Mtg 1/36: Wed-31-Aug-2022

Outline for Today

Administration

Media

Transcript

Audio Transcript

Okay. So starting a bit late for our first meeting, but
I'm just making a transcript for myself that I can share online
Okay. So here's our
page for the meeting today. It's the first of 36 meetings. So in
a normal semester we'd have 39 meetings because of the Truth
and Reconciliation Day and Labor Day and semester break and
different things that come up. We've got 36 meetings, so that
should be okay. So I talked about attendance already. So
this should go to the your courses page. Let's see. And
that that it did do that. Yay. And then the class calendar for
today so you've started the fall class fall term classes. It's
interesting that classes start at midnight, but the term only
starts at 7am. Excuse me. So here's, here's a link to the
attendance event for today.
Excuse me.
That exercise that brisk ride here in the morning
takes it's a little bit harder to
well, it's not hard but I got a tickle in my throat. I don't
think I'm
sick for you at all. So speaking about being sick, I brought
masks in case anyone. I'll try and remember to bring masks in
case someone is uncomfortable with not having a mask or you'd
like me to wear a mask.
So I have these
that's the ones I brought today. But I also have ones that have a
little window so you can see my mouth I don't. I didn't. I
didn't do a study. I'm not aware of study to see whether the
little window is more conducive to learning or not. But I'll
bring them along one day too. So I have this set D of respond to
meeting one and that opens right after class and it closes at one
minute to midnight. So it's one minute to midnight so that it
always appears as today. So that's that's the latest I can
make it appear. Have a show up as today's date. So the idea is
you can take a minute, five minutes to reflect on what we
did today. And I'll show you that in a second here. So, what
I'd like you to do in response to the meeting, think about,
pick one of these three things. What's the most important thing
that you discussed? That you discussed or that you
encountered during the meeting? What was the most difficult
thing for you to understand if there's a question you have, and
the thing about what you'd like to know more about, about what
you'd like to know more so pick one of those and write a few
lines so
512 characters is the most and so if you if you submit
something before midnight, so we'll lot two marks for each
response. So this is another participation thing. So if you
write something, but it's and it's related to fits with
what we talked about, and follow the instructions and you get a
two for that. If you write what something but it's not clearly
related to that doesn't clearly follow the instructions are
related to the meeting and give one for that and if you don't
write anything, you get zero marks
so this one is set up the other ones aren't. Don't have the
correct dates. yet. I'll fix that before next meetings No
wonder here I can do like a TED Talk that doesn't look strange
at all. Anyway, I'll get some advice from audio visual about
how to arrange the microphone okay.
So upcoming events should also give you a list of things from
the calendar
so this
so part of what we're gonna do this semester is talk about the
design of user interfaces. That's it Good thing I'm not
concerned about how I look for the sounds better, I think of
shooting with my wife and kids
okay
so what I was gonna say is we're talking about human computer
communications in this class and design of interfaces. And so we
have a textbook that talks about interaction design. And part of
that is being observant
of what people do
and how things can be done better. That's why I think is
interesting is always to think about ways not just to make it
something possible but make it satisfying for people to use. So
if people have to figure out so I know there's a way to do this.
And they spend five or 10 minutes just deciphering how to
how to achieve their goal. That's not necessarily very
satisfying. And so, what I'd like you to think about is this
semester, looking around and seeing being observant of
interfaces around you and seeing if they're good interfaces if
they can be improved and and what what would make them
better. So I took a class as an undergraduate student, it was
called math 231. And this isn't it think it was a special
offering. But anyway, basically, we studied wallpaper patterns.
Do you know there are 17 ways to have a wallpaper pattern repeat
on people knew that anyone? So what I found is that over the
semester, I spent a lot of time looking at wallpaper outside of
class and thinking, Oh, that's a glide reflection or that's some
other kind of I know they're setting teams when I'm hard
pressed. Glider flexion is my favorite something I shouldn't
have anyway. But just the idea that I want you to come approach
this is looking at interfaces more critically.
So there's
I don't have the link here. But there was a commencement speech
by I say David Wallace, but actually let me go to the web
page and I'll find the quote so I can read it. in dramatic
fashion.
David Foster Wallace said there's ever commencement speech
in 2005. He said, there are these two young fish swimming
along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other
way. And the only fish nods at them and says Morning boys.
How's the water? The two young fish Sivan for a bit and then
eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes What
the hell is water so pardon my my racy language here
it's so the idea is
to think about what's going on. And being being aware of the
surroundings and not being aware of what the assumptions are that
we're making, so that we can question them and come up with
something better if if need be. So the other code that I've
mentioned here, I'll put the link to this page. So this is
from JCR Licklider, who was the head of DARPA in the night in
1960s. This is from 1960. So in short, it seems worthwhile to
avoid argument with other enthusiasts for artificial
intelligence by conceding dominance in the distant future
of celebration to machines. Alone. There will nevertheless
be a fairly long interim during which the main intellectual
advances will be made by humans and computers working together
and intimate Association, a multidisciplinary study group
examining future research and development problems of the
United States Air Force estimated that would be 1980s.
Before developments, artificial intelligence make it possible
for machines a lot to do much thinking and problem solving of
military significance that would leave say five years to develop
human computer symbiosis in 15 years to use it. The 15 may be
10 or 500. But those years should be intellectually the
most creative and exciting in the history of humankind. So if,
if military significance if computers could solve problems
of military significance in the 1980s, then Skynet would be
running things by now. Now many people got the Terminator
reference only say that that's way before my time but it's not
really because they keep making Terminator movies every few
years to get some more bucks out of the franchise. Anyway, for
those who aren't familiar with Terminator, you can look up you
can do some searching on the internet. To find out more
details. About that reference
so here's
here's my semester schedule. I have to do a little bit of
tweaking still, but today's the first day of the term and it
goes until the classes go to the center sixth. And last day, the
terms the 22nd.
There was a page and so these are my office hours for the
semester. So an hour and a half. Immediately after meetings
Mondays and Wednesdays
and then Tuesdays and Thursdays one to two ferry. So you can
actually come and see me in college west through your
waypoint, you too. They used to be in the alphabetical section.
That's gotten messed up now.
They're all all the H's were in a row But time flies I mean that
was at one point in time, but it's, it's near the tee. So if
you come around I'll see if I get some WD 40 for this tool as
well.
So CS and math
This is North. Here's the men's washroom you go around that's
approximately where I am so when when you have to get into this
hallway, then when you turning in the hallway, three branches
to the left then you turn right in you should very firmly door
when's the last time you were on campus for four months
okay
so this should so this should be getting getting back to my
website for the course DHH link and your courses should bring
you to the your courses page. And this one will connect you to
the zoom that I have set up for the office time so you can come
and see me in person or you can join join the Zoom call for
office hours okay? And then if you're not able to if you need
to get a hold of me but not You're not available during the
times I've set aside for Office. Send me a note this will create
a note let's see it should work
we'll say it works
okay so last year. We talked talked to I talked to students
about creating something that's maybe a little more accessible
in terms of linking things so I've I present the following for
your consideration
so this is
today is going to tell you what's going on today in terms
of semester. The fall semester for 2022. So this is a link
these are the same links so
this is one aspect of things where you can give me some
comments and kick the tires so to speak, and see if this is
helpful and what could make it more helpful
I have divided it up into half hour slots so the first one goes
from midnight to 830 which doesn't have anything scheduled
in it and then it goes from 838 30 to 530 and a half hour
increments and then from 530 to 2359. So I did that so that I so
when we're not in a time for something going on it'll show
you the time which segment of the schedule will be that
doesn't make sense. Let me try that again. So whatever time it
is, you'll see if the JavaScript is working okay. You'll see a
highlighted with the half hour or the if it's a stone before
the start of the day or after the end of the day. Then it'll
just be a larger block but during during the day at
university that will be half hour increments. So you can see
whether that's useful or not or we can have a discussion about
what would make it more useful and so forth.
Okay, so
instead of going to navigate to this page, which is longer you
can go to this page and should be a jumping off point for what
you need to see for the day.
That's similar right. I was going to also in the
participation I wasn't sure where to put this so I've been a
class wiki so I originally
call it your responses wiki and then of course your courses
Moodle win. Let me change that. So it has this page has two
titles.
Anyway, I've made a list of meetings I don't know why. I got
double headings there but
so I would say and here's an opportunity to make some notes
about what happened in the meeting today. So I didn't set
up breakout groups. Yeah, but what I'm due for Friday is
breaking into groups and then all assign a group per meeting
to be in charge of writing a summary of what we just
discussed. And then, when there's breakout group
questions, we can record responses. Groups can record
their responses on the wiki as well.
So to not give you too many places to manage, but we'll just
we'll just try and keep the wiki as a place to record discussions
and things that happen. So we'll put one group in charge of each
meeting and then we assume that different groups can also add
their own material from their discussions that seem okay, so
we'll we'll start that on Friday as well. Oh, the other question.
Was about
how do you feel about midterms?
Even better than final exams. So when we're doing things online,
I hadn't had a midterm for the past couple of years. So
now we have the opportunity to and I guess who knows what will
happen within the next by the end of the semester if things
will still be as they are here today or not? But I I'm thinking
that maybe a midterm is good
so here's
how it relates to class content. So we'll talk about evaluation
of user interfaces and so we can talk also about evaluation of
other things so we can do a formative evaluation as a way to
give you some feedback to see if you're on the right path. If
you're
if you're that is a way to check if you're comfortable with the
material and so far, and if there's some issues it was the
midterm. The formative evaluation will be so much
weighed on your mark, but an opportunity to say here are some
things they need to work on. So I'll work on them and then the
formative summative evaluations at the final.
So I'd say that the midterm end assignments and so forth are
parts of the farm evaluation of your work. And then the final
exam is a summative evaluation. So the final exam won't be it'll
be worth about 20% of your final grade or you'll still need to
pass it and that's not good to scare you. It's not for me to
have a way to fail people because I don't want to having
to pass everybody and have everyone. Happy that everybody
does well. But it's about
it, their
final exam is a way for you to demonstrate your own
understanding of the material. So whereas we'll be doing things
in groups and and then discussions with colleagues or
peers in the class here. So the final exam is just the sudden
evaluation of your work or your learning over the semester. So I
look forward to engaging you in designing and how to format the
midterm and final exams, so that they're fair evaluations of what
we've done in class.
Okay, so
So I'm inclined to have for now we'll say that we'll have we'll
be in class
sometime in October. Yes.
No, I would say not. But it we might ask you to do something
not so much. Write an essay. But other than that, a mix of short
answer questions and something some kind of application sort of
question.
We'll figure it out.
We'll make sure together we reach some consensus of roles
and so on will be on the exam Farben before the exam takes
place. Does this makes sense? formative and summative
evaluation. So in terms of interface, you might say I like
to do this. You have an idea for an interface and you say, here
are some ideas that we might employ to realize the interface
and then you can do some formative evaluations with
people who might be using the interface to see if you're on
the right track. And this different evaluations help you
along the process and then at the end, we do a summative
evaluation to say, this is where this is where I said it was
gonna go. Then I get that. And so that's how we can think of it
in terms of user interface design. Anyway, I'm actually not
I know when you go over time today,
so
thank you very much for today.
So look forward to our semester together and have a good day and
see you on Friday. Evening so are our hands on all right.
Gonna get onto your log, you're registered in the course if you
miss
anything think you have a good day. You're welcome. Thank you
Oh, nice. Day. Thanks.
You too. See you Friday. Thank you.
Actually, I have one question about the process of grouping
for assignments and the other team you mentioned. I was just
curious to know about can we select the group by ourselves or
you do it for for grouping. Grouping Yeah,
previous time for the project. You can do your own group.
Okay. How about the assignments? Yeah.
So the project is the assignment. But for breakout
groups on I'll just make them up randomly. Okay.
Because, you know, it's, for example, some of us are, somehow
work in a laboratory. So it's easier to catch each other for
because it's in person. It's hard to for example, then
because they graduate, graduate and findings person in
undergraduate, maybe some have class. That's why I'm asking if
it's possible to do that. Maybe maybe in some way or maybe some
change or
Yeah. So
the breakout group stuff will just be for
stuff in class.
So initialization,
so get I'll get you to get together in a group and have a
discussion.
So that's that
part of the group and then there'll be groups that you can
form yourselves for the project. Okay. Okay, and if you're doing
research where there's an interface component, then maybe
you want to do your,
your product
individually. See, yeah,
we'll talk about that. Okay.
That's a good thank you. Appreciate that. You're welcome.
Have a nice day.
Thanks. You too.
Thanks. You too.

Wiki

Link to the UR Courses wiki page for this meeting

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