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Marauders mob Mustangs Western fails to make it to finals. >> pg. 7
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Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Ritchie Sham Gazette
Unless you’re taking Facebook 1000, or a seminar on Sporcle, professors are doing their best to keep students’ focus off the Internet and onto course material. Henry Kim, a professor at York University, is going so far as to enlist his own students as spies. “Students pledge to only look at material that is directly relevant to class, and also to honestly report what they see when I ask them to look at somebody else’s screen,” Kim explained. He also said the pledge was not his first attempt to reign in his students’ bad habits. “Initially, I had banned laptops, but I was presented with the valid concern that if somebody has a learning disability and really cannot take notes, they need a laptop,” Kim said. “However, if they were the only ones allowed, it would out them as having a learning disability. I had to find a way for people to have laptops, and also ensure they use them productively.” Kim said the main problem of using a laptop in class is what he calls the “myth of productivity.” “In a 90-minute lecture, students have moments when they’re bored, and the Internet makes it easy to become distracted,” he said. “If they don’t have a laptop, maybe they’ll stare out the window, but they’ll know they’re doing something unproductive.”
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Profs crack down on online slackers in class
Aaron Zaltzman News Editor
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“But if there’s a laptop in front, they may be under the illusion that they’re doing something useful, but they’re not.” Kim also argued students have a misplaced belief in the “myth of multitasking”—a claim supported by professor Kim Holland, instructional designer for Western’s Teaching Support Centre.
In a 90-minute lecture, students have moments when they’re bored, and the Internet makes it easy to become distracted, [...] they may be under the illusion that they’re doing something useful, but they’re not. —Henry Kim
A professor at York University
“When you have individuals who say they can do multiple things at once, what they’re really doing is interacting with one event, and then very quickly diverting their attention to something else,” Holland said. “If you do that a lot growing up, you become better at time-slicing those events.” But even becoming better at
switching is detrimental to your focus, Holland explained. “The problem is that the attention you give to one thing becomes impaired when you’re switching,” Holland said. “Your brain quickly becomes attuned to those instantaneous little changes so your ability to focus on one thing for a long period of time becomes impaired.” Kane Faucher, a professor in the faculty of information and media studies, said electronic devices are a source of strife during his lectures. “It can be terribly distracting for me, as well as other students,” Faucher said. “I can tell when students are off in their digital world when I ask basic questions such as ‘Do you like ice cream?’ only to startle a student out of the digital haze and being stared at in confusion.” He acknowledged banning electronic devices from classes would be problematic, both for practical reasons, and because some students require them. He said, however, he discourages extracurricular use of devices in class as a matter of respect and responsibility. Holland said there is no good way to restrict students’ electronic activities to class material, nor is it the responsibility of the lecturer. “No instructor wants to be put in that situation, and no institution should be out in that situation,” Holland said. “It should be the individual student who polices their own activities.”
Volume 106, Issue 35
McIntosh gallery goes granny-smith green Jesica Hurst News Editor As of October 9, Western’s McIntosh Gallery is Canada’s first building to be certified under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-New Construction 2009—a version with more strenuous energy and water efficiency requirements well beyond the Ontario building code. According to George Qubty, director of facilities engineering for Western, the gallery was renovated to improve humidity temperature control to a level necessary for showing high-end artwork. “To achieve the LEED certification, we replaced the typical incandescent lighting with the newest LED technology to become only the second gallery in Ontario to make this leap,” Qubty explained. “The other big energy savers are a series of sensors, which are used to adjust lighting and ventilation to occupants.” Qubty also noted that, like other LEED projects on campus, low offgassing and high-recycled content materials were used, and the majority of construction wastes were recycled. James Patten, director of the McIntosh Gallery, said the renovations have made the gallery much more comfortable. “As an art gallery, we need to have special climatic controls for the display of works of art, mean-
ing that it can’t be too hot or too cold,” Patten said. “We had a beautiful gallery before, but we had very leaky windows and doors, and it made it very difficult for us to maintain those controls. Now we exceed national standards for exhibition space.” According to Qubty, this is the first LEED-NC 2009 project in Canada. This certification will inform the approach for other projects on campus—some of which are already underway. “Western is being operated at the forefront of the green building movement, and we encourage students to use our campus as a learning laboratory,” he said. “The initiatives undertaken within this project [not only] affect ongoing operations directly through water and energy savings, but also through Western’s green cleaning, landscape maintenance and waste management programs.” Although Patten wasn’t surprised the gallery was the first to meet the requirements in Canada, he and his team are happy with the results. “We’ve been working on it very hard to make sure we meet all of the several requirements, including reducing energy usage,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’m surprised, as the application has been submitted for two years, but I’m delighted. Facilities Management has done a wonderful job.”
Andrei Calinescu Gazette