In this project-based course, each student will transform a protocol for a developmental into an experiment families can take part in over the Internet. Classes during the first two weeks of IAP will introduce methods for developmental research from a practical standpoint, cover MIT’s new “baby webcam” system for recording subjects’ responses online rather than bringing kids into the lab, and provide a workshop introduction to Javascript accessible to novice programmers. Students will be matched to individual projects and will be responsible for the development of an online experiment. At the conclusion of the course you will have access to a cutting-edge technique in developmental research as well as experience in experimental design and web programming.
| Monday | Wednesday | Friday |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 7 Intro: why baby webcam; developmental methods; projects/course plan. Choose papers for Wed. Programming pretest HW: presentation of selected paper (five to ten minutes—cover motivation, procedure, results, and what you think the main challenges in doing this online would be) |
Jan 9 Paper presentations Select projects Counterbalancing discussion and example outline HW: skeleton outline of your project |
Jan 11 Discussion of outlines Paper presentations (new students) Data coding demo Example expanded outline HW: revised outline with stimuli list and coding instructions |
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Jan 14 Start html/css/js assignments in class Get set up for programming: go over specific systems (jswcam library, directory structure, setting up your sandbox) HW: finish intro coding assignments; one-paragraph blurb about your project for parents |
Jan 16 More Javascript techniques & making stimuli (in-class exercises) Experiment flow; Sticking in html blocks; Converting video, etc. HW: proposed timeline for project; prepare questions for kid day |
Jan 18 Javascript part 2 (sorry, Kid Day is postponed to later in IAP) Set up meeting times |
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Rest of IAP Individual projects—creating stimuli, programming. Meet with Kim 2x/week. We’ll schedule one final (lab) meeting around Feb 1 where we walk through each experiment before putting them online. We'll also have a demo day in Westgate (W85) to have families actually try out our experiments with us right there to see how it goes and note any problems/advice. |
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Aslin: What's in a look? (Overview of infant looking time methods)
Day 2: Counterbalancing, example experiment outline
Day 4: Getting started with the example experiment code
Day 5: More technical Javascript notes (we got ~halfway through)
C: Kirkham, Slemmer, Johnson - 2002
D1: Maye, Werker, Gerken - 2002
D2: Aslin, Saffran, Newport - 1998
H: Schulz, Bonawitz, Griffiths - 2007
Current incarnation of baby webcam
(coming soon) Overview of writing an experiment
(coming soon) jswcam library doc
Mozilla's excellent Javascript guide and reference
W3 CSS markup validation service: enter your CSS to check for errors
Codeacademy javascript tutorial
Video - Dive into HTML5: a good reference for converting videos for compatibility
Sample batch file for making webms with ffmpeg
Sample batch file for making ogvs with ffmpeg2theora