Students File Term Papers from the Broadcast Booth

Pacing herself Is education a commodity? Lights, camera, poverty Marathoner is bound for Boston. The notion of public education is in danger Filmmaker finishing documentary. 6 with the arrival of for-profit universities. 7 3 UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA Volume 38 Issue 15 APRIL 6, 2001 http://www.ualberta.ca/folio Students file term papers from the broadcast booth Documentaries examine everything from gambling to alien abduction By Richard Cairney Chul-Ahn Jeong Chul-Ahn t isn’t only students who dread settling based its work on Ray Kurzweil’s book Idown to work on yet another term The Age of Spiritual Machines: When paper. Equally frustrated by the form, Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. psychology professor Don Heth has dis- One of the sources quoted in the pro- covered a new way students can share gram is U of A computing-science chair new ideas and lessons they’ve learned. Dr. Randy Goebel, who gives serious con- Next week, after logging hundreds of sideration to which elements of humanity hours in the CJSR recording studios, five he’d be willing to give up if, as Kurzweil radio documentaries recorded by honours predicts, our species morphs with tech- psychology students will be broadcast on nology rather than evolving naturally. the campus/community radio station. “We will give up what we like the “I am so tickled by this,” Heth says. most with the biggest fight,” he predicts. “I think a university should be a place “…I kind of like sex. It’s part of my body.” of extraordinary experiences, and these “I think it’s amazing that they got him students have had an extraordinary to say that,” Heth said. “They brought up experience that has shown them they a lot of issues for discussion.” Heth is could do something they never consid- impressed that his students contacted ered possible.” experts who, in the program, freely accept Heth says the idea came from CJSR’s a radical notion as a topic for serious con- news manager Kevin Wilson, a former sideration. student who asked if Heth knew of any “In some cases, just doing the inter- professors willing to assign radio docu- views was a tricky thing, because how do mentaries in place of term papers. Heth, you talk to someone who says he has who was considering assigning Web been taken into a space ship by aliens and pages, or a published book of papers, was had his body marked, without making it intrigued. Anything, he reasoned, would a matter of ridicule? You don’t want to be better than another term paper. insult people—you’re talking to them Laura Warner, Erin Bishop, Tatiana LoVerso and Michelle Kunnel are among a group of psycology students “These students are very good—they about their beliefs,” said Heth. who produced radio documentaries instead of writing term papers. are very creative. But when a student The students learned about the sub- writes a term paper, the only person who psychology while the other zeroed in on Sorensen and her three fellow students jects they reported on, but they learned sees it is the professor,” he said. That’s a the phenomenon of alien abduction. spent time at local casinos, interviewing a other things, too. “We picked up a lot of lot of work for an audience of one, Heth “They’re a pretty resourceful bunch,” gambling addict and experts on gaming skills, like time management, how to says. So with Wilson’s tutelage, 20 hon- says Wilson, who co-hosts CJSR’s and addictions. divide up labour—we had to organize ours students were taught everything Wednesday morning radio program, Another group of students did every- this project around all our other assign- they needed to know about producing a Clockwork Orange Juice. “They don’t list thing together, from background research ments,” said Cheryl McGee, who worked radio documentary, from interview tech- ‘Alien Abductees’ in the phone book, but to interviews to script writing and select- on Beating the Odds. niques to operating the station’s state-of- these guys tracked one down and called ing background music for the documen- Heth hopes his students found the the-art recording and editing equipment. him in Australia and interviewed him. tary. “We’d spend two hours talking about project as rewarding as he did when he The programs cover a lot of territory: They did a lot of work.” 20 seconds,” said Laura Warner, who was finally listened to their projects. one examines the way people will interact Indeed they did. The students found part of a group of students examining the “I’ll tell you what: in 27 years of with machines in the future; one deals themselves working in the CJSR studios ways people will interact with machines teaching, listening to my students say, with gambling addictions and treatments; through the night and well into the early as they become more like us. ‘This program was written and produced one looks at the psychological impact the morning. The students’ work is impressive. “It by…’ and then saying their own names findings of the Human Genome Project “We worked two Friday nights, one sounds like Ideas,” Wilson says, compar- was rewarding—really rewarding. It was could have on society and two, Heth says, until 1:30 a.m. and another until 2:30 a.m., ing some of the projects to the fabled CBC magical.” deal with the vague question of “why do just on our script,” said Autumn radio program. He’s particularly pleased The radio documentaries will air people believe weird things?” In response Sorensen, who worked on the gambling with the hour-long report dealing with on CJSR (FM 88.5) April 17, 18 and 19 at to that question, one group tackled para- documentary, entitled Beating the Odds. artificial intelligence. That student group 7 p.m. I U of A literacy centre to head national research Researchers will examine all aspects of literacy development By Geoff McMaster aving just landed one of the biggest Institutes for Health Research). biomedical engineering and Simon their own children.” Hgrants ever awarded to a single project Phillips and her team will co-ordinate McCrea, a doctoral student in educational Phillips admits while it was certainly in the social sciences and humanities in the literacy arm of the Canadian Language psychology—involves working with new gratifying to bring in more grant money Canada, Dr. Linda Phillips and her col- and Literacy Research Network, which findings on dyslexia that point to differ- than the Faculty of Education has ever leagues are eager to pop open the cham- received $14 million in total and is based ences in the brain between those with the seen before, one of the best things about pagne. As momentous an occasion as it is at the University of Western Ontario. The condition and those without. being chosen was beating out the to receive $6 million to co-ordinate U of A’s Centre for Research on Literacy Among many projects underway at the University of Toronto, which had submit- research on literacy, however, the toast will will receive $1.9 million of the $6 million centre—conducted by Phillips, Judy ted a proposal on literacy very similar to have to wait. devoted to literacy studies for research Lupart of educational psychology and the one turned in by Western and the U of “These announcements always come conducted at the U of A. Anne McKeough of the University of A and their partner institutions. through when you’re up to your yin-yang The U of A’s literacy centre will work Calgary—one looks at literacy and inclu- “Toronto has a way of getting things, with everything else,” says Phillips, who’s with about two dozen scholars from across sion, or the study of literacy as it relates to and here we had the University of Western busy finishing the term, attending confer- the country on a wide range of topics in an children with learning disabilities. Another Ontario, the U of A and some other uni- ences and adjudicating other proposals. effort to understand the complex condi- examines literacy and second-language versities.” “But we will celebrate—I’ll go for the tions aiding or hindering literacy. considerations in our multi-lingual culture. In fact, at a meeting last summer to dis- Chardonnay.” “[The grant] recognizes that in so The U of A centre will also partner with cuss the proposal, “some people, when they The U of A’s Centre for Research on much of what we do, literacy is fundamen- Edmonton’s Centre for Family Literacy, learned the U of T was going to be the com- Literacy, housed in the education faculty, tal,” said Phillips. And yet despite a signif- helping parents learn the skills they need petitor, said, ‘We might as well give up.’ recently learned it will play a major role in icant body of research, she says there is to impart literacy to their children. Another group of us said, ‘No way, let’s just one of four recently announced national still much to be understood about literacy “A lot of the families we work with are give them a run for their money.’” Networks of Centres of Excellence, togeth- development. “We’re looking at it from not of a low educational or low socio-econom- No one would deny the effort has paid er receiving $73 million from the three just an educational perspective but from ic level,” says Phillips. “They want the off. The project will run for four years and major funding bodies (the Social Sciences medical, health, psychological, social and same things you and I and our parents will be reviewed in another four for a pos- and Humanities Research Council, the economic perspectives as well.” wanted for us.

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