-November.

So, what's coming next in my life? Continuation at the polytechnic, or trying to find some project-work at the University? Neither of those, I am unleashing myself to roam in the private sector. After couple of rounds of paper screenings and two more rounds of personal interviews I am now (from Nov 6) employed by an American consulting company, which has also got an office in Helsinki. It also means that I am moving to Helsinki or Espoo, depending on where I can find suitable accommodation for myself. It is a farewell to good friends that I have here in Joensuu, but it is also a welcome back from my dear friends living in Southern Finland.

Lots of things have taken and are taking place within this autumn: graduation, three different employers, and move to the capitol city area to name a few. I bet that it would be easy to feel stressed, but I actually don't feel like that at all. I feel a bit relieved from the past and very curious about the future.

Interesting Stuff:

This picture, which I took in NY, gives me an interesting feeling. When approaching New York Stock Exchange from west (Wall St.), one can see two very formidable powers in the modern world being very close to each other. NYSE (read: money) is in the left on the picture and other, perhaps more divine power is located farther back in the right side.

New York, New York, New York

2006-09-28T17:52:00.001+03:00

Now it's come time for me to admit it. I and Madonna have got something in common. No, it's not the millions in the bank account, pop-shows causing religious outrage, an affair with a British director, or a strong belief in Kabbalah. We share the strong feelings for one of the leading metropolis in the world - New York.

Even though my trip to the East Coast of US is already more than one month away, I want to conclude it also here in my blog. The last part of the trip was a 6 days visit to New York. My friends and I chose to take a Greyhound bus from Washington DC to New York so that we could see some views from the bus windows. Little did we know, most of the views were either the bush next to the freeway or some city suburbs. Nevertheless, taking a bus was a very affordable (30$/per person) and also rather comfortable choice. And when we were in New Jersey entering the Lincoln tunnel, there was a beautiful scenary to the Manhattan island and its skyscrapers.

Before the trip I had heard comments about New York being a dirty city with lots of homeless people on its streets and constant feeling of unsafety. During those six days that I spend there, only in Manhattan though, I really did not see any of that stuff, at least not in any disturbing way. In my opinion, Manhattan was kept very clean, at least if compared to the sheer number of people residing and visiting it every day. Furthermore, the safety was not an issue, at least when there were three guys travelling together. This is not to say that one can be stupid, drunk, and behaving badly without getting into any problems, but with normal precautions one should be completely ok.

The reason, why I enjoyed my visit to New York was the multi-facedness of the city. One can wonder in Central Park and its paths for hours, or enjoy some time in 5th avenue and participate the shopping spree taking place there. What it comes to eating out, I strongly doubt if there are many places on earth offering greater variety of cuisines. Similarly, if one is looking for going out to do some clubbing (with fat wallet), there are plenty of options available. Talking of fat wallet, that is needed or perharps even preferred in New York, at least if one is willing to spend big time, which is very easy there.

From SoHo to Chinatown and from Little Italy to Financial District, Manhattan alone offers lots to see, experience, and taste for a first-timer. Getting around is easy by walking, but if feet start to hurt, catching a taxi is easy and ride is relatively cheap. Of course, the underground transportation is extensive, but it was not really an option during the hot days of early August.

What it came working while enjoying my holiday, during the visit in New York I managed to arrange a visit to City University of New York's Graduate Center, which is located right next to Empire State Building. There I met with Professor Elizabeth Sklar (and one of her graduate students), who is one of the leading researchers in the field of Educational Robotics. She has done a great contribution especially in RoboCup Junior's organization during the past years. The meeting was very encouraging experience for me and it might have opened some interesting opportunities for research collaboration, but unfortunatelly my own situation changed quite dramatically in the end of August making the collaboration at the moment quite difficult.

I am 100% certain that I shall return to New York later. That is something that I cannot really honestly say for example about Rome or Paris that I have been able to visit briefly earlier. Therefore, I can partly concur with Madonna:"..Paris and London, baby you can keep..". Well, to me London was loads of fun too.. :)

Freedom Does Not Come for Free..

2006-08-08T03:00:00.002+03:00

Washington DC was also an interesting place to visit. Not perhaps a place, where I would come back again and again, but certainly worth visiting on this trip. The city itself is not as attractive or lively as Boston or New York, where I am at the moment, but it has got the representative monuments of United States. By seeing those monuments, one can get a glimpse of the soul of the nation, its shared values and symbols.

One thing that came very clear during the visit to Washington was that words such as liberty and freedom are here considered to be very important or even sacred. So important, that the nation has lost its finests throughout the decades, or actually centuries, in conflicts both within the country and outside of it. Monuments dedicated for various conflicts, such as World War II or Korean war in early 1950's, spot the national mall, the area in the heart of Washington DC.

In my opinion, it is prevalent in Europe to think about the concepts of liberty and freedom in a very abstract or even philosophical sense, whereas here it seems to be more about actions that one is willing to take in order to secure both the liberty and freedom. And often, those actions do not come without sacrifices, what for example we Finns know from our own history. Freedom just does not come for free, visit Arlington or any Finnish cemetary to see that in your own eyes.

There are various opinions, especially outside States, about the actions of Americans in Iraq or before that in Vietnam and the justifications of those actions and real reasons being hidden from general public. But in the end, I think, for example most of the Europeans owe a lot to Americans for their present situation. Not only because of American interventions both in WW I and WW II, but also because of their presence in the old continent during those long decades of cold war. And even nowadays, Americans are securing strategically important resources (read: oil) also for Europeans with their blood, guts, and tax dollars.

I am not trying to glorify all the actions Americans have taken and will take in the future, but I feel that the present blame put on them for example in Finnish media is far too much. I personally think that in Europe there is still remains of somekind of WW II trauma, which disables us from acting decisively, when necessary (for example in Balkans in 1990's). And I feel that it is a huge, or in future even a costly political weakness, when dealing with rogue nations or political movements that decide not to play the game according to the set rules.

P.s. Eventhough I spent here a lot of lines talking about monuments dedicated to wars and their sacrifices, there are plenty of cultural attractions in Washington too. I just want to name one here from the Smithsonian museums. The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.. Phew! It is gigantic, one day was not even nearly enough to go through it and its shows such as IMAX movies.

[UPDATE (September 25, 2006): Added some pictures, at last.]

What Was the Business in Boston?

2006-08-01T16:48:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we arrived to Washington, but that's still a story that I cannot write about, since we haven't had enough time to go around the city yet. We are staying here at Hotel Helix, which is a relatively inexpensive hotel with some special character. It has some retro and pop elements combined in its interior design. I like it a lot, but it might not be for everyone.

In short, Boston was a great experience. It has seemingly gone through some major "face-lifting" during the past years. It has changed to be more similar to those cities in Europe with pedestrian walkways and sidewalk-café's. Furthermore, the public transportation worked really well, so getting around in the city and its nearby towns was very easy. City also felt very safe, but of course that's easily the case when three ugly looking guys are walking around the city together. :)

During the four days that we stayed in Boston, we managed to do surprisingly lot.. of walking at least. :) We roamed around in city center and most of the sights available in Boston, for example those available on the Freedom trail.

We had also a meeting at MIT's Media Lab with Hayes Raffle, who works there as a researcher. The meeting went very well and we are trying to find some meaningful ways to collaborate during the coming fall and spring. The Media Lab was an experience of its own right, it definitely looked something very, very different from our own work environment there in Joensuu. We also visited one of Ivy league's university campus, namely the Harvard. Things looked *very* nice there, but I couldn't help thinking there, whether too much heritage and traditions will prohibit one being novel in ways of doing things and ways of thinking? Or was it just pure envy speaking? ;)

P.s. While we visited the JFK library, we heard some interviews from JFK himself and saw some news headlines of his time. Interestingly, things seemed very same then as they are nowadays. JFK was speculating about the reasons, why Americans are not liked in Middle East region and newspapers showed need for UN troops in Congo. Talking about remaking the history, huh?

P.s. 2 I have some nice pictures taken from Boston, but I shall include them to this post later as now we are going to hunt for some breakfast. Perhaps something from Dunkin' Donuts? :D EDIT(August 8, 2006): Pictures are now available.

P.s. 3 Phew.. Temperatures are now melting hot. It's going to be around 100 fahrenheits (around 40 celcius!) today and it will continue like that at least throughout this week. Some serious hydration needed, I presume. ;)

On Move Again..

2006-07-28T14:31:00.000+03:00

Yep, I know, no updates for a long time. I came back from Tanzania on July 4 and have enjoyed a bit of vacation almost ever since. I have still some untold stories and some nice pictures from there, but wait and see, they will appear here later. I am also still struggling with some summer studies to be done, but they can wait until mid-August. And why's that?

I am actually on travels again. :) I came to States yesterday night with two of my friends, Pasi and Tuomas. We are going to be here in East Coast (Boston, Washington DC, and New York) for next couple of weeks. This trip is mostly for vacation with couple of "work days".

What it comes to those "work days", I have managed to get appointments to MIT's Media Lab and CUNY. I shall present in those places our research group's activities. Let's see, if it will create some interesting opportunities for us later.

Sauna in Africa

2006-06-20T07:10:00.000+03:00

Sauna in Africa? How stupid idea that can be? Not at all stupid, if you ask from me, who just got out of one here in Iringa. Iringa, which is located in 1600 meters above the sea level, can be very cold place, or it least feels like one after sweaty, humid Dar es Salaam. The temperature can drop all the way down to +12C during the nighttime, which makes also the local houses with no insulation very cool. If you combine that coolness with a broken water heater or national power rationing causing nice and cold shower in the morning, you really will be completely fresh, or poa kabisa as it is said in Swahili.

During the time I have been here in Iringa, I have been mostly working on TEDC conference, which in Marcus got me involved. It has been very interesting experience, I must say. In addition to those TEDC organizing tasks, I have found myself working on interior design, creating a business model, being a building inspector, and so forth. I have always known that I am a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, but even if it is positively challenging, I would prefer to leave some of those things to real professionals. The problem just is that there are not always those professionals available here.

On last week, Marcus, I, Laura & Mikael (a Finnish couple with whom we are sharing this house here in Iringa) had a chance to head down south to Lake Nyasa (or Lake Malawi, if you prefer that) for a short beach vacation. In the very northern tip of that lake is a small, quiet village called Matema. Matema is quite hard to access by normal 2WD, and during the rainy season that would most probably be completely impossible without a proper 4WD. An interesting and illuminating fact is that we drove about 4-5 hours from Iringa to Tukuyu (400+km), but then from Tukuyu to Matema, it took us 3 hours to drive the last 80 kilometers of rough road. My concept of road has become much wider, while being here in Tanzania.

Matema is lacking most of the classic tourist services, but there is a nice place called Lake Shore Resort located right next to the beach. Saying that place a resort might be a bit of an exaggeration, but anyway the place is having a perfect spot on the beach and nice spacious rooms with very reasonable price. Our rooms had a bit of a spider problem, but nothing that an insect spray would not have solved out. Our neighbors had a bit more worrisome guest in a form of a scorpion, but well, at least they are not deadly here.

Matema is certainly not a place for those, who are looking for wild nightlife, but those who are interested of having a bit more quiet place with gorgeous beach, supposedly bilharzia-free spot (I shall take the test back home just to be sure) for swimming and snorkeling, and beautiful view to the Livingstone mountain range surrounding Lake Nyasa, will find Matema a perfect spot for some days of relaxation.

During the days we spend in Matema, we went to a canoeing trip and a walk to a nearby waterfall[3gp video]. From these two trips especially the walk up to the waterfall was a great experience. It took us and our local guide one and half hours to climb up through the jungle following the water stream up to the small spot resembling the classic tropical paradise. The climb was rather strenuous, and as there was no any clear track, there were some spots, which were dangerous. Furthermore, as we were walking in shorts and trekking sandals with bare feet in them, in some times quite dense vegetation, we were subject to be stung or bitten. Luckily, the only problem that we had was the red ants that can give you quite a painful sting.

Even if the waterfall and its cool watered pond were the paradise on earth, we managed to forget all about it on our way back down. First thing to do after the walk was to get rid of the sweaty and muddy clothes and ran to the lake to wash off the dirt and sweat. Nevertheless, it was an interesting walk and the views up there made it worth the trouble.

We got back to Iringa and normal life on last week and now we are heading back to Dar, where Marcus and I shall look for rides, small buses, to take the participants of TEDC from Dar to Iringa. Furthermore, we try to do our best to help CBE to prepare a seminar for 3rd of July, where also our professor, Erkki, will give a key note presentation. There are quite a many things to be solved still with TEDC and that seminar of CBE's, but I am quite positive that things will turn out just fine.

What it comes to my other work related tasks, the SMILE project managed to surprise me once again. I sent the last template for that project on a week before last week thinking that I am very soon all finished with this project. Well, it turned out that I could not have been more wrong. The template had unfortunately a different orientation than the Greeks wanted it to have, so it means a lot of work for me. This week will be very critical for this work. Therefore, I need to put all of my efforts in it. After that, the next goal for me will be a very selfish one, my graduation. Luckily, I have been able to put also some effort in it here, so that July might be that magic month for me.

Well, 8 years is a long time for getting a MSc, but I can always say that I have been also quite busy working most of that time. Just too bad, that in applying for a job that is not an acceptable excuse for not having the degree.

Quick Peeks to My Life..

2006-06-02T14:51:00.000+03:00

For those of who, who are interested of knowing more about my day-to-day living here in Tanzania, I decided to share some pictures that I have taken lately. I hope that these pictures can help you to get a better picture of my local lifestyle.

This gorgeus acacia tree grows right next to the road leading from Dodoma to Morogoro (and later to Dar es Salaam). It just stays there alone and gigantic next to the road in a middle of very beautiful scenary. The road climbs here towards the highlands, so there are wonderful views down to the valley and near by mountains.

This picture gives an example of the works of local corporate artist. All artwork you can see here in this picture is painted by hand, which makes the companies such as Gapco here as patrons for artists? As there is basically no printed plastics or neon lights used for advertisements outside major cities such as Dar, there is lot of work to do for these artists.

There are some nice small malls with terribly high prices in Dar es Salaam, but most of the shopping is in reality done places like this. This particular shop (on the right side) is in Chalinze, which is a small town located in a road junction, where roads to north (Moshi, Arusha) and south (Morogoro, Iringa) diverse.

This a simple lunch in a local place in Dodoma. The restaurants are quite often places like this, with sandy ground as a floor and tables and chairs made out of plastic. The food is usually eaten by hands (after washing them, of course), but this time I asked for a spoon, as I had rice instead of having ugali. The menu is usually including different sorts of roasted meat (beef, mutton, goat, and chicken) with ugali or rice, and some sauce and vegetables on the side. What it comes to drinks, there are locally brewed beers such as Safari(good!) and usual internationally known sodas available.

P.s.
I wrote you about the Chicken run at Dodoma Campus in the previous post. I took a video of it with my mobile phone. Check it out, its very interesting event! :) It is a 3gp file, I used Media Player Classic to open it in my computer.

Furthermore, when I was in Dododa, I got a wake-up call every morning at 5 in a morning. The wake-up call was coming from a mosque located close to our hotel. As I recorded on one day the sounds coming from a street underneath my window I also ended up capturing a prayer coming from that mosque. These kinds of sounds one does not encounter often in Finland. This one is amr file, it should also open nicely with Media Player Classic.

So, What Else Is Going on?

2006-05-23T13:14:00.000+03:00

I am writing this today's second blog entry here in Peter Palm hotel in Dodoma. The reason, why I am at the hotel instead of being at CBE training the teachers, is that there seemed to be some miscommunication or lack of communication at CBE in Dodoma. Teachers that we are training said that they were unaware of our coming to Dodoma already on Monday. My colleague and I are taking that comment with a grain of salt, but at least we decided that we shall start our last week of training here in Dodoma on tomorrow morning.

This week's training will include topics such as creating web-pages to freeservers, key ethical issues in computing, and a quick peek at mobile learning. With those topics we are finishing the teaching phase of this project. There will be course examinations held in this (Dodoma) and next week (Dar), after which we shall start reporting this project in a form of a conference paper. The examinations will include both theoretical and practical part with an emphasis on material production for internet.

I am also finally finishing my work in the SMILE project. I submitted the second last learning template (about project-based learning) on week before last week and I am now working on the last template due on Wednesday. After submitting the last one I shall wait for the comments from our Greek partners and do the requested changes to the documents. Then I should start compiling all those documents and some additional theory about mobile learning into my Bachelor's thesis, phew..

On early last week Marcus and I visited Iringa and the Tumaini University residing there. Marcus got me involved in the local organizing committee for TEDC workshop, which actually is very interesting. At the same time I got a chance to comment on the development of local Science Park, which is Tumaini University's project. As I did my Master's thesis about things related to Science Park development, this is a great opportunity to apply that knowledge. Nevertheless, time will tell, if my comments and suggestions will change things or not.

While we were in Iringa, we also visited quickly the close-by Ruaha National Park. This time the visit was more that of a business than leisure visit, as we were checking out the lodges for TEDC accommodation. Some of the lodges were just great, I am sure that people will enjoy their visit in them. At least the concept of "going outdoors tenting" will have a radical change, when people see the luxury tents in one of the lodges. :)

P.s. I also managed to do some sports here. Marcus and I took part in the labor-day related festivities at CBE Dodoma campus during our last visit. We played football, drank beer (time competition!), and did some rope-pulling. There was also a chicken race, but we left that for the professionals. :)

New Division of Global Labor

2006-05-23T13:09:00.001+03:00

Let's work with our imagination for a second. Think that you are in a managing position and your task is to decide, where to host the web site of your international business, such as tourism. Would you go for an option A, where you would support fellow country men's business and the local development of expertise, but at the same time your website would be very slow to access for any customers outside your country and that your website would most probably be down occasionally due to lack of electricity, or badly maintained software/hardware? Additionally, you would pay for the server space at least ten times more than in option B. Your other option, option B, would be to use a company abroad, which is specialized in selling hosting of websites at their servers. They have policies that guarantee your website to be up at least 99.8% of the time. Furthermore, they have enough bandwidth to make your site to be as fast to browse as any other site accessible from web. The service is very cheap in comparison to option A and some times you can buy other services too, such as creation of simple web-shop in a price that still makes option B cheaper than option A. The problem with option B would be that the money transaction would be in some of the hard currencies, such as USD or EURO, that your country is badly lacking and accomplished by using a credit card that very few people or companies in your country has got.

This is one of the hard dilemmas that ICT has brought to developing countries. If thought in more abstract form, the similar kinds of decisions have to be made for example in software industry or any other industry demanding highly qualified work force and technology. Even though from business point of view it is obvious to go for an option A, from division of labor or development of nation point of view it is not at all as simple. Is it ok that developed nations in both east and west are specialized in high profit (ICT) service sector and knowledge work, whereas developing nations have no other options but to stay mainly in production of low profit agricultural products or unrefined raw materials?

There are no easy answers to this question, for example if we think that the education of the people is the answer, it will unfortunately take decades, costs are astronomical, and fast growing population in the poorest countries does not really allow us to use decades, when people are wanting to have better quality of life now. The change or gradual evolution of economies in western countries took its time, is it even possible to boost up the development of a nation? It has taken place in post-war countries such as Germany, Korea, and Japan, but I am not aware of similar example in African continent. There are countries that have been internally stabile and receiving foreign aid for decades in African continent, but the situation has not been developing as expected. Are we corrupting the governments and other aid receiving institutions with aid? I have noticed that when launching a new project, a lot of emphasis is put in securing the necessary funds, but the project itself and its proper actualization is not really in the locus of the activities. Is it an "easy-come, easy-go" situation?

Nevertheless, I am well aware of the complexity of issues related to developmental aid and that they are not be solved by any one man in his blog. :) Additionally, I strongly believe that it is a moral duty of those who do well to help those who are not doing so well in their lives. But I also believe that the help should be something that will help one to help oneself, not something that will doom the helped to be helped for the future come.

Beneath the High Skies

2006-05-12T22:41:00.001+03:00

Quite some time has passed since I wrote my last entry to this blog of mine. The reason for it is quite simple, I have had quite much to do here in Tanzania after my arrival. But before we enter that topic, I think that we should go back to the end of April, when I left Finland.

As I have mentioned earlier in my posts, my coming here was not really all that simple. The Finnish embassy in Tanzania delayed its decision, whether to fund this project or not, I got involved in an other project that demanded (and actually still demands) a lot of my attention, and the scholarship to cover my running costs in Finland and the flight ticket was badly delayed (I am still missing it). At some point during the spring time it seemed rather unlikely that I could participate in this project, if there even would be a project. But this time, as many times before, the unlikely thing became realized, and I got to go to Tanzania.

Africa hit me in Jomo Kenyatta international airport in Nairobi, Kenya. After an eight-hour night flight from London to Nairobi, I entered a transit passenger lounge to wait some six hours before my last leg of travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. There were plenty of other passengers, all trying to spend their time, some by sleeping and some by drinking. But there was also a single tv tuned to a local station, which transmitted programs with religious contents (preaching, gospel music, etc.), it was Sunday morning after all.

It reminded me once again over the big role of religion in a local lifestyle. Religion is not here really a private thing as in Nordic societies, but is widely discussed (for example while drinking beer and having a dinner in a local bar) and actively taken part in. Some even say that perhaps it would be time for Africans to come over to more and more down to earth Europe to do some mission work. The problem that I see coming through religion is that people may rely too much on an idea that all the good comes from the God, which diminishes the role of the individuals in their pursue for better future, and even paralyzes some to wait for Godly intervention. This is not to say that religion(s) should be swept away from the face of the earth, or that Marx had it right, when saying that religion is opium for the people. After all, I am a believer myself. But in my opinion, religion should bring hope and endurance to people in their day-to-day journey, not to paralyze them to wait something that may never come.

Once I arrived to Dar, it got more "earthly". My colleague, Marcus, had come to pick me up from the airport and took me to our apartment. Our apartment is located once again in Mikocheni area, just like the apartment we had one year ago. The apartment we are having now is spacious with ceilings being up high. There are three bedrooms to accommodate Marcus, I, and Ebenezer, who is our Tanzanian colleague. The apartment is also secure, which is important in Dar. There are high walls with broken glass on top of them (last year there was a electric fence!) surrounding the house, where our apartment is. Furthermore, the area is guarded around the clock. Whether the risk for break-in and burglary is that great, it is still a risk that you prefer not to take.

At the moment Marcus, Ebenezer, and I are in Dodoma, which is Tanzania's capital city, at least in official documents. We train local teachers one intensive week, during we cover all the topics and materials presented earlier in Dar. This week is the first of two weeks that we have planned staying here in Dodoma. The other week will take place in the end of this month. The topics we teach here now include for example information retrieval methods, personal data security, creation of web pages, and internet in business.

I have also continued to work in SMILE project, preparing the final two templates for it. It has been challenging to work with limited time resources and access to internet, but it has gone well. And working for several projects at the same time is not really anything new for me. In Joensuu it is always hectic, as the same people are having responsibilities, official or unofficial, for various projects at the same time. In Africa, at least, one is in safe from surprisingly occuring tasks.. ;)

P.s. No, it is not only work-work-and-work (with no play, makes..) here either. Marcus and I managed to sneak out on last Friday in Dar and went to a close-by resort called White Sands for some off-work relaxation in sun. :)

This Is the End..

2006-04-28T09:52:00.000+03:00

..or is it? During this week I have had my last meetings both in Seniors' Club and in Kids' Club. Will those meetings become also my "swansong" in those projects? To tell you the truth, I don't know at the moment. I have the work contract until the end of August, after which there won't be a project being able to pay for my salary in our research group. I think that time will tell what will happen also in this matter.

Today I shall start my two-month journey to Tanzania. Time has literally flown during the past two weeks and I haven't yet started even packing. Within two hours I should eat, pack, and catch a train to Helsinki. I think that it will be a close-call, but I shall make it in time, as always.. :)

What it comes to my work in Smile project, I shall take a lot of homework with me to Tanzania. As I was basically unable to work for the project during the past couple of weeks, I now need to work hard to catch up the lost time. What does it mean? A PC seat in the train to Helsinki for example.

Interesting Stuff:
National Website of the United Republic of Tanzania

Visitors from Tanzania..

2006-04-20T09:29:00.000+03:00

One should not count on having free weeks in one's calendar as that "free time" might end up changing quickly. Illusion of undisturbed work week of pure concentration to the most important task at hand will break easily into millions of pieces.

This sudden change happened to me on last week, when I heard about the final schedule for our Tanzanian visitors. It was revealed to me then that I will be the one hosting our guests during their week-long visit to Joensuu on the coming week. I have nothing against hosting our international guests, actually quite the opposite - I enjoy it a lot, but the timing could not have been any worse for this task to suddenly appear. I am already lagging behind with those SMILE project templates and this is not going to make things any better. But as the SMILE project and its successful completion are important, so are our Tanzanian guests, especially as I shall be working with them in close co-operation during the coming two months in Tanzania.

Once the illusion is shattered, it is time to gather up the pieces. How does my calendar look like on next week? Oh, it seems that I do not have anything else but the SMILE tasks to do before my departure from Joensuu on Friday.. :)

Interesting Stuff:
So weit die Füsse tragen [IMDB]

Open Letter to the Tooth Fairy..

2006-04-11T15:10:00.001+03:00

Dearest Tooth Fairy,

How are you doing? I think that you must feel somehow sad and betrayed, at least if I use the latest meetings with my dentists as a meter to measure the relationship between you and I. I should have recognized the first subtle, but visible indications of our declining relationship. It was not enough that I offered those monthly toothbrushes and tubes of fluoride toothpaste to you. You wanted more from us and I was too selfish to notice that. I didn't offer you all that dental floss, mouthwash, and extra fluoride tablets that you were so eagerly after.

Now, after three stopped teeth and one wisdom tooth surgery, I understand that we must go together, my dear tooth fairy. I promise to understand you better in the future. I think that I got the message that you sent to me.

Yours,
Pasi

Deferred Life Plan..

2006-03-29T10:58:00.002+03:00

How's your life? Have you given any thought about it? Are you enjoying living it, or does it appear just as an endless chain of have to do events, without leaving you time to really live your life and do those things that you want to do and especially enjoy doing? Randy Komisar wrote in his book "The Monk and The Riddle" about Deferred Life Plan, which basically means that you are doing all the time things that you have to do (or at least you think so), so that later in the undefined future you will be able to do things that you would really enjoy doing. This kind of life plan is problematic, since often it just keeps feeding itself, there will always be things that need to be done, before you can.. How will it be, when you grow old or become suddenly terminally ill, how would you like to see your life and things that you did in retrospect?

Interesting Stuff:
Seymour Papert

Numb..

2006-03-21T11:26:00.000+02:00

On last week I went to see the dentist as I had mentioned in one of my previous posts. The cavity to be fixed was in the back tooth located on lower jaw. As I have had my share of not applying local anesthesia when stopping a tooth, I asked the dentist to ensure that this time I do not feel anything. She really ensured that, I had a right side of my lower jaw, tongue, and face completely numb for the rest of the day. So I had to be very careful for not to bite off any parts of my tongue or inner cheek.

Marjo and I also managed to assess the robotics course on last week, which means that all the work regarding that course is now completed. I also updated the course web pages adding there quite a few new links and some examples of the projects that students did on that course. I think that the course and its web pages are quite interesting, because there are not that many university level courses in Educational robotics in the world. There are plenty of courses about robotics in general and some subtopics of robotics such as A.I, but not in Educational Robotics. Perhaps this is something that we (I) have to put some extra efforts on also in the future.

I have to take back some frustrated words that I said about our Greek partners in the project that I am getting my salary from. I had taken or even misinterpreted their comments in a worst possible way. We had a Skype conference call on last week, which revealed many facts and viewpoints that were missing from the commented document and e-mails. This was a very good reminder of the difficulties that we face, when relying too much on text-based electronic communications only. Nevertheless, there is a lot of extra work that I need to do on those templates, mostly because one of the E.U. metrics for evaluating the project outcomes is the amount of content (e.g. number of pages).. Luckily, I am having time until the end of next month. But this does not mean that I could take it easy, actually quite opposite of that.

I also got some feedback from the Japanese embassy in Finland concerning my application to the JET program. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the interviews. I tried to ask, whether they could give me some justifications, but the contact person did not know about those. I bet that the problem I had was the lacking fluency in Japanese. Well, good thing about this was that I got the feedback very quickly so that I am able to start looking for some other alternatives for the fall. Let's see, if there are any projects with vacant positions at our research group then.

Interesting Stuff:
Ubisoft: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 3: Advanced Warfighter (XBOX360)

Paper a Day Keeps the Doctor Away?

2006-03-06T15:37:00.000+02:00

So, it is March already. February, March, and the first part of April are the best months, if one wants to experience the better side of Finnish winter. The Sun is usually shining, the snow is beautiful, glittering white, and the temperatures are below 0 C but above -10 C during the day time. After the long, dark winter months, it is now a very good moment to spend some time enjoying the outdoors, like for example going for a sunny walk on the top of nearby frozen lake - or stay inside, look at the computer screen, do some writing and occationally see the views from the window (you can choose between a parking lot and a construction yard).

My African expedition was postponed. The proposed schedule was considered to be impossible, which means that I shall be around here in Joensuu at least till the end of April. It is still too early to say, whether it will take place at all, I have to see about that. Afterall, I could use some time for my own studies too, since at the moment I am spending all my extra time to work related stuff, not to my studies. This is of course a personal choice, but for some reason I prefer being a paid employee than a student who's gone bankrupt. Yes, my fragile personal economy is strongly dependant on my lot-less-than-average salary.. :)

What it comes to SMILE project, I managed to finish the EPSS template on last week and started working on the problem-based learning template. We also got some feedback on our templates from our Greek partners. I have to say that they should consider updating their exemplary project material. The templates, which we did according to (or actually greatly surpassing) their examples, have to go through major revision. It is not only about cosmetics, but I have to seriously start looking for further literature. But there was also some good luck in this situation, the first comments that we received were just ridiculous, these latter ones were more realistic and something that we are able to cope with.

There are also "some" paper deadlines coming in: IDC´06 [short paper] is today, TEDC´06 and ISSEP´06 on 15th of March. WOW! Basically, I have to submit a paper with my colleagues to each of those conferences, which means together with the template creation process quite a fast writing process. If you combine this with my previous post, which discussed my Tabula Rasa Phobia.. It's a complete mess. And, there is also Ro-man 2006, which would be a good place to submit the robotics evaluation scheme that I am working on with my colleagues.. :)

I have also lately begun to work on my application for the JET programme. I am trying to get myself a Coordinator for International Relations (CIR) position in that programme, but the competition for the posts available is tough. I am definitely not planning to leave the university for good, but I think that a one or two years "sabbatical" would suit me well at the moment. I have worked more than five years here at the university, so I think that it is about the time to seek also for some other kind of (international) experience. But more about this later.

Interesting Stuff:
Huntington, S. P. (1993) The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72, 3, 22-49.

Tabula Rasa Phobia..

2006-02-27T17:34:00.000+02:00

I should have learned my lesson by now, I am just unable to write anything in the mornings. For some reason, I usually tend to do my writing late in the evening at the peace of my home. But then, when at home and especially at the computer, I happen to find many other things that steal my attention from my original task, writing. So, what about writing at work? At work, in the open office, writing just does not make any sense, at least not to me, who is being (at times) a bit too social person.

Furthermore, I suffer from a kind of "tabula rasa phobia", I can't stand the blank white page that the word processor offers me to be filled. It is somehow depressing to see that huge, all white page just sitting there and waiting for the content that you should provide. Been there, not done that either? Luckily, there is a solution, which actually works also in many other similar situations, such as "cleaning my apartment phobia" or "doing the dishes phobia" - Just get started! If that "solution" could be bought in gallons, I would buy a dozen right away!

I am still working on that EPSS template, which I should have concluded already by now and moved on to Problem-based Learning. Yesterday I managed to finish reading the reference material that I had gathered (some 10+ articles). Now I just have to write the template. Easier said than done, since EPSS is more about performing than learning, which puts the worker in the position more of a robot following instructions than a human being capable of learning things. Let's see, if I am able to perform some miracles tonight at home, or even outperform myself.

Why am I so worried about getting behind in schedule? There are actually couple of good reasons. First of all, we need to feed other (especially Greek) partners in this project with our outcomes. If we don't do things in time, the others won't be able to progress with their tasks either.. Secondly, and more personally, I should finish off these templates (or at least most of them) before I am going to Tanzania on the second half of March for couple of months. In Tanzania I shall participate in the second phase of our "Foundations of ICT in Education - Teacher Training Program in Tanzania" project at College of Business Education in Dar es Salaam with my good friends and colleagues Marcus and Ebenezer. This does not mean that I would be leaving this SMILE project for good. At the beginning I shall do both jobs at the same time for some time and then I shall take one and half months of leave of absence, before continuing here in Joensuu in the second half of May.

The latter half of last week went once again really quickly, I had Kids' Club sessions both on Thursday and Friday evenings. The Thursday's meeting was concentrated in RoboSoccer, whereas Friday's meeting was about programming the mobilephones. That was actually very interesting. I had not had a chance to visit this particular group earlier, so it was all new for me. Together with kids we managed to define a timetable (for school) program in a screen level. I was impressed with that design, it actually serves well as a basis, where the older kids can start doing some programming. I am very eager to see how do they progress from that.

Interesting Stuff:
The Logical Fallacies
Plausible Futures Newsletter [Thanks Javi!]
Sherry, L., & Wilson, B. (1996). Supporting Human Performance Across Disciplines: A Converging of Roles and Tools. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 9, 4, 19-36.

So What's the Context?

2006-02-21T14:43:00.000+02:00

After I had given my blood sample at Occupational Health Services on last Friday, I decided to walk to work following the river bank. And while I was walking, I decided to take couple of pictures with my mobile learning device (others just call it a cell phone). Just to put my walk in its context in Joensuu.

It looks a bit cold, doesn't it? :) It wasn't actually all that freezing, it was about -15C (5F) and it was not windy at all. Just a beautiful stroll in a nice (almost) spring weather.

Btw, I went to Occupational Health Services on Monday and heard about my present condition. It seems that I am what I am - a healthy (at least physically) young man. ;) But I got worse news today at the dentist, my wisdom teeth are seemingly (I saw the X-ray, too bad that I didn't ask for it, since it was in a digital format in their system. :)) coming out in a bit of problematic way. Let's see what comes out of this.. At least the wisdom teeth, in a way or another.

What it comes to the templates I am working on, I am having a bit of problems. The schedule that we are having is rather tight, because the project got its funding decision quite late and because we could not really start working before just two - three weeks ago. Now I have not had enough time to do really extensive literature review, which means that I am having some problems in justifying some processes that I am proposing in the template.

I have this research ethical problem, I would really like to know well the material that I am referring to before making a reference. In a real world that is just sometimes quite hard to do due to the time limitations.

Interesting Stuff:
G1:1 - Global Researcher and Testbed Network for 1:1 Technology Enchanced Learning
Kasvi J.J.J. & Vartiainen M. (2000) Performance Support on the Shop-Floor. Journal of Performance Improvement. 39 (6) 40-46.

Full Cavity Search

2006-02-17T12:18:00.000+02:00

Oh boy, It's Friday again, where have all the other days gone? Why haven't I updated my blog before? I think that I must have busy or enjoying my life in some other way than being in front of the computer screen. Unfortunately that last one is mostly untrue, I have spent too many hours sitting next to my computer. My eyes can tell it, since they are complaining about too much of reading in bad light and watching the screen - Eyelid Myokypia, I think.

I managed to finalize the draft of 1st template for SMILE project on last Wednesday. I wrote that draft in a bit of haste, but I think as it was just a draft, the document was just fine for that use. I received some good feedback and comments both from Jarkko and Kinshuk, according which I can continue my work. The 1st draft was written about Situational Learning (see for example Brown, Collins & Duguid. (1989) Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning). As I have finalized this, I will continue working on 2nd template, which I shall be writing about Perfomance Support. A week and a template, that should be the pace, if I want to finish this phase in this project within one month.

It has also been a week full of all kinds of club activities. The week began on Monday with a meeting in Seniors' Club, which is our Department's outreach program to senior citizens. Seniors' Club is also a research laboratory for the researchers of Educational Technology and Human-Computer Interfaces. I was one of the founding members of that club and now helping both in tutoring and in research. It is quite much fun to participate the club activities, since I have not really had an opportunity to have a relationship with elderly citizens. My grandparents all passed away either before I was born or when I was relatively young. This club opens up a wonderful chance to peek into lives of elderly people and their relationship with technology.

Later on the week we had the preparations for and the actual shooting of the new Kids' Club video, which should be ready within couple of months. The new video had to be produced as the old one did not include some key features that have emerged in our activities during last couple of years. In addition to activities due to the video, we had one school group of 13 years old kids, which came for an excursion tour to our laboratory. Marjo, Ilja, and I had prepared some activities for them - building and programming Lego Mindstorms robots, creation of Stop-motion animation, and CeeBot-programming, which was my duty to organize. Today we shall have a parents' meeting in Kids' Club, the parents will see what we have been doing lately.

What it comes to full cavity search, I went to a dentist on Thursday. It was already three years from my last appointment, so I was a bit worried. I have been lucky so far, I have had only one cavity in my teeth in my whole life. This time my world was shattered into little pieces, there is some minor renovation work to be done in my mouth.. Let's see what I shall hear on Monday, when I shall have my check up at occupational health services.

Interesting stuff:
Naismith, L. et al. (2004) Literature Review in Mobile Technologies and Learning, NESTA Futurelab Series, Report 11.

Sleepless in Joensuu..

2006-02-08T13:39:00.000+02:00

I have to be honest with you, my dear blog, I just can't help loving sleeping. Or to be a bit more exact, I love dreaming while sleeping. Usually I get my best and the most interesting dreams during the early morning hours (meaning around 6 am). At least they are the best dreams I know, because I can remember them so well, when I reluctantly open my eyes and wake up later on morning.

The reason for writing about sleeping and dreaming is that I have not had enough time to actually do enough those lovable things lately. It is actually interesting that after some nights with too few hours to sleep, one (at least I do) starts to fantasize about sleeping. You know? Thinking about warm blanket surrounding you and wonderful, soft pillow beneath your head, and.. Got the point, longing for a nap already? :)

The Thing that has kept me awake till late hours has been my another passion, reading. On Sunday night I read an old Finnish book by Mika Waltari, which discussed early Finnish society and its relationship with our eastern neighbor, Soviet Union. After Continuation War that particular book made its way to the "forbidden books" list. That's why I was so keenly interested of it.. :)

On Monday and Tuesday nights I had lots of "fun" reading about VET. ;) I am happy that I managed to find quite a few decent sources of information for my research (Unesco, Cedefop, OECD). Now I just have to finish the last couple of articles and fulfill the mindmap I had to construct (about VET) for today's meeting with Jarkko and Kinshuk. When it is finished, I will link it to this blog.

Oh, I gotta go now, time flies.. My colleague, Marjo, and I will have a visitor coming from Kitee. We are going to collaborate on creating a scientifically and technologically oriented summer school for senior high school students. The summer school should take place in next August. Marjo and I should take care of the Robotics track in that summer school.

Interesting stuff:
Mika Waltari: Neuvostovakoilun varjossa (in Finnish, title in English: In the Shadow of Soviet Espionage) (1942).

Busy Bee Been All Week..

2006-02-03T14:32:00.000+02:00

First of all, I must say that I was a bit lazy on this week, what it comes to my blog. Updating it came to my mind every now and then, but unfortunately it stayed only in my mind and never realized to these somewhat organized series of alphabets here in this blog. But so much about apologies, let's get down to the real business.

On last weekend (Fri-Sun) I got some awaited visitors from down South. Not all the way from Down Under, but from Helsinki anyway. As these visitors were my dear friends, it is needless to say that I really did not have any extra time for work during that weekend. We had plenty, and I mean plenty of fun during the weekend, including indulging excessive amounts of ethanol - a Northkarelian purification ritual for your intestine or just having plain fun with your friends :). We had also EdTech (our research group) party at our professor's place on last Friday. Sauna, beverages, nice people, good food - Who needs more than that? Needless to say, all that fun still did take its toll on my Monday morning, but nothing really bad.

Monday and Tuesday just flew past me, as I kept myself very busy with the Educational Robotics course that I mentioned earlier in this blog. I had to update the web-pages, read the material that people on that course had produced and be prepared for the demonstration sessions and lectures. Furthermore, I got to get myself ready for a work group meeting in Helsinki, which took place on Wednesday. The meeting was about "Hiiripiiri", which is a kind of ICT know-how card designed for children. It is very interesting stuff and it can become also an international initiative in near future. At least I would like strongly to encourage that project to take that direction.

Yesterday I started finally to work on that VET stuff that I have mentioned earlier. I got some more ideas from my friends (like the tip about Cedefop) and I also had a chance to talk with Jarkko, who is being an acting professor in our group at the moment. Both of these helped me in my task of getting more clear picture about the project and things awaited from us. It seems that the next couple of months should be rather busy in this project. We should develop some educational scenarios with mLearning in VET context. I also have to take a closer look to those sources of information from Kinshuk. I bet that I will start playing around with a mindmapping tool to get my early ideas into more visible form. Let's see..

VET and mLearning are not only research interests for me at the moment. I have also developed somekind of passion for educational robotics. Well, I think that it was quite obvious, I am, afterall, lecturing a course in that particular topic. :) As I was in Helsinki on Wednesday with my colleague, Marjo, she told me about her great idea for a paper in educational robotics. We shall conduct a scenario research, which aims at predicting the future trends for educational robotics. At first phase we shall write a paper about the views of teachers (users) and technologically savvy students (designers) at our course. Let's see also how this will go further.. :)

Interesting stuff:
Jeff James: nxtbot.com Blog
Sherry Turkle: The Triumph of Tinkering (Ch 2. in Life on Screen, 1995)

P.s.
Thanks, Andrés, for making that EdTech-news site!

Quite a Day, or actually couple of them..

2006-01-26T18:49:00.000+02:00

Phew.. I wish that I felt like one of my Kids' Club students feels. He said that it feels that time goes by so slowly. Slowly! What a heck? Time flies, young man! You better enjoy the slow motion as long as you can, since once it turns to high speed or ultra-hyper-dyper-speed, there is no coming back. Or, perhaps after some hectic decades that flew past you in no time at all. Time certainly is a relative concept.

What has happened with the research during the past two days? Not much, I have to admit. Yesterday I had to prepare my classes, which took surprisingly long time. Of course, I didn't merely just prepare them, but I also lectured them later on the same day. As I managed to keep myself busy during the day, I totally forgot to participate the group, which should improve our Department's student recruitment. I wanted to contribute to this particular group's work so much that I wrote later on yesterday evening an e-mail of nearly 10k to the group leader. Quite a manifesto, but I think it was a bit too much "out there" - usually more conservative points of views have more chances to succeed at our Department. Luckily, there are also some people with very fresh points of views in that group, hopefully their opinions will be heard.

Today went by as fast as yesterday. I got to hear acknowledged Prof. Kinshuk's lecture about Content Based Adaptivity. Well, I have to admit that I am personally not at all fond of ITS, instruction-centered education, and conditioning of people through repetitions. I have definitely been brainwashed by educationalists with their ideas of constructivism (you can add words socio-, cultural-, whatever-, if you please) and its various kinds of offspring. But said this, I do recognize that with ITS systems one can deliver impressive and measurable results. I just find personally them not to be "my-thing". EDIT (January 27, 2006): Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that my dislike of ITS or its educational roots does have nothing to do with my sincere professional respect for Professor Kinshuk. As I mentioned, he is widely acknowledged member in the field of Educational Technology, who is also contributing in various ways for the good of us all in this field.

We also got a Kids' Club session today. It is all about football playing robots, once again. Hopefully Marjo and I could get some nice ideas to get kids (and not so kids) to be excited about building and programming those robots, as they have already done it before. Luckily for us, we have bought some new sensors.. :)

Umm.. Its already getting late, I have to leave this building and hunt for something to eat. Then I'll concentrate on reading about Methodology for Designing an Educational Scenario. That does not sound too promising, it actually sounds a methodology, which was designed by a computer scientist, whose conception of education is often somewhat limited. I am also a computer scientist. :) I hope that reading that article will prove me wrong, I am not good with rigid and limiting designs (such as tight and restrictive curriculums). At least if those designs weren't originally done by me.. ;)

Problematic Situation..

2006-01-24T14:57:00.000+02:00

Today I heard more about the project (SMILE) that I am going to work in for the coming months (until 06/2006). The basic idea of my work with my colleagues is to create a survey kind of study about Mobile Learning. Well, that is not actually all of it. Because the context of Mobile learning in this particular project is in Vocational Education and Training (VET), we shall first begin with defining VET and its key processes. After the processes are more clear, then it is easier to start combining those processes with suitable mobile innovations. Our work is important, because we are responsible for creating a conceptual foundation for the rest of the project and its partners.

For the definition of VET we have got 2 weeks time. Phew! I have to say that it is not really all that much, especially when I (and also another colleague of mine) am having a robotics course to lecture and studies to finalize. I think that I shall postpone my studies, at least until the course in robotics has ended (late February - early March).

First ideas for creating the definition for VET:

Check out OECD, UN, Associations for Vocational Education
Conferences in Education (AACE, AERA, etc)

First Things First..

2006-01-24T14:50:00.000+02:00

The very first posting to this brand new blog of mine.. Yiihaa! ..or not. :) I will try to start organizing my (research) work in a way that also the others could benefit from it more easily and give some beneficial comments and guidance to me. Let's see if I can get myself to start using this tool, I think that I should develop a habit - a posting habit.