…my phd outline on mindmeister

Using the interesting features of Mindmeister, I have made a mind map which outlines the very primitive structure of pursuing a Ph.D research in context of EU projects. Please feel free to edit or add comments if you think there are any better and alternate ways. I found it handy to use mindmeister and give a visual view of my work plan offcourse it is subjected to change with experiences and your valuable comments. You can see a quick short tutorial how to use mindmeister [here]

You can view, share and edit my mindmaps [here], i guess you need to be a registered user with mindmeister.

If you want to know more about the inventor of the concept behind mindmap, then read about Tony buzan

interested more to know about the theory, read here a couple of articles that give an introduction to mind mapping: Mind Mapping in eight simple steps. courtesy (P.A Monteiro)

…as the days started

…slowly i am getting to know more about my new place here in Heerlen. The discussion with people here is making me positive about the work and the working conditions as a new Ph.D here. Planning a research is not always easy, one needs really right set of abilities, the conducive environment and expertise around. Within OTEC the expertise in Educational Technolgy is in plethora, people have been working for a long time and i could see high degree of interdisciplinary associations among the people and research work.

I am glad my initial impressions are quite good. I had a talk with Jan de Bruggen about the new EU Project LTfLL (Languagte Technology for Life-Long Learning). He is going to introduce further on Monday meeting next week. Peter Sloep who is now leading as a head of the technology development program at OTEC, shared with me his experience in advising Ph.D students. He emphasized how quality of research and publication is in interest of OUNL. I have learned some guidelines from him which would surely help me in planning my research work at OTEC

First day at OTEC in Heerlen

…Today was my first working day at OTEC . An important step before making a long journey towards realizing a Ph.D thesis. The day was consumed in meeting new people, warm welcome and wishes of success, possibly some nice impressions of Dutch hospitality. Some of the important face-to-face talk included meeting with Jo Boon, she explained me the overall skeleton of OTEC, the working departments and the research groups. Hans Hummel, he gave a quick conceptual overview of Navigational Support in Learning Networks for Life-Long Learning. Francis Brouns, she described research issues of identifying Communities and Social Policies and exploiting them to apply to Learning Networks (LN), a lot of food for thought. Rest of the day spent with organizational issues and chit-chatting with other Ph.D colleagues, Henderik Drachsler who is working on Personal Recommendation System in LN and Sibren Fetter, who has started his Ph.D last month on Community and Social Policies, seemed busy making his way to write research plan, an important step before conducting further Ph.D research. The overall day was full of impressions. Many thanks to Mieke Haemers, our secretary for organizing all what is needed to get familiar with new environment. Interestingly enough, the working place for all OTEC Ph.d’s are called Ape Cage , atleast metaphorically, it does mean we are taking the footsteps of our grand grand fore-fathers…did we really evolve …I am expecting more to learn and know every day. Stay tuned to read my experiences in Ape Cage.