Daily Bulletin, Tuesday, June 10
Chris Redmond
[1][University of Waterloo]
DAILY BULLETIN
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
* _Three weeks to the fireworks_
* _An update on online teaching_
* _Polaris, a thing of the past_
* _Feds comment on Palestine lecture_
Editor: Chris Redmond cred...@uwaterloo.ca
_[6]First patent on a ball point pen _
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Another Hallman gift marked today
A ceremony this morning will celebrate a "major gift" to UW from the
man who already has his name on the west wing of Matthews Hall: local
businessman [7]Lyle S. Hallman.
Hallman's latest contribution to the university will help with
construction of [8]a new north wing, which is being identified as part
of the Lyle S. Hallman Institute for Health Promotion.
Groundbreaking activities at the site will begin at 11 a.m.
Three weeks to the fireworks _-- by Karyne Velez of the Canada Day committee_
In just three weeks, the University of Waterloo will be hosting its
19th annual [9]Canada Day celebrations. The party, on the afternoon
and evening of Tuesday, July 1, will mark nearly two decades of
community focused, family-oriented activities organized by volunteer
UW students and staff.
[10][Canada Day button] This year's free event will feature an
assortment of fun activities, such as interactive children's games,
face painting, a water slide, an arts and crafts fair, delicious food,
live musical performances, a spectacular fireworks display and a
variety of other exciting attractions.
The Math Society will be hosting the ever-popular Children's Fun Fest,
and the Engineering Society will be having their Children's
Mini-Olympics with the Incredible Juice Machine.
A new feature that has been added to the celebrations for this year is
the Canada Day Art Competition, open to surrounding elementary and
secondary schools. This will be the first of its kind and offer
additional opportunities to participate in the Canada Day festivities.
The Canada Day Art Competition is an opportunity for UW to extend its
philosophy of innovative and creative thought to the community, and
recognize them for their artistic talents. The project also hopes to
highlight the many young artists of the Kitchener-Waterloo area and
support their artistic interests. The theme for the competition is
Canada, and the goal is to create a printed or sculpted art piece that
best expresses the spirit or essence of Canada and the Canadian
spirit. All contestants will have their art work displayed on the
field on Canada Day. The judging will be by vote, as people will be
able to view all the art pieces and vote for the work they like best.
Prizes will be awarded for first, second, and third place for the
elementary and secondary school levels.
Activities on Canada Day will run from 2 to 11 p.m. on the fields
north of Columbia Street. The fireworks will begin at exactly 10 p.m.
An update on online teaching
Online courses are getting to be a bigger and bigger part of UW's
distance education program, faraway students are reminded in the new
issue of the _UW Correspondent_ newsletter.
[Looks like an iMac] Don Kasta, director of distance and
continuing education, confers with courseware developer Lois
Goldsworthy. (Photo by Heung Lee)
"Almost five years ago Distance Education offered its first courses in
an online format," writes Don Kasta, director of [11]distance and
continuing education. "For the coming academic year the number is 62
and there are more to come.
"UW is committed to this way of offering courses for a number of
reasons." He cites some of them: "The application of technology offers
significant improvements to the learning process. The ability of
students to interact freely with others in their class provides
opportunities for the exchange of ideas and for collaboration. This
takes much of the distance9 out of distance learning.
"Additionally, the technologies available to us present the course
material in a more effective way through the use of a variety of
media. Instead of audio along with text on a page, the online material
can be dynamic in nature, with animations where required, links to
material on a variety of websites, and other exciting resources. It
also makes it easier to keep the course up-to-date."
Kasta notes that the material prepared for some online courses in
distance ed is finding its way into on-campus courses. "In some cases,
the lectures in on-campus courses have been replaced by the CD-ROM
prepared for the distance course, supplemented by in-class discussions.
"In other courses, the same kind of computer conferencing that is part
of all our online courses has become a standard feature. Some
instructors are finding that the quality of discussions online exceeds
what is happening in the classroom."
He says most new distance courses being created or re-prepared will be
in the online format. "It will take a number of years to move
completely away from tapes-and-notes courses; it may be that we will
always have a few. However, our goal is to convert as many courses as
possible to the new format."
Kasta notes that his office now reports to Tom Carey, the
[12]associate vice-president (learning resources and innovation). "As
that title implies, we are now part of an overall effort to improve
the way teaching and learning happens both on campus and at a
distance. We are also closely related to, and share some staff with,
the [13]Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology (LT3),
another indication of the prominent role technology will be playing."
Polaris, a thing of the past _-- by Bruce Campbell of engineering computing _
On May 1, 2003, with no fanfare, the [14]Waterloo Polaris system
retired from service. In its heyday, Waterloo Polaris connected
approximately 1,500 PCs across UW, running the Windows 95 operating
system. The Windows 2000 based replacement system, [15]Waterloo Nexus,
has taken over and already grown to 2,000 PCs in all six faculties.
The history of Waterloo Polaris goes back to 1984 when systems design
engineering professor Peter Roe oversaw the development of the DOS
based Watstar network. Watstar, like its successor Polaris, made the
essentially stand-alone Microsoft operating systems of the day
manageable and secure. Today, userids/passwords, e-mail, and automated
software distribution are taken for granted, but in the early days of
PC networking, all of these functions had to be developed from
scratch.
Developing computer systems from the ground up was very interesting
work, and it attracted innovative people to what is now the
engineering computing department. As the popularity of the PC grew,
other faculties recognized the flexibility that the homegrown Watstar
and Polaris systems offered, and the systems were adopted in arts,
science, AHS and math. While some university campuses are still
struggling today to provide a common student computing environment, UW
has been doing this for close to two decades.
With the advent of Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system and
Active Directory, many of the functions developed locally in the past
are now available out of the box. Seeing hundreds of thousands of
lines of code that comprised the Watstar/Polaris systems swept into
irrelevance has, in some sense, been heart wrenching. But there is
something more important than code that can be taken away from the
Watstar/Polaris experience. It is the culture of creativity and
collaboration that was born out of people working together toward a
common goal.
Other notes today
The senate _undergraduate council_ meets at 12 noon in Needles Hall
room 304, with an agenda that includes a new program in "atmospheric
and planetary science" in the faculty of science, replacing several
existing streams.
A _career development workshop_ on "Career Decision-Making" is
scheduled for 2:30 today (details at the career services office).
And looking ahead to Friday . . . the 2 p.m. lecture by Lotfi Zadeh,
creator of what's dubbed _"fuzzy logic"_, will be held in Davis Centre
room 1350, not in the Theatre of the Arts as previously announced.
Feds comment on Palestine lecture
As Palestine Week continues, a major -- and controversial -- lecture
is scheduled for 7:30 tonight in the Theatre of the Arts. The speaker
is [16]Norman Finkelstein, whose book _Image and Reality of the
Palestinian Conflict_ "juxtaposes Israeli policy in the Occupied
Territories against South African apartheid", according to his web site.
He's also the author of _The Holocaust Industry_, which produced
[17]an uproar when it was published in 2000.
He comes to UW sponsored by [18]Students For Palestinian Rights. I
wrote last week that I didn't know much about SFPR, and in response
Alroy Fonseca, one of the organizers, explains that the organization
"is a [19]WPIRG action group that was formed in the fall of 2002. So
far, the SFPR has put on a few lower-profile events."
Palestine Week is not quite low-profile. Today, information displays
continue in the Student Life Centre, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and then in
the evening comes Finkelstein's lecture, under the title "Israel and
Palestine: Roots of Conflict, Prospects for Peace". Says an SFPR
announcement: "Chapters has committed to selling books at the event.
Furthermore, the CBC has confirmed it will be filming the event for a
documentary."
The Federation of Students took the unusual step yesterday of issuing
a news release to explain why it's helping to fund the lecture. (A
committee decision to provide money [20]was discussed Sunday at a
meeting of students' council, which voted not to reverse the
decision.)
Said yesterday's release: "The decision of the Feds to provide me of
the financing requested has been met with some contention. . . . Some
have suggested that providing money to fund a controversial guest
speaker is tantamount to Fed support and even endorsement of the views
of the presenter.
"The Federation of Students would disagree with this, and suggest that
in this case, the only fundamental principles it would choose to
champion, are those already expressed and encouraged in its own
founding policies and guidelines. . . . We believe that as well as
developing academically, the students of our campus should have forums
in which to develop socially, politically, spiritually, and
culturally. By providing opportunities to experience different ways of
life and different sets of opinions, the Federation of Students can
aid in this social and cultural development.
"The Federation of Students acknowledges that Dr. Finkelstein brings
with him ideas and opinions on his lecture focus area and other topics
that go against the status quo amongst his peers. This is by no means
a negative thing. The ability to challenge, and stimulate meaningful
debate, which Dr. Finkelstein clearly does, is essential not only to
academics, but also to the advancement of human pursuits.
"Far from preaching hate, Dr. Finkelstein approaches the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute from the framework, akin to Dr. Martin
Luther King, that people should come together irrespective of the
colour of their skin, their race, or their beliefs. Whether one agrees
with his theory or not is up to the individual.
"By contributing funds for this event however, the Federation of
Students feels that it is upholding its continued commitment to
supporting diversity, while at the same time building unity. The
Federation of Students encourages all to attend this lecture, and
discuss its merits, its weaknesses, and perhaps create a pathway to
the future -- for all great ideas have to have a start point."
CAR
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[21]Communications and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca | [22]Yesterday's Bulletin
Copyright ) 2003 University of Waterloo
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3. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/previous.html
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5. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/aboutus.html
6. http://inventors.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa101697.htm
7. http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~cahr/lhi/biolsh.htm
8. http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/bulletin/2003/may/28we.html
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17. http://fathersmanifesto.com/holocaustfinkelstein.htm
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21. http://www.communications.uwaterloo.ca/
22. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2003/jun/09mo.html