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I recently came into contact with a software program called Wordle. This software basically does content analysis of key terms that emerge in a written prose. The more frequently words occur, the larger they appear on the word diagrams generated by Wordle. The software randomly generates colors and alignments of the terms on the diagram as well. For example, I took one of my journal articles titled the “effects of time-compressed audio and verbal redundancy on learner performance and satisfaction” and plugged it into Wordle. A thumbnail of the resulting word illustration is shown below. You can click on it to see a larger picture.

As you can see, the softare summarizes the key terms in a visual and spatial format that allows an observer to make meaning from the diagram. This is fun and interesting software that certainly has a place in summarizing the vast quantities of text published on a daily basis. Enjoy!

My brother finally tied the knot. He married Georgette Ackery (a great lady and animal lover). The wedding was wonderful. We were able to see friends and relatives, and we celebrated the special union. I had the pleasure of being best man, so I took the liberty of putting together the photo gallery. I also put together a short video and posted it to YouTube for all to see. Enjoy!

I arrived back from Coral Springs, Florida, yesterday evening. I went to Orlando on Friday with about nine students to visit the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA), a subunit of the University of Central Florida that trains game developers. FIEA is a unique program. I especially enjoyed seeing the motion capture studio. One of the art faculty allowed us to use the technology and rig it to existing models. It was a lot of fun.

After lunch with my students and some of the FIEA faculty, I left to James Chen’s wedding in Coral Gables. James and I have been friends for about 17-years. He met his beautiful wife at the University of Florida and they tied the knot on 5/24/2008. The wedding was beautiful and it very nice to see many people from my old high school. We are doing well in our careers and everyone seems to be happy.

Upon arriving back in Jacksonville, I went to a barbecue at one of the my colleagues houses. This was a nice way to end the weekend. Of course, since it is Memorial Day weekend, I still have time to see Indiana Jones. This was a great weekend.

So, I can almost see the light. I have been working really hard these past few months to successfully defend my proposal this summer. Assuming I don’t royally screw anything up in the next couple weeks here, it looks like I may be able to successfully defend my proposal before the end of the summer term.

Defending my proposal this summer is really important to me. I want to defend my dissertation in the fall, and you cannot defend your proposal and dissertation in the same semester. In all practical matters, it makes no difference whether I should defend my dissertation in the Fall or Spring aside from my pathetic intrinsic motivation: I want to be a PhD by the time I am 26. Since my birthday is in December, I am running out of time!
While this may seem like a lame reason to graduate so soon, I have discovered that this motivator is what keeps me going. If I didn’t stay focused, I would probably keep procrastinating, so whatever works!
Anyway, hopefully my next post will be about me having my dissertation proposal defense scheduled. I have less than two weeks to submit the paperwork, and I still have to Dr Barron to edit my chapters so I can make necessary revisions before submitting.

Well, that is all for now. Back to work!

I have never really had that much anxiety about a single exam in my entire life. I feel unprepared, though I have studied countless hours. I feel like I don’t know what to expect, though I have been given direction by my faculty members and peers. The results of this exam can dictate my future, and I don’t like that feeling. I did not have this much anxiety when preparing to take the GMAT, GRE, or the IT industry certification.

In a week, it will hopefully be over. I intend to spend the ensuing weekend on vacation from the world. Well, until then, I suppose I should keep working to diminish this anxiety.

This is my first official blog entry. My goal is to develop this blog into a useful forum for individuals interested in education, computing, and business and the relationships among these things. I also want to share my ideas, concerns, research, and beliefs with the world. I believe that blogs provide us an opportunity to have a voice… to make a difference. Please check back soon for updates. This is a work in progress and considering I have my qualifying exams this term, I suspect it will be neglected for a little while.