Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research by John W. Creswell My rating: 5 of 5 stars A good primer on mixed methods research. I wish I had made this part of my original reading list last summer when I was conceiving of my (current version for my) dissertation proposal plan.  Mixed methods fits well with one of the reasons  I am using case study research as my approach. 

Well, the fourth expansion of Star Trek Online, which brings us a sliver of the Gamma quadrant, gamma recruits, and the Jem'Hadar playable faction is here today! I had an opportunity to play a bit today as a new Jem'Hadar "first" (aka captain) under the name of Arak'Ouzo (yes having some fun with the name).  The first couple of missions were quite fun to play, and flying a "bug-ship" is quite

Star Trek Romulans The Hollow Crown - 2008 by John Byrne My rating: 4 of 5 stars An interesting continuation of the story that started in Romulan Schism where you see the Klingon's plot of circumventing the Organian Peace Treaty. Overall and interesting story, but I feel like Klingons and Romulans lack a bit of depth. For all the honor being touted by the proponents of the Klingon

Το καλοκαίρι ήρθε επίσημα!  Ήρθε γρήγορα, και δουλειές ακόμα εκρεμούν! Ώρα να το βάλολυμε στο τούρμπο  ;-)

I guess this one is a riff from that episode where all the enterprises (from different realities) were converging on the same space. I did find this punchline to be the best, other ones submitted were a little m'eh. (original archive here)

Well, I guess another one bite the dust.  Over the weekend I saw an announcement that Klout - the social media influence measurement tool - had gone to the great binary cloud in the sky.  Klout, whose logo reminded me of a Cyrillic "Zhe" (maybe they were russian spies? ;-) ), took all of your social profile information, it collated the likes, reblogs, retweets, comments, thumbs up (etc?)

Collaborating Online: Learning Together in Community by Rena M. Palloff My rating: 3 of 5 stars Interesting book. It's more geared toward practitioners than researchers. I'd recommend this as a a design "cookbook" companion. The thing that has really struck me with this book is that the authors use the term 'collaboration' to refer to anything that involves multiple people working

Learning Together: Peer Tutoring in Higher Education by Nancy Falchikov My rating: 3 of 5 stars Not a bad book. "Tutoring" in this book means anything between an the work that an "more knowledgeable other" (Vygotsky) does, to teaching assistants. There is quite a broad range to work with, and an interesting book to consult when thinking both about course design and program-level

From the episode with the forerunners (or was it precursors?) where we find out that we're all related in the milky way galaxy (or at least this quadrant of the galaxy). I do like this alternate punchline too: "Well get ready for another round of family feud!" (original archive here)

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent My rating: 4 of 5 stars Not a bad book. I always expect something with the word "ultimate" in the title to be the one definitive source for all things for that topic, but that isn't always the case. Lots of good early history of companies