ifest 2007 - a success!

SIS celebrated with a variety of events from November 7-9, 2007 as part of the Third Annual i-fest!  Students, faculty and staff were all a part of the festivities, taking part in events as diverse as the Mother Goose Poetry Slam, lectures, book signings and the Fantastic Amazing Great Race.

On November 7, everyone gathered for the Mother Goose Poetry Slam which included craft- and book-making sessions, tips for children’s programs in a library, and a puppet show.  The SIS Library Staff presented this event featuring librarians from the University Library System and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.  If you’d like to sample the fun, click here for photos.

On Thursday, Dr. Chris Dede of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education presented the 2007 Sara Fine Institute Lecture at the William Pitt Union.  Dr. Dede also participated in a Graduate Student Seminar and an on-line educators meeting.  To view photos from the lecture on “21st Century Skills, Education, and Economic Development for Global, Knowledge-based Workplaces," visit this page.

Thursday evening brought out the gamers amongst us.  The Gaming Tournament featured more than 45 students enjoying the latest in gaming technology including Halo 3, Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, and Madden.  Couldn’t be there? Click here to sample the fun. Thanks to Pittsburgh CyberConXion for sponsoring this event.

Friday’s events included the Poster Competition, the Fantastic Amazing Great Race, and the dedication of “Perspectives on Information Science:  A Festschrift in Honor of Anthony Debons.”  There were 17 posters in the competition and the faculty judges had an amazingly difficult time in determining the winners.  After stringent review and lengthy discussions, the following posters were declared the winners:

First Place: “Proactive Real-time Assistance to Increase Analysts Performance” by Tomasz D Loboda, an IS Ph.D. candidate;

Second Place:  “An Agent-Based Model for Secondary Use of Spectrum” by Arnon Tonmukayakul, a Telecommunications Ph.D. candidate;

Third Place:  “Tastier than Google? .... del.icio.us” by Worasit Choochaiwattana, an IS Ph.D. candidate.

You can view the Poster competition here.