Possible outcomes of a discussion with S

Possible outcomes of a discussion with Stian / Reading Lucklin 2018-07-01 Focus on tools useful for Unfold Studio analysis     I don’t have a use case for this yet, as Unfold Studio has to date only been used in creative/fictional writing. 

Focus on RAship project     SBS’s paper formalizes what a discourse model would look like. I wonder if my embedding strategy would a suitable implementation. 

SBS PAPER One useful outcome of the focus on semiotics is a couple of goals which might reframe my language games paper: modeling a sense-making system could be useful to show the shifting space of denotations/connotations, and it could be used to predict how well users will be accepted. 

Computational thinking This is precisely the challenge we’re faced with here: what does computaitonal thinking mean?

“In Saussure’s terms, the signs of a linguistic system relate to one another along two axes, the syntagmatic being the axis of the relations ‘in presentia’, and the paradigmatic being the axis of the relations ‘in absentia’. In this bi-axial reference system, the syntagma accounts for the combination of signs in the discourse chain, in which each sign plays a particular role. On the other hand, the paradigm accounts for the possible substitutions between the signs that could play the same role in each particular slot of the discourse chain, and that are associated by semantic affinity. For instance, in the sentence “the lion caught the antelope”, instead of “the lion” there could be “the predator”; instead of the “antelope” there could be “the prey”; instead of “caught” there could be “captured”: substitutions that express different connotations in reference to the same situation. These possible substitutes express the range of signifieds (connotations) that can possibly be associated with that sign, that is, that sign’s meaning within that linguistic system.” (7-8)

Wow, this precisely identifies what I’m after: I want to describe the paradigmatic, not the syntagmatic. 

“meaning is ‘implicitly negotiated’ every time that a new claim is produced in the discourse space”      -> This describes how the machanics of Unfold Studio might be different. 

Buckingham Shum and Hammond, 1994 on computer-supported argumentation (CSA)

MACHINE LEARNING AND HUMAN INTELLIGENCE (43) Metacognition, affect, meta-affect. These are potentially important on axes to classify approaches to computational thinking. If we ask what computational thinking is a case of, what are the possible answers? More cognitive? More practice-based? More identity-related? More social and distributed? When I consider the reflective writing in students’ Scratch projects, I think there’s a lot there. For example, consider the students who write about debugging their emotions. 

BTW, what’s the plan for finishing that paper? I need to do qualitative analysis (again) of their reflections. Perhaps I can recover some of that initial work as a first pass, use it to develop a coding scheme. I’m not particularly inclined to use NLU on it, but might be open to it. Sentiment could be interesting; possibly topic modeling? Dig into it and see. I think this is my next paper, but not sure. 

The Paly study paper is still waiting in the wings; hopefully I’ll be able to reboot that at the MAC camp. I should go into that with a research plan. 

UNFOLD RESEARCH Discourse models may also be useful as metacognitive artifacts. They let us freeze a way of thinking and then distance ourselves from it. We can go back into them (immersive participation), or we can work with them. We might even be able to take them as texts. (A previously-written story could be the basis for a new story.) —> Useful affordance would be different typefaces for different “quote levels” from email.