Revived Workshop Discussion-Jennie Moody
March 16, 1999
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 13:36:01 -0500 (EST)
From: "Jennie L. Moody"
To: usercomm@unidata.ucar.edu
Subject: Revived Workshop Discussion
Well, I have been as swamped as all of you with teaching, research, etc.
but its spring break here, and I thought I would try to revive the
conversation we were having regarding the next workshop, which is of
course an agenda item for the April UserComm meeting. To keep from making this
message rediculously long, I am keeping snippets of previous exchanges,
but not the entire text (since you have all received these messages
previously).
On Jan 28, 20:59, SteveKoch wrote:
> Subject: Re: Summary of Workshop Discussion at AMS
>Personally, I don't find the suggested topics for the next Unidata
>workshop as summarized below to be very stimulating. I don't really see
>the purpose of bringing a whole bunch of people together and spending alot
>of NSF funds and our time in preparation just to talk about what data is
>available and how it can be applied. It is not that it is overly broad of
>a topic (though it most certainly is), but it is, quite simply - boring
>and uninteresting. I'm being candid, yes. Who can possibly benefit from
>such a workshop, and why would you expect NSF to be willing to help defray
>the cost?
Steve. Whew. In spite of this, upon some reflection, I want to believe we
are not that far apart on this. Read on....
This is an abstraction of what I wrote:
On Jan 28, 17:09, JennieMoody wrote:
> > o focus on Users (who have some experience with Unidata software)
> >
> > o focus on applications of Unidata data
and this:
On Jan 28, 17:09, JennieMoody wrote:
> > three general and related goals:
> >
> > 1) educate User Community on data/information available
> > 2) engage Users in discussion of how they are currently
> > using data
> > 3) foster development of ideas/materials to enhance application
> > of data in instruction/student research
> > (through a set of lectures and laboratories)
For some reason, you seemed to focus on the first "general goal" above to
the exclusion of all else?? You ignored the most important
one in my opinion (number 3).
In fact, perhaps the first goal is easily facilitated by something like
you suggest:
On Jan 28, 20:59, SteveKoch wrote:
> If you want to educate the community about data available through
>Unidata, then ask the Unidata folks to put together informational packets
>and distribute them via the web, the mail, or whatever, but please don't
>hold a workshop for that purpose.
I suggest we add this as an agenda item for discussion at the UserComm
meeting, it might be something that a UserComm subcommittee should work on
with Unidata.
However, I will defend the idea that one starting point for a workshop
_could_ be to illustrate the wealth of information available (with the
intent of informing/reminding/_exciting_ the attendees). No one can argue that
this isn't a major change from the days when most of *us*, (ie. UserComm
workshop attendees who I presume will mostly be current faculty) were
in school. People will _never use_ things they don't understand,
or don't realize they have access to.
Anyway, all that aside, I do think you missed the main point, we were
talking about *applications* of data.....what are we doing with all
this information, how are we making use of it, and again, how can we
help participants take (better) advantage of Unidata systems?
By the way, just to provide some interpretation, when *I* refer to
Unidata systems, I mean the combined capability we in the University
Community have as a result of NSF funding this complex suite of data
access (NOAAPORT/idd/ldm) and display systems (McIDAS, GEMPAK/GARP,
Vis5D, new JAVA-based tools).
Maybe we should ask where would we be without NSF's support of
Unidata? I guess a few big schools which had Cooperative Agreement
types of Centers with NOAA and NESDIS or close ties to NCAR or the NWS
would be fine, and the rest of use would be out in the cold.
We are representing a community which has unprecedented access to
meteorological information- and its increasing all the time (both our
access and the amount of information). I think it is useful, perhaps
even *essential*, as a community, to discuss what we are doing with it,
and foster new ideas. Building modules might be one
part of that- it could be a very reasonable kind of focus.
I guess I would return to the point that I made at the beginning,
I hope we can keep the focus of this workshop on Unidata
Users/Applications.
Maybe to make a point here I need to state what it is I hope we can
avoid at the next workshop. (By the way, this is only *my* opinion,
not the collective view of the group who discussed the workshop in
Dallas).
I hope we don't end up viewing these workshops as having the primary goal
of being focussed on instructional technology. I too benefited from the
last workshop. But this is what I think: there are ever expanding
opportunities for faculty all over the country to have discussions about
the changing paradigm, and the role of instructional technology,
web-based courses etc. If there is a strong belief that these things
do need to be addressed for our field or discipline (whatever you want
to call it), then I think its more appropriate for this type of activity
to be undertaken by the AMS, rather than the Unidata User's Committee.
My point is that there are other forums for that kind of thing, but
where on anybody's campus is the discussion being held regarding the
much more specific questions of how can we use our unprecendented
meteorological data aquisition and display/visualization capability to
improve what we do (meteorological and related earth science instruction
and research)?
So, its really a matter of focus. Taken broadly, the Users community is
part of a larger community of atmospheric and related earth sciences, but
I will state up front my preference for having us focus more narrowly on
who we are as a community, a group with the more specific but still common
objective of accessing and applying the information (observational data,
imagery, model output, etc) that we gain access to through Unidata.
I guess thats what I mean when I say that I think our focus should stay on
Unidata (its plenty broad enough, and we will have to narrow our focus
in someway as it is).
On Feb 1, 13:48, Doug Yarger wrote:
> Subject: Re: Summary of Workshop Discussion at AMS
>
>Steve,
> I agree and had this in mind.
> Doug
>
> >Doug:
> >
> >I think that a workshop can only be justified if the participants gain
> >valuable information that will help them to improve the way that they
> >do their business as educators. The UNIDATA and You idea may work if we
> >not only share what developments we have achieved, but also ASSIST the
> >participants in methods for accomplishing such objectives, which means
> >guided lectures and hands-on exercise labs. Just presenting a seminar
> >does not guarantee that learning is occurring. PAGE could and should
> >play an important role here.
> >
> >Steve
> >
Steve, your statements about sharing what developments we have achieved
and assisting participants with methods for accomplishing objectives sounds a
lot like:
On Jan 28, 17:09, JennieMoody wrote:
> > 2) engage Users in discussion of how they are currently
> > using data
> > 3) foster development of ideas/materials to enhance application
> > of data in instruction/student research
> > (through a set of lectures and laboratories)
So, I do not think we are all that far apart.
I like the fact that Doug too seemed to keep the focus on Unidata.
On Feb 1, 13:48, Doug Yarger wrote:
> >>Steve,
> >>Thanks for your comments. I'm not a mainline synoptic or mesoscale
> >>person so I was reluctant to voice similar views. So what should the
> >>next workshop do? In general I think workshops should 1) acquaint
> >>attendees with upcoming developments and 2) enable them to do things
> >>that need community support in various ways. Maybe the workshop could be
> >>built around "UNIDATA and YOU
> >>where people would share really nice and useful developments they have
> >>created for their own courses (and research programs) which use
> >>UNIDATA products. The transfer and adaptation of developments to other
> >>sites is not easy so it would be useful to explore various needs that
> >>must be met to enable effective sharing. I think PAGE would play a
> >>significant role here.
> >>Doug
> >>
I agree that PAGE would probably be interested in and could facilitate the
"sharing" aspect of what different schools are doing. But again I would
stress that it seems to me that PAGE represents a much broader community. If
there is a strong need to address something that is broadly pedagogical or
focussed more on instructional technology, the changing paradigm of
education, etc. (and less on how we apply Unidata resources at our
institutions) then why don't we encourage the AMS to sponsor a workshop
run by PAGE. My point is simply that I think there are plenty of more
targetted issues which could/should be addressed regarding the way the
active User Comminity is utilizing the investment NSF has made in Unidata.
On Jan 28, 20:59, SteveKoch wrote:
> Our last workshop was of immense personal benefit to just about
> everyone who attended, whether they actually changed their lives as the
> result of that experience (some of whom did) or not. All the attendees
> became better informed about computer-interactive education, the
> techniques of building a web page and properly designing one, available
> educational resources at Unidata and COMET and elsewhere to enable them to
> develop their educational modules, and pedagogical principles.
I gained from the last workshop, and it lead me to try things I might not
have tried if I hadn't attended. However, I was one of the people who
would have liked more emphasis (discussion/training/hands-on tutorial
work or lab activities) on applications of satellite data.
On Jan 28, 20:59, SteveKoch wrote:
>
> Looks like we'll have much to discuss in March at our next meeting. Or
> maybe I just completely misunderstand what you guys are talking about.
>
> Steve Koch
I think we will have much to discuss at our meeting (which is in April),
and I also think you misunderstood my summary of what we discussed
in Dallas :-). Sorry if I was unclear.
Look forward to seeing you all next month.
Best Regards,
Jennie
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Jennie Lynne Moody, Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences Ph: (804) 924-0592
University of Virginia (804) 924-0569
Clark Hall moody@virginia.edu
Charlottesville, VA 22903 FAX:(804) 982-2300
Atmospheric Modeling and Operational Meteorology
UVA Weather Page--> http://windfall.evsc.virginia.edu/~mcuser
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