July 25, 2006: Dr. Tom Keenan & Dr. Stan Ruecker

It was good to be back with the cohort after a very trying weekend. The morning started off with a talk from Dr. Tom Keenan. It was quite the experience on a number of levels. It was quite interesting to be involved in my first ever video conferencing session. The audio was great and it was neat to be able to see Dr. Keenan so clearly on the screen. Dr. Keenan talked a lot about being careful on the internet. His talk had to do with internet security and protection. After hearing him speak, I realized how I have not taken seriously the safety of the internet. With everything that had gone on in my life over the past couple of days, I felt quite frightened.
A few statements that Dr. Keenan made really resonated with me: “Always think about the uses you didn’t think about” as well as “we can’t take it back”. Meaning once the information is put out there, it is out there to stay. This made me very aware, that I need to be more careful when e-mailing and or teaching my children about the safety of the internet. Dr. Keenan’s favorite phrase was: Volitional Cecity, which basically means “lead us not into temptation”. Be careful, be aware and be wise when putting information on the internet. I enjoyed his talk and appreciated the concrete examples that he gave.

In the afternoon, we had Dr. Stan Ruecker come and talk to us about data mining and in particular all the new research that is being done in these areas. As Dr. Ruecker went through his presentation on all the new visual ways being created to search, I was somewhat overwhelmed. How could things change this much? Being a visual learner, I find the potential of this research to be very exciting. Finally, perhaps this textual world will be “adjusted” to meet the needs of those that learn differently. I look forward to following his research.