My Work Activities - Az@Oz
Most of the other images and pages deal with extracurricular fun stuff
on the weekends and it may appear that we didn't do much work. However,
most of us put in a full month's work doing a variety of things.
The work was also fun, but since it is rather boring to read, I will be
brief on the details of my activities. The bottom line is that I
learned a lot from them and they learned a few things from me. I
spent most of my time at TAFE in Wagga Wagga and Charles Sturt University
in Albury-Thurgoona in the Information Technology departments. A
large amount of time was spent with Albury TAFE faculty in Information
Technology, and I had short visits to the TAFE schools in Griffith, Tumut
and Deniliquin. Outside the Riverina region, I spent two days in
Sydney at Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE, the Sydney Institute
of Technology TAFE and the Australian Technology Park.
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To make me feel at home, I attended several hours of committee meetings.
One of the CSU faculty commented that I was either very dedicated or very
crazy to attend a particular committee meeting! (It was probably
both.)
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I had hours of discussions with faculty, students, staff and administrators
on issues that include: course content (IT - Computer Science), flexible
delivery learning environment, distance learning, computer hardware and
software, funding for faculty, funding labs, maintaining labs (our
5 year plan at GC), the Student Palette network at GC, computer projection
systems for labs and classrooms, industry's role in course content, capstone
project courses, flexible learning & multiple intelligences, linked
courses, mission of the schools, salaries, administration size and structure,
... The discussions on life in general were the most valuable.
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I lectured in several Information Technology (Computer Science) classes
and participated in discussions in other IT classes. Classes: Computer
Architecture, The Internet, Programming Languages, Complex Systems (Chaos
etc.), final TAFE Projects course, final CSU Software Engineering Projects
course.
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At both Wagga Wagga TAFE and CSU Thurgoona, I gave different presentations
to IT faculty and students on a survey of my research contributions in
"Multidimensional Visualization & Geometric Modeling." This included
computer graphics applications to NASA, environmental studies, automobile
design and brain imaging applications in Psychology.
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I spent some productive hours of research collaborations at CSU Thurgoona.
One focus was research that I had started on visualization of multidimensional
data and how it can be adapted to their data mining research.
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Twenty minute radio interview on the large ABC (The Australian Broadcasting
Company) radio station. Together with Jon Storslee and David Newth
of CSU, we briefly discussed the partnership of Arizona, TAFE and CSU,
and then focused on Internet topics of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language),
speed and price of access in the US vs. Australia, and censorship. (The
interview was a thrill & a big success!)
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Participated in the IBM Expo put on by TAFE NSW at the Northern Institute
of Sydney. Capstone final projects of several TAFE students were
presented to a group from IBM.
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Debbie, Paul and I met with Tony Whittingham, Director Educational Services
for all of TAFE NSW, and Agnes Vukovic, Manager of Information Technology
for all of TAFE NSW at the Sydney Institute of Technology TAFE. We
discussed multimedia, internet and library research possibilities
for the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. We then traveled to
the new and impressive Australian Technology Park where Karen Whittingham,
Center Director, then gave us a great tour. The park is located in
refurbished massive buildings that had previously been used to repair and
build trains. We learned of the many top international high tech
companies in partnership with TAFE and the leading research universities
in Sydney.
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I took hundreds of digital photos and then did hundreds of web pages after
I returned.
<- Click on any image to see a larger image ->
Tom's Arizona@Australia Main Page
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Tom's email: tom.foley@gcmail.maricopa.edu
