Happy Birthday to Phillip! Hip hip Hooray!

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Bronwyn Swartz in Family and Friends, General

Tonight’s post I’ll dedicate to a lovely young man Phillip who turns 10 today. He is a delightful little boy, with such a pleasant demeanor and personality. If anyone believed that phoney bad boy facade that Phillip’s dad puts on for the world you’d genuinely be forgiven for not even realising who’s boy Phillip is. However if you manage to take just a bit of time to just hang around and observe them together, you’ll be reminded of what a remarkable dad should be like. Richest Birthday Blessings and Congratulations to both of them!

And now to get on with my literature review. My assignment due for draft revision before midnight is 1000 words outlining my conceptual framework. I wish I had a conceptual framework already. I know these things take time. With every revision I’m hoping it will become clearer, but at the moment things are still very very hazy. At the moment the keywords are Quality (Improvement?), Educational Technologies, Resistance to change. I just cant for the life of me…..cant yet convince myself that understanding resistance to change is a actually a quality improvement. And I know if I cant convince myself, then I have a problem. Before I can start writing persuasively and captivatingly about it, I must be able to make sense of it in my own squashie. I can’t. Well certainly not yet.

Anyways…best I stop ‘jabbering’ and start ‘lit reviewing’ then hey. Catch you on the flip side.

In search of the oreos

22 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Bronwyn Swartz in Statistics

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I inherited a course where the recommended textbook is like the presence of oreos in my house. If there ever were any, they not there now, they don’t last, in fact they as mythical as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause. It’s definitely not available in South Africa and it’s always out of print. Even when I was a student I just couldn’t get a copy of the book. Later when I started lecturing, through sheer bit of luck I came across a copy for sale on Amazon.

Earlier this year I made an effort to try and identify and single out one particular textbook that I could use as a recommended text book for my stats classes. However I just couldn’t find one that covered all the concepts that I covered with my students in Stats 3 (SQT300S) and Stats 4 (QTS400S). The stats courses that I present have quality flavour so the content of the courses is centered the question: What statistical tool or method can I use to fix this problem or improve the quality of my process?

I managed to find excellent textbooks that presented all the topics that I covered in class, however not in a single book. That was when I had the idea of writing my own stats text book: Applied Statistics for Quality Practitioners. When I told my brother he just rolled his eyes. That gets me super excited, if it sounds nuts then I definitely want to give it a go…….So this morning I published a new page in this blog entitled Statistics. I shall start writing. Let’s see how far we get uh. Drinks on me if it ever gets published 😉

Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes

21 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by Bronwyn Swartz in General

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If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants

A very powerful quote from the renowned Sir Isaac Newton directed at his rival Robert Hooke. Humble, yet simultaneously confident. A completely, totally and utterly inspiring sentiment. And with that my journey begins. Truthfully it started last week though, when I attended the first class of my CHEC course and I decided it’s time to start writing my PhD proposal.

This blog is my attempt to document my journey. The focus is centered around the doctoral degree that I’ve set as my goal. Good heavens I’m bold, stating it on such a public platform! But why not hey. You may ask ‘Why?’. The only answer that comes to my mind is because it’s something I’ve never done before. In my humble opinion that’s the darn-est good enough reason to do anything!