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Edwards still eyeing poverty
Says issue can be
better addressed
BY ERIN FRANCE
STAFF WRITER
John Edwards, director of the
UNC Center on Poverty, Work and
Opportunity, spoke briefly to about
120 students at a Young Democrats
meeting Monday, continuing to
sound the horn for mobilization
against the issue of national and
global poverty.
He fielded questions from stu
dents and afterward met with stu
dents on an individual basis.
Edwards used his recent trip to
India to underscore the need for
correcting the poverty problem
that exists, both in this country
and globally.
“It was an eye-opening experi
ence for me,” he said of his trip.
Edwards said stopping poverty
at global and local levels can be
accomplished with uniform politi
cal movements to capture the
attention of politicians.
“Politicians will do what they
have to to get re-elected,” he said.
He said politicians should be
the first ones to point out societal
problems and propose solutions to
the public.
“It’s the responsibility of poli
ticians to ask people to do some
thing,” he said.
Students design innovative remote
Win user-friendly technology contest
BY COLIN CAMPBELL
STAFF WRITER
In a 20-minute time span, most
people cannot find the remote con
trol, let alone design anew one.
Asa part of a World Usability
Day Interactionary Design
Competition earlier this month,
four UNC-Chapel Hill students
had 20 minutes to design a DVD
remote control system for arthritic
and farsighted users.
The team, which was com
posed of students from UNC-CH’s
School of Information and Library
Science, defeated a group from
N.C. State University in the Nov.
3 competition.
Thirty countries participated in
District children
garner book prizes
BY SHATARRA GIBSON
STAFF WRITER
With their creative juices flow
ing, three area students have prov
en themselves to be award-winning
authors.
The three students from Chapel
Hill-Carrboro City Schools placed in
the Best Story category of the fifth
annual Carolina Parent’s Children’s
Book Writing Contest, which took
place during the summer.
In this regional contest, pro
moted and sponsored by Carolina
Parent Magazine, winners from
Orange, Durham and Wake coun
ties totaled 28.
Weston Barker, a first-grader
from Carrboro Elementary School,
took first place in the kindergar
ten-and-first-grade division for
his story, “How the Turtle Got Its
Shell.”
Seventh-grader Stephanie
Fenton of Smith Middle School
received third place in the sixth
and-seventh-grade division for her
story, “Mrs. Bobal and the Eggplant
or the Brain.”
Yujane Chen, a second-grader
at Estes Hills Elementary School,
won third place for her story, “I
Can’t, Said the Ant,” in the second
and-third-grade division.
“Any opportunity that children
have to write is a beneficial one,”
said Stephanie Knott, the district’s
spokeswoman.
The contest is beneficial to the
children in that they get a chance to
envision themselves as real authors
and take pride in themselves, Gina
Pace, Yujane’s teacher at Estes Hills
said.
“She loves to write. It’s a real joy
for her to see her name published,”
Pace said.
Yulan Chung, Yujane’s mother,
said she actually was surprised by
the win.
The story originally was just a
passage out of Yujane’s diary.
Yujane, who came to the United
States with her parents when she
was only 18 months old, was raised
bilingually which Yulan Chung
said has helped her daughter hone
her writing skills.
“We learned English as a second
language; (she’s) creative because
she benefited from both cultures,”
Chung said.
Yujane talked about her thought
He said students and the
American public want to be a part
of the solution, but need strong
leadership from Democrats to
really tackle the issue.
“There’s a huge void in moral
leadership,” he said.
“We, the Democrats, need to fill
that void.”
Edwards said he is concerned
about poverty at the global level,
but his center will try to effect
change closer to home.
“We are focused on domestic
poverty,” he said.
But he also stressed the need for
Americans to take the lead in the
global fight on poverty.
“When we don’t lead, nothing
gets done,” he said.
Edwards said he is not content
with the way the current admin
istration has responded to pov
erty and criticized the Republican
leadership.
He said he has not yet decided
whether he will run for the presi
dential office in 2008, something
pundits say is a distinct possibil
ity ,
“I’ll figure it out,” he said of mak
ing another bid for the oval office.
“It’s a possibility.”
He currently is concentrating on
the health of his wife, who is recov
ering from cancer, and on his work
at the center.
Edwards expressed little doubt
that President George Bush
the annual World Usability Day,
which promotes user-friendly
technology.
The competition was part
of events held in the Research
Triangle Park.
The team was told of the target
users for the remote three minutes
into the competition.
The added challenge made the
project more focused, team mem
bers said.
“We were actually delighted
because it gave us something to
do,” said Sam Kome, a member of
the group.
Team members said they then
broke up into two groups —one to
poll the audience about the needs
process in creating the winning
story.
“I didn’t really know what to
write about, so I thought smaller
than usual,” Yujane said.
“So I thought about an ant and
put him in a kitchen so he’d have
a lot to do and kind of gave him a
mission.”
Yujane said she might enter
another writing contest soon and
currently is working on her next
tale in class.
It features a mouse traveling
around the world in search of
her father, meeting new friends
throughout her adventures that
give her clues about where to find
him.
Contest winners from Durham
and Orange counties will read
their stories at 6 p.m. today at The
Regulator Bookshop on Ninth
Street in Durham.
Contact the City Editor
at citydesk@unc.edu.
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Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards fields questions ranging from universal
health care to his future political plans before a meet and greet Monday.
would not be elected by the coun
try if the elections were held this
month.
“He’d be beaten by any legiti
mate Democrat,” he said.
Edwards said most presidential
races are about character, not spe
cific issues, when it comes down to
most voters.
“Most people look at that mass
of issues out there as a lens to look
at your character,” he said. “It’s
about strength of character and
conviction.”
of a potential user and one to begin
the design process.
The group got back together
and created a model of the remote’s
design using a white board.
But they wanted even more
input from the audience, team
members said.
“We went back to the users and
invited them to do a small user
test,” said Sayan Chakraborty, a
member of the group.
The team’s design included an
unusual, wider shape to make it
easier for arthritic users to grip. It
also included a jog dial for easier
control and a back strap for easier
gripping.
For farsighted users, the design
had large, distinctly colored, illu
minated buttons. It also had an
on-screen display to make it easier
to view selections.
Team members said coopera
tion and audience interaction are
what set them apart from their
competitors.
“Teamwork is a big chunk of
it,” said Ric Simmons, part of the
UNC-CHteam.
“They liked that we polled the
user base.”
The teams were judged on
teamwork, process, final design
and user perspective.
Gary Marchionini, a UNC-CH
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Danny Pons, a freshman major
ing in political science, took the
Young Democrats meeting as an
opportunity to size up Edwards.
“I was more intrigued about
what kind of guy he was in person,”
he said.
Pons said he was also curious
about Edwards’ future plans.
“I was interested to see if he was
going to run in 2008.”
Contact the State £2 National
Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
information and library science
professor who judged the contest,
said teamwork skills are important
for careers in this field.
“That’s the way it works in
the real world,” he said. “No one
designs these kinds of systems
individually.”
None of the UNC-CH students
had participated in an interac
tionary event before, so the team
said it held several practices to get
ready.
“To prepare we worked on sam
ple design problems from previous
interactionaries to simulate what
the competition would be like,”
said Abe Crystal, an information
and library science student who
organized and coached the team.
The local competition also
included a usability ticketing
exercise in which people were
asked to find examples of good
and bad usabilities of technology
and explain their strengths and
weaknesses.
Team members credited their
classes for giving them the skills
they needed to win.
“The school (gives) us a strong
sense of user focus,” Simmons
said.
Contact the University Editor
at udesk@unc.edu.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2005
Student s site
provides more
relevant links
University also planning Web update
BY NATE HUBBARD
STAFF WRITER
An innovative student is hoping
to give the University community a
better online home.
Brandon Clark, a UNC junior, is
the creator of www.itarheel.com,
an alternative to the University’s
Web site.
“The beauty of it is that it doesn’t
have to worry about things the
University would have to worry
about,” he said.
The lack of official University
affiliation allows Clark to post links
that are helpful to students such
as one directing users to the Web
site for Papa John’s Pizza.
“Basically the idea behind it is to
have mostly everything you need in
one spot,” he said.
Clark said that although he
does most of the work on the site,
he receives assistance on some of
the content and design from two
other juniors, Walker French and
Ben Taylor.
The itarheel site tries to make
it easier to access different links
that are sometimes difficult to sort
through on the students’ part of
www.unc.edu, Clark said.
The University has plans to
make changes to its site to allevi
ate some of the problems itarheel
tries to address.
University Relations staff is
updating the campus’s Web site
to keep up with technology and to
better display the University, said
Scott Jared, director of Web con
tent.
“We can do a better job of show
casing this place,” he said.
Although Jared said the redesign
process is still in the information
gathering stage, he has a few ideas
about the new features he hopes to
include.
“We are definitely looking into
the use of technologies and soft
ware like RSS feeds,” he said.
A Really Simple Syndication
feed allows users to easily and
quickly receive updates and new
information from a Web site with
out having to go through cumber
some searches.
Jared said there also will be
general technological updates to
the Web site.
“We will have more use of media
structures like Flash and other ways
of presenting what’s rich about this
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place,” he said.
Clark uses Flash Multimedia for
both the content and design of his
Web site.
University Relations staff
is working with the campus’s
Information Technology Services
to choose a content management
system.
Such a system would ease the
redesign process by allowing the
Web site designers to put infor
mation into a single database that
would then put the data on mul
tiple pages.
Without a management system,
designers generally have to make
the updates to each individual
page.
“The content management sys
tem is key to a redesign,” Jared
said.
The search for a management
system is complicated because
of the diversity of pages on the
University site, said Audrey Ward,
assistant vice chancellor for com
munications at ITS.
“We’re taking a very thoughtful
process,” she said.
After University Relations and
ITS find a management system and
user feedback has been compiled,
Jared said he expects the redesign
to be completed within six months
to a year.
Jared said the University’s Web
site used to be top-notch, but as
other schools have made updates,
the site has become outdated in
comparison.
While minor updates occur reg
ularly, Jared said a total redesign
has not been done in more than
five years.
“Now it’s time for us to learn
from what others have done and
build our own site that is uniquely
Carolina,” he said.
Clark said he is not worried
about any competition from an
updated University site or from the
recently inaugurated Student Life
Integrated Calender of Events, a
campuswide calendar available at
slice.unc.edu.
“(Itarheel) gave me a creative
release,” he said.
“The goal of itarheel is just to be
whatever students at UNC want in
a home page.”
Contact the University Editor
at udesk@unc.edu.
7