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Show inions MONDAY • AUGUST 20 • 2007 Editorial A new frontier Technological permanence at UVSC Laptop users across campus, and especially those students who, in past semesters have had to pay an out of pocket monthly fee for on-campus wireless access, are jumping for joy. The transition from UVSC to UVU is bringing about some significant changes, one of the more celebrated and debated being free wireless access throughout the entire campus. This is old news to other Utah universities. The University of Utah has provided widespread wireless access to all students since 2002 and will be extending wireless capabilities to serve the entire campus by fall semester 2008,anareathathumblesthatoftheUVSCcampus. BYU has, for years, made free wireless internet accessible to all students, although it has maintained tight control over the areas on campus in which the service can be accessed. The question that remains to be answered is whether free wireless access will change the culture of laptop use on campus, and especially within the classroom. Universities across the country have been enmeshed in a love/hate relationship with these new communication technologies. As the cost has come down and the necessity of student laptops has gone up, pressure to make wireless internet accessible to students has soared, sometimes becoming a selling point for accommodating departments, or colleges as a whole. UVSC itself has two departments, which now require, according to the 2007-08 catalogue, it's students to maintain a personal laptop in order to enter the program. One such department is Digital Media, whose new requirement seems more obvious, and the other being Communications. This move towards program laptop requirements is part of a growing trend to make, not only the internet, but the laptop itself a classroom tool. But what about other UVSC programs? Will they embrace the laptop like so many of their students have? There is no doubt that it will be a painful process, but a transition that, regardless of resistance, will happen. We have seen other technologies infiltrate classrooms, irregardless of the ominous warnings by professors and administrators. Cell phones, once banned, are now simply ignored, as beeps, buzzes and groans go off during lecture. IPods are seen attached to one out of every three students one passes in the halls, and ear buds are popped into open ears as soon as there is an opportunity for "solo study." Of course, UVSC faculty does have the option of banning these devices from their classes. Within UVSC's Policies and Procedures, Student's Academic Responsibilities clause clearly states, "Faculty members have the right to establish classroom standards of behavior and attendance requirements" (Section C). There is no doubt that allowing laptops, equipped with internet access, into the classroom presents some novel teaching challenges. Students are then free to roam through the information superhighway, instant messaging friends, checking their email, even looking up the next show time for the latest new release. Although we can target the technology, this is more likely a two-fold problem. The second lies in the continued investment .in the concept of the "classroom" as we've known it. .;.-• CurrentcollegeclassroomsacrosstheU.S.areequipped for the professors needs. The seating, rows stacked upon rows of hard chairs and little workspace, caters to the allknowledgeable lecturer in front. Modern psychological research into effective learning styles has made it quite evident that students are not simply empty cavities filled to the top by hours of verbal, regurgitated knowledge. This is where engaging new technologies, like lightweight, portable laptops, come into play. If a student has the choice to be engaged with the technology, or disengaged by the lecturer, tne decision seems simplistic. Those professors, who harbor resentment against a technical tool that provides unlimited stimulation and.intellecrual freedom, must formulate new teaching styles, which utilize the technology for their own means. t-; This means reformatting the classroom struc| ture into one that forces interaction with not only the teacheri but the technology as well. It means promoting this new structure through programs that allow the technology to be accessible to all students, regardless of income, so that they can utilize the same resources • available to their more financially endowed peers. , '{.-". We can waste time trying to form a blockade against:. i ; laptops, PDA's and cell phones from finding a permanent place in the classroom, or we can accept that they hot only will, but currently have a role to play in every facet of academia. UVSC's small class sizes and flexible syllabus structures may help defend this technology in classrooms and extinguish any resistance to its presence. But if the defenders of old-school college and new-school college walk onto the battlefield, there is no -doubt that the current generation of information technologies will win out. Why don't we try negotiations first? The all seeing Y minds all non-believers; or region. at least that's what MorAlso, Bamiyan province mon911.com would have us was the base for the Northbelieve. ern Alliance-the Taliban's In a letter recently sent strongest opposition in the to the College Times and region and the Taliban had also posted verbatim on the been requesting international front page of their website, humanitarian aid, to no avail Jared Magill the folks at Mormon911. for over a year. According to Opinions editor com lay out in detail, their Rathje's article, the Taliban view of how unfair it is for On March 8 and 9, 2001 wanted to discredit the west a private the entire world was out- by demorganizaraged when two massive o n s t r a t - 'From high atop the mountain tion to be stone statues of Buddha ing that a great Y, wreathed in scrub allowed carved into the side of a the interoak, looms over the Utah to lease mountain, were completely national p u b lic demolished by dynamite c o m Valley, preying on the fragile land for under the orders of Taliban m u n i t y psyches of all non-mormons/ the use warlord, Mullah Moham- would be of self med Omar in the Bamiyan willing to promotion. According to province of Afghanistan. donate millions of dollars to statements made in the letAccording to a Feb. 27, save some stone statues but 2001 report by the Agence nothing to save the lives of ter, they feel BYU should relinquish its status as a priFrance-Presse, Omar's ex- Afghani people. So, just like every other vate institution and make itcuse for the destruction was that only Allah and no other conflict in history the ide- self a public one if they wish deities or icons should be ology used to fuel public to continue to be allowed to worshipped. However, the fervor amounts to nothing lease public land. It seems Senior Editor of Discover more than a political ploy the people at Mormon911. com have never heard of ski Archaeology magazine, for control. High on the mountainside resorts. Made up of private W.L. Rathje felt that the statues were caught up in a overlooking Provo there is facilities owned by very centuries-old political game another symbol of regional large private corporations, religious influence that has ski resorts operate on leased for regional domination. In his March 22,2001 ar- recently come under fire public land for their own ticle, Rathje identified three from a group who appears personal gain. So, if one prikey reasons why he believed to have a political agenda vate organization can do it, the statues were destroyed. of their own, although not a why can't another? The letter from MorFirst, Buddhists have always very compelling one. From high atop the moun- mon911.com concedes the been easy targets for radical islam because they tend not tain a great Y, wreathed in extreme improbability of to fight back so, not always scrub oak, looms over the BYU becoming public and finding it politically prudent Utah Valley, preying on the subsequently calls upon to prove Islamic dominion fragile psyches of all non- them to voluntarily remove in the region by attacking mormons. Its lidless gaze, the Y from off the mountain Christian or Jewish sites, pierces cloud, shadow, earth "in the spirit of fairness and Buddhism has always been and flesh, causing fits of understanding," and start the primary scapegoat in the anxiety and tension in the sharing the property with What is the fate of BYU's controversial iconic mountainside symbol? •Get the story*forTin QoU^fe Thins ** Staff Infection I hope to pass and survive the 100 credit hour semesters I'm taking to graduate this year... - Carol Acevedo UVSC by putting up "temporary or 'lit up' symbols on certain celebratory occasions. Because, "in fairness, Utah Valley State University [sic] should be given the opportunity to begin those same traditions. What's next, lobbying for legislation that forces the LDS church to grant every non-Mormon in the valley 40 acres and a mule? Get real. If anything UVSC deserves nothing more than the chance to build our own individual traditions. Clinging to the traditions of some other school would make us poseurs and would permanently solidify the little brother complex that our school so desperately needs to shed. As a non-Mormon Utah Valley resident I would like to say that the case made by Mormon911 .com is nothing more than shameful and senseless pot stirring. Understanding, respect, fairness and social awareness are a two-way street. You gotta give a little to get a little. Making an issue out of an insignificant letter on a hill will only polarize the differing factions and make each side more deeply entrenched in their disparate views. Understanding, respect, fairness and social awareness will only come when both sides realize that our similarities outnumber our differences and that our uniqueness is not unique. • •—" ' ** "' ' •—" •—i im^aimi— i What goals or hopes do you have for this school year? I intend to choose peace. Not just avoidance of conflict, but more the acknowledgement of the miraculous abundance in my life. Peace dwells within the grateful heart. And so it is. -Robbin Anthony To not have a retarded baby. - Luke Htckman Nine months to graduation. I am counting down the days! -EleanorTakahashi Figure out my career, get married, make lots of money, pull up my GPA, dean my room and sleep as much as possible.-Spencer Shell |