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Issue 88, Volume 75
thedailycougar.com
UH turns more to technology Blackboard Vista, Wii Fit and book scanners now used in classrooms
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By Abby Lee THE DAILY COUGAR Though it may take time getting used to for some, technology has revolutionized college student’s educational experiences by making learning easier, more interactive and sometimes more entertaining. Some UH professors are embracing the advances in technology to reach out to students in unprecedented ways. It is no longer uncommon for professors to tape their lectures and place them on iTunes, so students may upload them on their digital players and listen to them at their leisure. English professor Karen Fang has been teaching Text and Politics
for five years and has incorporated multimedia into every class. In her course, students study films and apply them to various texts. Fang has recently begun to use a film projector to show clips in class and allowing students to find movies on e-reserves in the library. “Using clips in class facilitates the ability to examine cinema,” Fang said. “Students now are a visualoriented audience, and this gives them a dynamic edge.” Fang said she believes that using this technology enhances the experience over a traditional classroom simply because it allows the content to be visual. Fang also said she hopes to use more technology in the future, as well as having more time to develop them. “I’d love to give the students live downloads of clips I use, maybe on YouTube,” Fang said. “I’d also put film clips on actual electronic
exams.” The M.D. Anderson Memorial Library recently purchased a program that allows students to scan their books and e-mail it to themselves or store them on their USB. The Bookeye is environmentally friendly and is free to all UH students. Education senior and library assistant Tariq Malik said he is pleased with UH’s latest technical additions that are helping to do away with bulky books. “It’s amazing” Tariq said. “I use it every day.” With hopes of transforming into a paperless campus, many instructors at UH are also digitizing their course material by using Blackboard vista. However, not all students are responding positively to the idea of online classes. Political science senior Janae Williams has faced some problems with the online class system.
“I had a big issue the first week of school, because I’m taking a hybrid course, and I’m taking 18 hours. I don’t have time for things not to be ready for me to go. It took them a full week to get my Blackboard going,” Williams said. “I like to have my syllabus read. I like to know what books I need before school starts, so I can have all of that laid out, so that when I get to school, I can ask whatever questions I need for clarification and get right to work,” Williams said. While some technology is used to fulfill educational purposes, some are used to make courses more entertaining. Making classes more interactive is the key. Wellness and fitness senior Patricia Miller said one of the things she has enjoyed the most about technology being incorporated in the classroom is that she gets to use the Wii Fit in one of her classes. “We now have a PEB (Physical
Education Basic) class that incorporates technology with fitness by using the Wii,” Miller said. “In this class, they use Wii Fit and other active games to help them keep track of their fitness goals and help students achieve these goals.” Political science junior Anne Pace said she is skeptical about the technology changes in the classroom over the past few years. “Maybe in a couple of years they’ll have it down but not yet. Every class is hooked up to a projector. It never works,” Pace said. “A lot of times, (class) gets started late or the professor doesn’t get to cover some things. When I first started (at UH), only math classes had things online. Now every class is on Blackboard (Vista),” she said. Additional reporting done by Michael Berryhill’s Advance Reporting Class news@thedailycougar.com
Religions ponder Haiti earthquake Natural disaster makes some ask if a higher power was involved J
By Safiya Ravat THE DAILY COUGAR
HOUSTONIAN YEARBOOK ARCHIVES
Cougar pride
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aculty, staff, students and alumni will be able to relive UH’s history from today through Thursday during the Legacy of the Pride exhibition that will be showcased at the Elizabeth Rockwell Pavilion in the second floor of the M. D. Anderson Memorial Library. The exhibition, which is free, will show how the University has changed through the years and the legacy that has been left by outstanding alumni.
The Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, that killed over 170,000 people, left some religious and non-religious, people asking questions. One of these was whether or not the earthquake was an act of God. “It is not an act of God to punish the Haitians,” clinical professor Lynn Mitchell said. “That’s just a hangover from medieval superstition. In fact, there’s not much even in the Bible that talks about God punishing people through volcanoes and earthquakes.” Mitchell said there are two Christian opinions on natural disasters. “There’s this tension in the Bible between disasters being kind of accepted by people as punishment from God that should bring about repentance, but there’s also the side that says you cannot make those kinds of calculations,” he said. Though most Christians believe the latter, Mitchell said some are strong in their belief of the former. “There are some ultra fundamentalist Christians in America … who think that this is
a punishment from God for the religious primitivism of Haiti,” he said. “But these are the same people who called Katrina a punishment from God for homosexuals and witches and voodoo.” Mitchell said people couldn’t interpret why God does what he does. “People need to understand that they don’t know much about God’s ways as they think they do. The Bible says that we don’t know much about it either way, so we can’t make those kinds of judgments,” he said. Some believers of Islam also attributed the earthquake to God. “There’s no capital ‘N’ in nature,” political science junior Hasan Khan said. “Nature, lower ‘N,’ is just a vehicle of God doing what he wills. There’s nothing which is random.” Khan, who manages the Islamic Information table for the Muslim Students Association, said God doesn’t send natural disasters only for destruction; they can bring benefits, as well. “There is no such thing as pure evil,” Khan said. “There is always good and bad; there are benefits in calamities. People come together; people turn to God. It makes people thankful that this could have been worse. I could have lost my family, I could have lost all my wealth, but I’m see RELIGION, page 3