October Events, 2006

Paul Kates, Mathematics & Engineering Faculty LT3 Liaison

Events Summary

Financial Assistance for Course Development

To enhance student learning, three funds are offering financial assistance for project and course development this term. Deadlines are

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

TRACE Instructional Development Grants (ID Grants: up to $1,000) are administered through the TRACE Office. The ID Grants are designed to help instructors improve teaching effectiveness. The next deadline for proposals is November 1, 2006. Information and the application form can be obtained from the TRACE link above. (Clipped from the TRACE - Teaching Matters Newsletter, September 2006.)

New: Friday, November 10th, 2006

The Mathematics Endowment Fund (MEF) finances projects that benefit undergraduate math students at the of Waterloo. Proposals, accepted from students, faculty, staff and student clubs, are to be of an educational nature, providing teaching resources, equipment and services that improve student learning.

Examples include:

Total available funds each term are approximately $45K. Contact me for more information or assistance. Examples of funded projects, request forms/procedures and presentation details are available at the link above.

Monday November 6, 2006

The Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation (WEEF). Proposals for WEEF funding are accepted from Engineering (including the School of Architecture) students, staff, faculty and Alumni. All serious proposals are considered, provided they benefit undergraduate engineering education at UW.

WEEF funding is commonly used for equipment or supplies rather than services or expenses. While there are a few exceptions to this including competition fees, or the services of the UW Machine Shop, we suggest you have a look at previous successful proposals and read our Funding Policy.

Total available funds each term are approximately $70K (my estimate based on the capital size of the fund). Contact me for assistance with proposals. Examples of funded projects, request forms/procedures and presentation details are available at the link above.

UW-ACE Events

No UW-ACE courses are scheduled for October. But because midterm grades will need recording, I'm available for individual sessions about the UW-ACE Gradebook.

A 21 page guide to the Gradebook is available in the Help area of UW-ACE. Here is a direct link to the pdf document.

Making UW-ACE courses part of the university community

As with earlier versions of UW-ACE, access to course content like the syllabus, assignments, FAQs, subject resources etc is controllable through settings made available to course instructors. Confidential information about names and grades is restricted and protected by default. Different access levels - instructor, student (in course), UW member, general public - can be assigned to each command tab and every individual item in the main Lessons folder. Instructors can thus share their course with potential students, other courses and faculty members or the general public.

By default, the Resources tab and the syllabus located within the Resources tab have public-access settings. Using the UW-ACE course search feature, students can read the syllabus of any UW-ACE course.

UW-ACE course Lesson pages look like Windows folders by default, but they are not file directories. Each folder is a HTML web page that instructors can add to - text, style, layout and colour HTML features. Even JavaScript can be used. (See, for example, jsMath, a JavaScript program that translates LaTeX math expressions into LaTeX-quality HTML mathematics.)

LT3 Events

Event descriptions are clipped from the LT3 events page.

October 16-31, 2006, 10:30-12:00pm

E-Merging Learning Workshop: Coaching sessions
Presented by Dr, Mark Morton.
Location: FLEX Lab, Lib 329, Dana Porter Library

A Meet and Greet Session (for introductions) was held on October 2nd, but there is still an opportunity to participate this month. Please visit the registration page given below or contact Mark Morton (ext. 37765) at LT3.

Each term, the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology (LT3) offers the E-Merging Learning Workshop to assist instructors in devising ways to use online learning technologies as effectively as possible.

The workshop entails a number of online modules (which instructors work through at their convenience over the course of about four weeks) as well as two face-to-face "coaching" sessions. Details regarding the objectives, parameters, format of the workshop are available at http://lt3.uwaterloo.ca/programs/ELW.

Thursday, October 26, 2006, 1:00pm-2:00pm

Square Pegs in Round Holes: Fitting an Undergraduate Medical Curriculum into a Learning Management System
Presented by Professor Michael Clarke, PhD.
Location: Flex Lab LIB329, Dana Porter Library

Although in North America all medical schools must implement curricula that are compliant with accreditation guidelines from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, there is significant flexibility in these guidelines. As a result, undergraduate medical curricula can show extensive variation from one school to another. Many schools have adopted a "systems based" curriculum where the instructional units are defined by body system as opposed to a course-based curriculum. Systems based curricula tend to be administered centrally and owned collectively by the entire Faculty. However, a systems-based curriculum does not lend itself well to the architecture of conventional learning management systems (LMS) which are generally designed to accommodate a course-based curriculum in disciplines outside of medicine. This presentation will describe the nature of the challenge to medical schools who wish to develop an eLearning component to support their programs and how an ideal LMS that enables a systems-based undergraduate medical curriculum might appear.

Michael Clarke lives and works with a passion. A passion for more students to learn more, and a passion for teachers to teach better, more effectively. He believes that the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) must become embedded as a culture of great importance in every university's system -- it must not continue to be a high noon shadow to research. Research is a critical part of the academy's life, and it is in Michael's life as well. But balance is an important part of well-measured life.

eLearning has, for a very long time now, shown great rewards to Michael in student benefits. He has seen this in his own discipline, in his own faculty, and across all interests through his work with CLOE and MERLOT. His lessons learned and experiences help inform his audiences as he speaks to groups now. He is a dynamic and well-informed academic in the eLearning and Medical fields.

Michael's last sabbatical was spent studying the long term affects on children of the Walkerton water disaster.

TRACE Events

TRACE Workshops

See the above link for registration details. Workshops are popular and seating is limited.

Consultation Session: Teaching Dossiers

Prerequisite: You MUST attend the Teaching Dossier workshop first AND you must be a GS 902 participant. (Limit: 15 participants per session.)

Research Projects Workshop (Limit: 20 participants per session.)

Teaching Dossiers (Limit: 45 participants per session.)

Consultation Session: Research Projects

Prerequisite: You MUST attend the Research Projects workshop first AND you must be a GS 902 participant. (Limit: 15 participants per session.)

CVs & Cover Letters (Limit: 60 participants per session.)

Designing Exams (Limit: 60 participants per session.)

Understanding the Learner (Limit: 20 participants per session.)

Course Design (Limit: 20 participants per session.)

Lectures

David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 2006-2007 Distinguished Lecture Series

David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science Fall 2006 Faculty Lecture Series

Refreshments will be available prior to the start of each lecture, and a reception in DC 1301 will follow the last lecture on November 10th.

October 4, 2006, 12:30

The Importance of Being Earnest
John Mighton, Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto. Silversides Theatre Artists Series
Location: bookstore in SCH.

After a "conversation" between John Mighton and Gerd Hauck, Chair of Drama and Speech Communication, a general discussion will follow. Everyone is welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served and there is no admission charged.

John Mighton is a playwright and mathematics professor. He was awarded an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship for research in mathematics at the Fields Institute, and has lectured in philosophy at McMaster University. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto. He created the Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies (JUMP) Project with a group of volunteers to help children learn mathematics, and published The Myth of Ability on the same subject. He has won the Chalmers Award, the Governor General's Award and twice won the Dora Mavor Moore Award.

October 4, 2006, 7:00pm

A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines: Limits of Truth and Mind
Janna Levin, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University.
Author of "How the Universe Got its Spots".

From Levin's recent book comes a strange if true story of coded secrets, psychotic delusions, mathematics, and war. This story of greatness and weakness, of genius and delusion, circulates around the parallel lives of Kurt Godel, the greatest logician of many centuries, and Alan Turing, the extraordinary code breaker during World War II. Taken together their work proved that there are limits to knowledge, that machines could be taught to compute, that one day there could be artificial intelligence.
(Continued at the link above.)

While the talk is now completely booked, sometimes unused tickets are available at the door. However, there is usually a large crowd. The local Rogers Cable community channel broadcasts recent Perimeter lectures Sundays at 11 am and 8 pm.

Several reviews of Professor Levin's semi-fictional account of the lives and ideas of Godel and Turing are available on her reviews page. The first link is a short excerpt, rather than a review. Also available is the September 3, 2006 review from the Sunday Book Review of The New York Times, "Obsessive-Genius Disorder".

There are many other works of fiction covering mathematical lives and ideas listed at the Mathematical Fiction site of mathematics professor Alex Kasman (College of Charleston). See for example the novel Measuring the World and the short story The Mathematician by Daniel Kehlmann about Carl Friedrich Gauss, published this year. The search page is very handy for locating books on topics that appear in your classes. Students may enjoy a little suspense along with their mathematics.

November 1, 2006, 7:00 pm

Time and Motion
Harvey Brown, Oxford
Tickets available Monday, October 16 at 9:00am.

Newton's first law of motion - and the very meaning of inertia - has been described as either completely obvious (D'Alembert) or a "logician's nightmare" (ex-editor of the American Journal of Physics). Sometimes the simplest things in physics are the most subtle. The first law will be described in historical context, explaining a connection with the ancient Greek's distinction between natural and violent motion and with Descartes' natural philosophy. You will also learn why it still requires careful handling and what it tells us about time in physics.

Presented in partnership with the Time and Universe (TaU) research cluster, funded by SSHRC. Other talks by Harvey Brown in Canada are listed on the Perimeter link above.

Visit the Perimeter Institute (above link) for tickets (available starting Monday, October 18 at 9:00am) and directions to the WCI auditorium.

Library Events

Library workshops about building research skills for graduate and undergraduate students are held throughout the fall 2006 term.

E-journal articles subscribed to by the library can quickly be made available to a class through eReserves, the library's online course resource system. In these cases no further copyright permissions are needed. See these library sites for more information:

Women in Technology Panel

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Time: 11:00am-12:30pm Location: EIT 3142

Google is presenting a Women in Technology Panel at the University of Waterloo! Come hear what women from different Google offices in a variety of different computer science and engineering roles think about life as a woman in technology and life at Google specifically. There will be time for informal Q&A as well. There will be cool prizes with our women's logo emblazed on them!

This event is made possible through great cooperation from Women in Engineering at UW.

Lunch will be served. RSVP for the Women's Panel is required by 5pm on Tuesday, October 3, 2006. In order to RSVP, please forward this message without changing the subject line to Selvenis@google.com. Space is limited.

Guy Kawasaki Talk

Friday, October 6, 2006

Art of the Start
Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
Noon, Fed Hall, University of Waterloo

This event is one of the last during Entrepreneur Week.

A blurb about his 2004 book "Art of the Start", including the first chapter, and his bio (Apple Fellow, author, ...) is available at http://www.guykawasaki.com/.

Game Conference

Tuesday-Thursday, October 10-12, 2006

Quoting the conference web page

This is the newest and fastest-growing conference for researchers, game developers and designers, introducing new concepts, challenging status quo ideas and building social and professional networks between the pure research and commercial development gaming worlds.

Keynote speakers Justin Roche, Don Daglow, Dr. Ken Perlin, Clint Hocking and Sheri Graner Ray lead a program that brings together well-known heavy-hitters in the gaming world, academic researchers and radical game experimenters.

These are some of the academic papers:

NGO Fair for UW Students

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Listed by UW's International Programs Office

the Fair provides a forum for international development agencies, educational institutions and NGOs to display information for UW students interested in a wide range of international study abroad, education, teaching and volunteer opportunities.

GO Eng Girl

Saturday, October 14th, 2006

Starting at 9 am, this all day event is one that every school of engineering across the province is offering to girls in grades 7, 8, 9, and 10.

The Waterloo event includes special guest speakers, a showcase information fair, opportunities to meet current female Waterloo Engineering students, and cool hands-on activities. Lunch will be provided during the event and the only cost to attend is transportation to the University of Waterloo. Check out the agenda for the day.

On Saturday, October 14th, 2006 come to the University of Waterloo to learn more about the exciting field of engineering, a caring profession. Don't miss your chance to join in the fun!

Register at www.ospe.on.ca/goenggirl and tell a friend!

UW Math Circles

[Wednesday, October 4 - December 6 http://cemc.uwaterloo.ca/english/mathcircles/index.shtml}

From 6:30-8:30 pm in MC 4063 and MC 4064. For high-school students of all grades

The sessions will be devoted to solving problems and to learning techniques that can be useful for mathematics competitions like the COMC (Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge), or similar competitions for high-school students which are sponsored by the University of Waterloo (Euclid, Pascal, Fryer, ...). These sessions will be run by Larry Rice from the CEMC, with the help of a variety of mathematicians from the University of Waterloo. The Math Circles will have homework assignments. In order to acquire a deeper understanding of the material, students are strongly encouraged to solve the homework problems and submit their solutions for instructor feed-back.

Internet in 2020

The Future of the Internet II

A survey of internet leaders, activists, and analysts by Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie, Pew Internet & American Life Project, September 9, 2006.

Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is automated and "smart agents" proliferate. However, a significant 42% of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans. ability to control the technology in the future. This significant majority agreed that dangers and dependencies will grow beyond our ability to stay in charge of technology. This was one of the major surprises in the survey.

Re-enforcing Classroom Ideas

Some light reading for the Thanksgiving holiday:

How We Get Our Students to Read the Text Before Class (MAAOL version)
Matt Boelkins (Grand Valeey State University), Tommy Ratliff (Wheaton College), 2000, MAA.

Using ConcepTests in Single and Multivariable Calculus
David.O. Loman, University of Arizona, Maria K. Robinson, Seattle University. Proc. 16th Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Addison Wesley (2004).

Experiences with Chemistry ConcepTests
Arthur B. Ellis et al, University of Wisconsin-Madison, George C. Lisensky, Beloit College.

Asking good questions in the mathematics classroom
Dr. Maria Terrell, Cornell University. AMS-MER Workshop Excellence in Undergraduate Mathematics: Mathematics for Teachers and Mathematics for Teaching, March 13-16, 2003; Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York.

More information about the GoodQuestions project.

Classroom Clickers

If you've heard about others using clickers in their classrooms and are curious to know what they are and how they work then go here for more information. Contact me for a demonstration of the various clicker types. There are 30 radio-based clickers currently available this term to try out in your class.

Lecture Podcasting

Read about how and why to podcast lectures.

MathFrog and WiredMath

Two sites for playing and learning about mathematics, for grades 4 to 9. Very popular (10s of thousands of hits per month) with kids, parents and teachers.

Maple, MapleTA and On-line Quiz Systems

Read about teaching mathematics using the computer algebra system Maple and the computer algebra assignment and quiz system MapleTA.

In addition to MapleTA, June Lowe (x33888, june@engmail.uwaterloo.ca) in Engineering uses a quiz system based on Adobe's AuthorWare software to conduct CDTs - Computer Delivered Tutorials. Typically, students work in pairs on short problems based on the concepts and techniques discussed in class.

This quiz system is similar to the UW-ACE quiz system in question types, and doesn't incorporate a computer algebra engine like MapleTA, but unique among the three quiz systems is its flow-chart style construction method and its ability to include control logic (like a program) within a quiz. A demonstration can be arranged by calling June at x33888.

UW-ACE Updated

Starting in the fall of 2006, UW-ACE has been updated to version 7.1 of the ANGEL learning management system. Here's a list of the most obvious changes to UW-ACE brought by 7.1:

Supported browsers:

UW-ACE Documentation

Documentation about the new look of UW-ACE (ala ANGEL 7.1) is available from the UW-ACE Help page:

And more UW documentation is under preparation. Several ANGEL documents about version 7.1 are also available:

Past Events

September, 2006 November, 2005
August, 2006 October, 2005
July, 2006 September, 2005
May, 2006 August, 2005
April, 2006 July, 2005
March, 2006 June, 2005
February, 2006 May, 2005
January, 2006 April, 2005
December, 2005

Liaison Information

Paul Kates,
Mathematics & Engineering Faculty LT3 Liaison,
pkates@uwaterloo.ca, x37047

This page is located at www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~pkates/LT3/events.html.

More information about the services of the Centre for Learning and Teaching through Technology - LT3 is available at lt3.uwaterloo.ca/.

More information about learning and teaching Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering, plus a description of the services I provide as Mathematics & Engineering Faculty LT3 Liaison is available here.