Tag Archives: My Education

IMT: The First Week

IMT, before I confuse people too much, is the UW’s course designation for courses in the Master of Science in Information Management series. This week (starting last Friday) marked the first week of official activities, with Wednesday marking the start of classes.

Friday
The Day MSIM orientation was today, where all of the new Day students got together to get an overview of Information School (and some UW) services. We also did a group activity involving Legos, which was intended to demonstrate how group dynamics can function. An interesting fact – of the slightly more than 30 students in the incoming Day cohort (edit 10/13: 32 total), only 12 of them are actually native to the United States. Some are from places like New Zealand, Japan, and India. I’ve also been assigned a faculty advisor: Robert Mason, the Associate Dean for Research at the School. We’ve been encouraged to wait a bit before contacting them, as they’ve only just gotten our information and each one has a slightly different advising style.

Monday
The all-iSchool orientation and services fair was today. A big hearty welcome from the Dean, Harry Bruce – who encourages us all to whisper in everyone’s ear “my school is the iSchool” – and introductions of key staff and faculty members, some of which I’ve known due to my SharePoint work over the summer. Orientation was followed by the services fair, which ended up being so crowded that I just grabbed a few fliers from some of the student groups and left, since there was no way that I could get much else done.

Tuesday
There was a fascinating lecture on Tuesday by Angeline Djampou, the Chief Legal Librarian with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, who talked extensively on preserving the memory of the Rwandan genocides and the consequences of it (both for the victims and those accused). Most interesting here is that they essentially ended up starting from scratch when trying to figure out how to prosecute these cases – they use a hybrid of the French and British judicial systems, which is very hard to comprehend compared to the legal system in the United States. Dad was there, and he made that comment afterwards, and also pointed out that most people probably weren’t aware of the differences (I confess, I’m only minimally aware of them).

Angeline also talked about setting up libraries in Rwanda to help preserve the ICTR’s documents and decisions. This is truly a very impressive effort, particularly when you consider that it was the first international criminal tribunal of its kind (followed fairly soon by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia).

IMT500 – Wednesday/Thursday
The first class we take in the MSIM program is IMT500, The Information Management Framework, which is essentially a whirlwind introduction to the topics covered throughout the program. The first day – Wednesday – we talked fairly extensively about what information management encompasses and what sorts of information we often deal with and how collaboration forms those systems. I gave a brief presentation on SharePoint which was an introduction to the final assignment for the class – creating an information system and observing how that system is built, what the process within the group creating the system is, and what sorts of interactions occur for that system to emerge.

Thursday we had presentations from faculty members Hazel Taylor, who talked about the management of information organizations and the different types of knowledge that we employ, and Cheryl Metoyer, who gave a brief overview of the topics we’re covering in IMT510 and handed out the class syllabus.

Mike Crandall, the instructor for IMT500 and also chair of the MSIM program, made a couple very important points on Thursday: first, almost nobody comes into the program really knowing what it is. He also explained that this program is not actually a technology program, though it has technology in it. The MSIM program focuses more on how to utilize technology as a part of the bigger picture and on utilizing it to be effective in our usage of information. Graduates of the program are expected to understand, amongst other things, XML, databases, how to build information systems, and how to translate the structure of information (or maybe more accurately, the structural aspects of information) into human-readable presentation forms. This is an insanely flexible program – while you do take core courses, the electives can come from any interest area you might have. Thus, people interested in the technology side can take courses to accent that; those interested in business, or certain aspects of business management, can take courses from other schools in that subject; and those interested in other subsets of information management can focus in those areas independently.

My planning will likely fairly closely involve my advisor, but I fully intend to take advantage of courses outside of the IMT series.

IMT501 – Wednesday
This was essentially an orientation session for an online course to make sure that everyone was starting off on the same page. Future lab times on this course will be optional. This is probably going to be the most complicated course in terms of keeping track of what needs to be done, since it’s primarily delivered in an online format. The content is stuff that I, for the most part already know (which has some people baffled as to why I’m bothering instead of taking, say, IMT 542). I’ve done review in the past (taking Computers and Human Reason one summer quarter during my work at Evergreen), and firmly believe that the opportunity to review can really solidify and change my understanding of what computers are and what they can accomplish. The instructor for this course is encouraging all of us to push ourselves to learn what we need to learn, which means that students like me who know quite a bit of it already have no excuse to slack off. Of course, I wouldn’t slack off regardless – this is graduate-level work.

I admit to dreading next week somewhat, since IMT510 and 540 both start then. 500, since it’s only a four-day introduction to the curricula, doesn’t have that much “oomph” behind it, which isn’t to say that you don’t learn anything. Depending on credit load, my real challenge may not be until next quarter depending on how many classes I have to take to meet the 10-credit minimum. I’ve been considering options, and it’s possible that I might end up trying to take some classes from the Technical Communication program. Next quarter, though, I might be eying INFO 498 – Programming Semantic Structures, offered by Terry Brooks (no, not the author), as an elective.

Autumn 2007 Registration

The Information School finally sent along some paperwork today for registration and providing some general information on stuff like orientation (yay). I immediately sent in my registration, just to get it out of the way, so I’m registering for the following:

IMT 500 A: The Information Management Framework (1 credit, credit/no credit mode)
Instructor: Mike Crandall

IMT 501 A: Technology Foundations for Information Professionals (3 credits)
Instructor: Barbara Endicott-Popovsky

IMT 510 A: Human Aspects of Information Systems (4 credits)
Instructor: Cheryl Metoyer

IMT 540 A: Design Methods for Interaction and Systems (4 credits)
Instructor: Jacob Wobbrock

Course descriptions are available here.

It’ll take a few days for UW Educational Outreach (which administers registration for the MSIM program) to get the form via snail mail and process it. This is probably my biggest gripe at this point – the MSIM program doesn’t register through the University itself per se, and since I’m receiving financial aid, I have to register by snail mail, since they require a payment agreement form that basically allows me to hold off paying tuition until financial aid is disbursed.

Moving to Seattle

June 29th, we move out of Olympia and make our home in a one-bedroom apartment at Solara, a complex along Lake City Way, about a 20 minute Metro ride from the University of Washington. Soon, I will also be starting a new job at the University of Washington Information School as a part-time SharePoint Administrator – I’ll post the job description shortly.

Of course, on top of that, I’m also in the Information School’s Master of Science in Information Management program, starting in September. I haven’t registered yet (and actually haven’t heard anything on whether I’m even supposed to register, despite having a time ticket), so I have no idea what classes I’m in – in general, I’m just waiting for the iSchool to give me more information, since I’m sorely lacking any knowledge beyond the fact that I’m now a UW student with a job.

We’re in the process of finding a moving company to get all of our stuff from point “A” to point “B”, so more on that later, hopefully.

Life Rolls On

A lot has happened this year already. I’ve applied for and been accepted into the University of Washington’s Master of Science in Information Management program, which I’m hoping will help me to better understand how information is conveyed and manipulated. I’ve worked very hard as the Information Technology Manager for Evergreen’s Writing Center despite only being a 20 hour/week position, doing everything from applications development to budget proposals to presentations at this year’s PNWCA conference (yes, again). I am now also a Professional member of the Association for Computing Machinery, upgrading my former student status.

In a week or so (on May 11) I’m off to Ohio to finally meet a friend of mine that I’ve known online for half my life. I’m worrying about finding housing in Seattle for graduate school and worrying about finding a job (and worrying even more about the fact that both almost have to happen at once). Amanda, my girlfriend, is in Ireland, enjoying herself immensely by the sound of things. We’re having new mailboxes installed.

In short, life rolls on.

Graduation

Graduation has come and gone (and there’s a number of photos provided by my friend Galen Zink of Zink Consulting for your viewing pleasure). The walking (and waiting!) is over, the sunburns have subsided, the celebratory toasts are done, and I probably won’t have to ever do a graduation on the Evergreen campus again. That said, it was a fairly decent graduation. We had Governor Gregoire as our graduation speaker – she gave graduaton speech #33, which wasn’t too bad, but wasn’t great either (it sounded almost word-for-word like this one). The faculty speaker, Jose Gomez, was much more moving and interesting. The undergraduate speaker was completely inappropriate, but his point was taken – his style of delivery was highly questionable. The graduate speaker was mercifully short, but the awarding of degrees took the better part of an hour and a half or so to get to me because of where I was placed in the undergraduate seating. Well, they finally did get me to walk the stage, and I’m sure I have a very interesting photo in the mail of me standing with Governor Gregoire and Les Purce – we’ll see when that shows up.

All in all, I’m glad it’s done. I look forward to receiving my official Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree in the coming weeks, but it will likely take a while, since my faculty evaluations probably won’t post to my student records for another week or so. I’ll know they’ve posted when I get my copies at home.

Amanda and I promptly retreated to Bellingham, where we’ve been since Sunday. We return Monday (morning, hopefully), and I resume my job search then.

Special Assistant to the Director Interview

I interviewed Monday morning for the Special Assistant to the Director position for the Writing Center, a yearlong position open only to graduating tutors. The job is to essentially take on administrative responsibilities for the Center – the job description is as follows:

Special Assistant to the Director
The position of Special Assistant is a five-quarter-long commitment available to graduating Writing Center tutors the year following their graduation. This position provides both managerial and administrative experience.

Duties include:

  • Creating, compiling, and maintaining a weekly schedule;
  • Planning and implementing the fall tutor retreat;
  • Coordinating open and in-program workshops;
  • Meeting regularly with the Director of the Writing Center;
  • Planning and facilitating staff meetings;
  • Fielding questions/addressing tutors’ concerns re: WC operation;
  • Hiring tutors and receptionists for the upcoming year;
  • Hiring replacement Special Assistants;
  • Participating in collective decision-making with the Director and other assistants;
  • Developing and implementing innovative projects to improve the WC;
  • Revising and enforcing the policies in the handbook;
  • and, most important, tutoring students.

After working very closely with some awesome Special Assistants (four sets of them now – including singer/songwriter Devin Brewer all the way back in 2002), and because of my personal connection to the job, I decided to apply. Admittedly, it’s low pay with no benefit, but it’s not about the money for me, it’s about the experience and the chance to work with an absolutely stellar group of people.

The interview itself consisted of the two current Special Assistants and the Director herself. They asked a series of very probing and good questions to ask in any job interview, asking me about such things as conflict resolution, collaboration, communication skills, and what assets I would bring to the job. They also asked me to speak about one of my obsessions (“which one”, I replied, “I have so many!”) – I chose to talk about sustainability and talked a little bit about how I was thinking about the connections between sustainability and my other work. I then had the chance to ask questions, and I asked two that I felt were very hard and contemplative questions: Where do you see the Center going in the next year? What is missing from our efforts to support the campus in writing endeavors?

I think I did quite well, though I’m still looking around for other employment opportunities. The Special Assistant job is roughly 20 hours a week, so I still need to find something to cover the other part of the time. If anyone knows of any opportunities, feel free to contact me.

I should know whether I have the job or not by Monday or Tuesday next week.

Summarizing the PNWCA Conference Trip

This is part 1 of 2 – in this part, I’ll note everything that didn’t have anything to do with the conference directly, but instead had to do with my impressions during our travels and as we were at Oregon State University in Corvallis. In the second part (to come later), I’ll discuss the actual conference, including my own presentation.

We left directly after the staff meeting on Friday to drive four hours south to Corvallis, which, if I do say so myself, was a beautiful drive. I was able to make full use of my new Garmin StreetPilot C340 GPS, and it got us there perfectly (and would later get us back perfectly). The only sort of harrowing part of the trip down was having a semi two lanes over experience a tire blowout and having a part of the tire hit the car. I wasn’t really aware of it until I heard a somewhat sickening thump, then looked over to see the remainder of his rear tire shredding. I immediately pulled into the next rest stop and checked the car – no damage, and the same semi came limping in a bit after I did. We breathed a sigh of relief, took a brief stretch break, then continued south.

Crossing the Washington border is a little bit like being a very tempted fish going after a worm on a line – it keeps teasing you until you capture it. Case in point: once you hit exit 1 just north of the state line, they decide to split it into 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D, just in case you weren’t already breathless with anticipation.

We got to Corvallis at roughly 3:30 after leaving at 11. The way we got on the Oregon State University campus wasn’t particularly impressive, since we had to go to their parking structure to park and pay for parking, then hightail it to Memorial Union (which, interestingly, has its own web site) for the pre-conference session – more on that later. The parking structure is in a very industrial-looking area with train tracks and a Naval Science building that’s very obviously old. However, if you walk two blocks to the Memorial Union, it turns into an absolutely beautiful campus, which is a very striking change between the two. Admittedly, the parking garage area looks like it’s new construction, but it’s still very confusing to make that transition.

After the pre-conference session, three of us went to check into the dorms, leaving the other two playing Frisbee. Our director wasn’t joining us until much, much later in the evening, so we had autonomy until then. Checking in went fairly well, though apparently OSU Conference Services doesn’t know how to check their locks – the original keys they gave me to my room didn’t work and they had to switch me to another room. This happened to one of our other tutors as well (one of the ones who was playing Frisbee, to be specific). After some discussion, we decided to run through both my presentation and the other presentation being given by tutors from Evergreen before dinner. Doing that was fairly extensive, with both run-throughs and feedback discussions about what modifications could be made to make the presentations better.

We went to dinner after dark (roughly 10PM, I believe), after deciding not to wait for our Director. We went to American Dream Pizza on Monroe, about five blocks or so from the dorms. Not the greatest pizza I’ve had, but definitely a fairly unique menu – we had the Tejano (BBQ sauce, Herb Chicken, Smoked Gouda, Cilantro, and Red Onion), which was a really interesting taste experience – I liked it. Another tutor and I went back to the dorms, and I rehearsed my presentation before falling asleep.

I got up at around 7AM, showered (and was fairly impressed by the shower itself – not the fact that it was dark like most collegiate shower stalls, but the actual shower), dressed, threw a tie on, then rehearsed my presentation in my head before we checked out and left for the conference itself.  We did finally find our director when we checked into the conference – she didn’t even get to Corvallis until 11:30 Friday, so we were somewhat glad we ate instead of waiting.
I’ll leave the whole conference summary for another post.

Before we left, we decided we wanted to eat as a group, so we solicited some suggestions from some of the local faculty and staff of OSU and settled on the idea of Thai food.  My interest was piqued, primarily because I’ve never actually had thai food before, but I was looking forward to it  We went to a place called Tarntip, down the block from American Dream.  We had some squid and some chicken skewers for appetizers (both good), and I had the Plah Laht Prig (#62 on the menu) as my main course – deep fried salmon with special sauce.  Not bad, but I’ve heard of better food.  The only drawback was that they don’t take credit cards, which caused a bit of a headache when it came time to pay (probably not the first time either).

We left at about 7:30 – my passenger and I both got back to Olympia at about 11, and I got home at roughly 11:30 or so.

It was the first time I’ve done prolonged driving, which actually wasn’t that bad. I did enjoy the trip and the conference experience – I just wish the conference might have been a bit longer so that we could get more exposure to some of those ideas.  More on that later.

Summative Evaluations

Sometimes not having anything to write about can, in and of itself, be something to write about. However, that is not the case here.

This quarter, I’m continuing in my yearlong program at Evergreen, Student Originated Software. However, I am also taking an additional four-credit program (for a total of 20 credits) called Senior Seminar, which is intended to allow graduating seniors the chance to reflect upon their education and write a summative evaluation as a capstone to their transcript. The summative evaluation is an interesting beast, intended to provide an introduction to your collegiate life for those who are reviewing your transcript.

Evergreen transcripts are ordered most recent first, and each program that you are enrolled in has a program description, a self evaluation from the student, and a faculty evaluation of the student by the faculty member. Summative evaluations, while not required, are the very first pages that anyone sees before the rest of the evaluations. For me, this means that my summative evaluation will be on top, followed by the program description and faculty evaluation for Senior Seminar and the program description, my self evaluation, and my faculty evaluation for Student Originated Software. I have a very good idea of what I want that summative evaluation to do. I am graduating with a dual BS/BA in Computer Science and Writing (try saying that five times fast), but I have an insufficient number of credits to directly support my writing work. Thus, my summative eval, for me, will be almost a thesis-based essay explaining why writing has been an integral part of my life at Evergreen.

Now, the fun of being enrolled in Senior Seminar is that it’s really an opportunity to truly think about the work we have done, which means that I’ve had to drag out all those 2-inch binders that I have sitting around from all my classes throughout the year (a 2-inch binder per quarter enrolled, roughly – some smaller classes have smaller binders). Thus, my living room right now is stacked full of binders sitting there waiting for me to review them and look at them again as part of my preparation for writing my summative self evaluation. But the most crucial binder I have is not any one of those academic ones.

It’s the little, black, half-inch binder that holds my unofficial copies of my evaluations from my entire Evergreen academic career.

I’ll be writing more soon on what I think that summative evaluation looks like, and will probably even post some of the work I’ve been doing as preparation for writing that evaluation. Expect that, as June approaches, the posts here will be very reflective.

Enjoy.

Presenting at the PNWCA Conference

I have just been notified that I am a presenter at the 3rd Annual Regional Conference of the Pacific Northwest Writing Center Association being held at Oregon State University in Corvallis April 29th. There’s a free session on the 28th that I am likely to try to get to, since it pertains to my presentation topic. I’ll post a bit more later after I’ve finished doing what I was about to do before I wrote this (yeah, and I’m presenting with that kind of sentence structure? Seesh…)