![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
|
Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
High schoolers taking part in one of the first Waterloo Unlimited
residential sessions.
![[Three girls with big smiles]](/images/2005/1019unlimited.jpg)
Nominated by "teacher champions" in Waterloo region, the students are taking part in the second season of what's billed as "trans-disciplinary, residential enrichment for high school students of exceptional potential."
The current six-day program features a public talk by fine arts professor and painter Art Green, a workshop on critical thinking with philosophy professor Chris Eliasmith, and an organic chemistry lab synthesizing dyes with chemistry lecturer Steve Forsey. Optometry professor Sue Leat will offer a more literal take on the theme, with a session on the anatomy of the eye, the visual systems of the brain, things that go wrong with vision, "and some cool stuff about how babies see."
Since the program was launched last year with a week-long event for local Grade 10 students, most participants have hailed from Waterloo Region. But now Waterloo Unlimited is going national, says Linda Carson, spokesperson for the program. A session exploring the many facets of design -- "from research design in the sciences to spatial design in architecture" -- will welcome Grade 11 students from across the country to the UW campus November 13-18.
"Teachers at selected high schools across the country are sending us nominees," says Carson. "We're choosing the rest of the participants from students who've 'nominated' themselves by submitting a written application," using the form available on the Waterloo Unlimited web site.
Developing programs around a theme, rather than a single subject, is a hallmark of Waterloo Unlimited. "Innovative solutions and groundbreaking research happen where disciplines -- and researchers -- cross boundaries," Carson explains. "Themed teaching promotes an open-ended learning experience that touches -- and triggers -- leading-edge research and discourse. It develops students' higher-order academic skills, skills that generalize across all disciplines, such as analysis, synthesis, communication, and collaboration." And it's fun, she adds.
In May of this year, Unlimited gave Aboriginal high school students from southwestern Ontario an opportunity to explore such topics as "the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and new scientific discoveries."
Waterloo Unlimited aims to instill in young people a love of learning. "It's about challenging the borders of scholarship and developing higher-order skills: communication, analysis, synthesis, initiative, curiosity, responsibility, leadership, teamwork and creativity," says Carson. "It's about open-ended learning rather than memorizing an inventory of 'right answers.' It's about going home with the skills you need to become self-enriching -- and maybe even sharing those skills with siblings, peers and teachers."
| POSITIONS AVAILABLE |
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On this week's list from the human resources department:
Longer descriptions are available on the HR web site. |
Word came in a memo to deans and departments from registrar Ken Lavigne and Lynn Judge, director of graduate studies academic services. They said "a secure, web-enabled submission process" is in place and can be used for both on-campus and distance education courses. The long-awaited change is an "exciting initiative", says associate registrar Mark Walker, noting that the system was developed by the registrar's office and graduate studies office with support from information systems and technology.
The memo says it has been well tested: "A very successful university-wide pilot project was conducted during the submission of Spring 2005 grades with representatives from all Faculties, St. Jerome's University and the Affiliated Colleges involving 3,746 grades from a total of 82 undergraduate and graduate courses.
"The development of electronic grades submission functionality offers the undergraduate and graduate teaching community an opportunity to submit grades in a secure environment from anywhere they have access to the web. It allows for an automated upload of graded class rosters (in a specified comma-delimited format) as generated from various sources and with real-time editing/feedback to the submitter. This is completely compatible with the grade book facility used in UW-ACE and is also compatible with most desktop software products that instructors are currently using (e.g. Excel, Access, etc). To further enhance the experience, up-to-date class rosters can now be downloaded automatically to your workstation using a Quest web page."
Demonstrations of how it works will be held at 2:30 each Tuesday in November, in Arts Lecture Hall room 113. A final session will be held at 2:30 on December 6 in Rod Coutts Hall room 112. The memo notes that "The Undergraduate and Graduate Operations Committees will receive updates on the implementation of this new tool during the fall and the early part of the winter term."
The technical stuff follows: "Access to electronic grades submission is controlled by the security settings assigned to each person's UWdir userid. Therefore, we must ensure that the security settings of all appropriate faculty and staff accounts are established before grade submission begins for the fall term," with a target of November 18.
The memo says all faculty and staff involved in lecturing this term "should attempt to log into their Quest accounts through the following link using their UWdir userid and password. They should also try to download their class roster." Then it goes into detail about what to do if there are problems, and also how to have academic support staff authorized to submit grades.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Internship Fair for the not-for-profit sector, 11:00 to
2:00, Student Life Centre great hall.
'Picking the Purrfect Pet' brown-bag talk by Elizabeth Bonkink, K-W Humane Society, 12 noon, Physics room 150, sponsored by Employee Assistance Program. Career workshop: "Introduction to Career Services Online Modules", 3:30, Tatham Centre room 1208, registration online. Drama and speech communication career night, 7:00 to 9:30 p.m., South Campus Hall. Architecture lecture: "Private Passions, Public Places" series winds up with Gary Michael Dault, Globe and Mail columnist, "My Favourite House: The Casa Malaparte", 7:30, Architecture lecture hall, tickets from Cambridge Galleries. Warrior field hockey vs. Guelph, 7:30, University Stadium. Also today: women's rugby at Queen's; men's volleyball at Windsor. School of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture: Stephen Cook, University of Toronto, "The P vs. NP Problem and Its Place in Complexity Theory," Thursday 4:30, Rod Coutts Hall room 101. Arriscraft Lecture, school of architecture: Teddy Cruz, San Diego, "Border Postcards: Chronicles from the Edge," Thursday 7:00, Architecture lecture hall. The New Quarterly launch of the summer issue, with author readings, Thursday 7:00, Waterloo Public Library main branch, details online. Issues in Native Communities speaker series: Harmony Rice, publisher of Spirit magazine, "The Reclaim Nation: The Culture of Us vs. Them," Thursday 7:00, St. Paul's College. Faculty of arts alumni event: alumni authors (including George Elliott Clarke, Melanie Cameron) read from their work, Thursday 8 p.m., Starlight Club, information online. Ninety-first Convocation Saturday in the Physical Activities Complex: 10 a.m. for applied health studies and arts, 2 p.m. for other faculties and programs, information about special honours online. |
"I wanted to come to Waterloo because it was the only school offering an English Rhetoric and Professional Writing program in conjunction with co-op, and I didn't want to simply complete a four-year arts degree and then have to tackle the real world without any real experience, so it seemed like a feasible way to add an applicable, hands-on side to my studies."
Brittain spent her first work term with Indian Residential Schools Resolutions. Her second work term was also with the federal government, this time as a project officer with Industry Canada's Government Online initiative. She returned to Industry Canada for a third work term, and it was here that she was given an opportunity to travel across Canada, working with the BizPaL team.
BizPaL is a web-based service that will allow business clients to easily generate a customized list of the permits and licences they require from all levels of government. Currently, the BizPaL Pilot Project is being developed by a lead group of government partners, and involves collaboration across all levels of government in Canada.
![[Brittain]](/images/2005/1019brittain.jpg)
Last fall, the team had completed a prototype of the web service
being built and decided it was time to put the BizPaL product to
the test by giving it to potential users and recording how they
navigated through mock-up scenarios. "Testing had already been
conducted in Toronto, so off we went to the West Coast, stopping
in Whitehorse (right), Vancouver, and finally Kamloops," says
Brittain. "While in each
location, my colleague Alec and I would run several full days of
usability testing, with Alec conducting the tests while I
recorded and consolidated the results. We were gone for a very
busy two weeks!"
Guylaine Brunet, project manager of BizPaL, was pleased with Brittain's performance: "Her work ethic is impeccable. She managed to understand and contribute on some very complex issues our project is dealing with, such as governance at multiple levels of government, issuing request for proposals, dealing with other groups within and outside of Industry Canada to resolve policy and legal issues." Not only did she perform her tasks extremely well, but she provided solid feedback to the team, in order to enhance future testing sessions.
At Industry Canada, she was given opportunities to write, speak, and learn about technological systems and their design, and compile and analyze test results. This may seem strange for someone aiming for an arts degree, but it exemplifies the versatility of Waterloo co-op students. "It was really interesting to be involved in web services, while the writing and public speaking experience apply directly to my studies."
CAR