Despite warnings from friends and family, I completed my master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in educational communications and technology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Monday, November 14th. The project writeup took about two weeks, captured in the video below.

My committee was headed by Kurt Squire and featured Erica Halverson and Junko Mori.

Abstract

Developing Japanese language fluency for learners from alphabetic backgrounds is a challenge in part due to the 2,000 Chinese characters used in written and verbal communication. This paper argues that one reason for the difficulty is the view of memory as a container and proposes that viewing memory as being for action (Glenberg, 1997) suggests alternative ways that may support learners. The paper concludes with a design narrative (Hoadley, 2002) of Bushudo: The Way of the Radical, a video game developed to promote acting through Chinese characters.