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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015
PAGE 4A
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opinion
TEXT FREE FOR ALL
Text your FFA submissions to (785)289-8351 or at kansan.com
FFA OF THE DAY
Using your straightener to iron
your clothes.
poorcollegekidproblems
Missy... Is your mother!!
Nothing beats a day when you beat the Sudoku, cryptoquip AND crossword
You know it's a good night when your roommate brings home a bucket of chicken and booze.
If one more bug flies in my eye or up my nose, I quit. I'm done.
I like the person who is sitting next to me in the 11 bus april 21,
2015..4:11pm
Don't you just love it when all the red buses are all together instead of spaced out! Way to go bus drivers!
College Logic: Skip class in order to do better in another class.
I love that I'm in a class that just watches movies the whole time.
goodsemester
I was shushed in the library while doing hw... I was sitting alone, not talking to anyone. I must have turned a page too loudly. #mybad
Pet pieve: when you know someone read your text be they have the read message feature on and they still don't answer!
Coffeee buzzzz.
The first five days after the weekends are the hardest.
Today's smokey eye is brought to you by yesterday's eyeliner on top of Tuesday's eyeliner.
If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me when I'm graduating... #1dberich
Shut up liver,you're fine.
I just wanna thank cheese for being the only thing stable in my life. *cheeserdie*
This week has been too much stress and too little booze.
22 is still an acceptable age to love spongebob, right?
The biggest lie I tell myself is that I'm gonna wake up early to study tomorrow morning.
I wish my friends were cool and liked to facetime with me. >:]
xoxo gossip girl.
Can my weather app just be accurate for once??
Can Star Wars just have its own holiday? Or George Lucas day?
ONLINE HOMEWORK
Online homework less of a hassle, more convenient
onework is never go to be fun no matter how you frame it. Whether your professor hands out hard copies of assignments, or you have a class that requires homework to be completed online, both, in the end, are equally boring. However, turning in an assignment online is a much more convenient option for students, as well as our teachers.
Certain on-campus classes at universities require an access code to be purchased in order to complete homework assignments or use Blackboard for homework purposes. Instead of having to make copies for hundreds of students which will eventually get thrown away, each student has a virtual copy of their homework which can be easily accessed, making this a more environmentally friendly option. In addition, professors' workloads are reduced when opting for online homework; less time is put into collecting, grading and returning assignments. This also reduces the amount of paperwork students need to keep track of.
Some may argue that online homework makes it easier for students to cheat on their assignments, yet this can be argued for both situations. When have you ever had homework that was given
to you in class and due during that same period? Homework is work done at home, meaning students are given the same opportunity to cheat on hard-copy assignments as they would an online assignment.
Another thing to consider is handwriting legibility. Have you ever had an answer become misinterpreted due to your handwriting skills, or lack thereof? It's a frustrating situation for students and teachers to deal with. Having the ability to type in your responses and/or select certain answers, versus writing them down, stops your professors from having to decipher your handwriting.
Certain online systems provide students with additional features when purchasing an access code. Some of these features include online tutorials, practice quizzes/tests and further instruction on items that may be giving students a hard time. These additional features may be what spikes up the price of access codes, but the benefits of these features are priceless.
During a time when basically everything can be done online, it's only natural that homework is one of those options as well. Students and staff benefit from the ease of online assignments. The ability to receive instant feedback on a homework problem is helpful for the learning process of students, and lessens the already heavy workload our educators must handle everyday.
Cecilia Cho is a senior from Overland Park studying American Studies
Online homework is unnecessary and unhelpful for students
I have never heard of a more ridiculous notion than "buying your homework." Students are already required to pay good money for other miscellaneous fees, so why should homework be an additional cost? In most classes, online homework is worth about 10 percent of the overall grade. While 10 percent isn't a large amount, getting an A without doing any of the homework would require receiving perfect scores in every other aspect of the class.
While it's becoming easier to find cheaper textbooks on sites like Amazon, or by borrowing books from individuals who have taken the course already, access codes eliminate the possibility of renting textbooks for a cheaper cost. Access codes from rented books aren't guaranteed to work, according to the general policies of popular book-rental site Chegg. Although online textbooks with access codes can be cheaper than print editions, overall, they are not cheaper when one already has the textbook one wanted to rent.
Once access codes are purchased, they only last for a certain amount of time, so if there is a gap between taking the first-level course and second-level course you may have to buy an additional access code. For example, Physics 211 and Physics 212 both use MasteringPhysics for their online homework, so the same access code
will work for both classes, but only when both are taken within a 12-18 month period. While it's nice that you wouldn't have to pay for an access code for the following semester, it causes problems if courses can't be taken consecutively. Additionally, if students must repeat a course they will need to purchase a new access code, since they are unable to use the access code from the previous semesters.
According to Time, material read from printed books as opposed to e-books may be more likely to be remembered long-term. The article refers to a study done by Kate Garland, a lecturer from University of Leicester, who observed that more repetition was required with computer reading for the information to stick. Access codes typically include access to the online textbook, while the printed loose-leaf version costs, of course, a little extra.
Although both online homework and written homework can be easily googled for the answers, some online programs allow a way to guess and check solutions until coming to the right answer. Online homework generates direct feedback so that a student can see what they did wrong, but that feedback doesn't always include an explanation on why the answer is wrong. While it all boils down to the integrity of the student, online homework needs to offer a more unique way of working out problems that eliminates the guess and check option.
It's outrageous to make students, who are already paying a lot of money, pay even more for the ability to do their homework. I'd rather take back my pen and pencil and do it the old-fashioned way.
Meg Huwe is a sophomore from Overland Park studying chemical engineering
Unemployment may bring opportunity for country
When looking ahead at the broad expanse of life we have before us, we hope that it will be shining and bright. But as we all know, our future may throw us a curveball or two, one of which may very well be concerning bouts of unintended unemployment. According to the Associated Press, each one of us has a significant chance of being laid off for some period in our lives.
Unemployment brings a
host of negative effects. The loss of a job is often coupled with negative psychological effects, slides into poverty and a decline in the production of goods and services. However, it is not all bad, especially looking at the grand scheme of things. It is easier said than done, but perhaps solace can be taken in the magnificent behind-the-scenes mechanics of a growing economy, like the one in the United States.
In capitalist economies, there will always be some level of unemployment. This is not necessarily a fault of capitalism; rather, according to economist John Buck, it is the result of workers in a free society being able to choose what sort of work they wish to do. While it is true that unemployment may be lower in communist economies, this comes with a sacrifice of restricted liberties or even forced labor.
So why is there always some unemployment? One reason is that job searching can take a significant amount of time — up to 27 weeks at the height of the Great Recession — but this is not necessarily an entirely bad thing. After all, we would rather take time to search for a job that we like and matches our skills, rather than immediately be pushed into a job we hate, right! This type of joblessness — called frictional unemployment — allows businesses and individuals to match jobs effectively and efficiently.
When industries change or whole new ones are invented, job loss can be an unfortunate albeit necessary consequence through a method that sounds like the title of a Hollywood thriller: creative destruction. Take for example the invention of the personal computer. Entire industries sprung up overnight, with the adoption
of the new technology leading to a phenomenal growth in the standard of living.
of the new technology leading to a phenomenal growth in the standard of living. Even though everybody benefited from this in the long run, typewriter manufacturers were not happy about this development. Should the government have spent billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up an industry that had outlived its usefulness? I don't think so. If we insisted on that logic, we would be spending millions to subsidize the production of abacuses. This concept may apply differently in the public sector, such as when cuts to education occur, but the fact of the matter is that this logic applies perfectly well to the private sector, which makes up 85 percent of the American workforce.
This does not mean that those of us who lose their jobs should be thrown out on the street. I believe that in prosperous system that requires
both gains and losses, such as capitalism; those saddled with the losses should have access to a safety net. In addition, they should be granted opportunities to retrain their skills and to adapt to innovations, perhaps through government programs. Thus, they will ultimately join the ranks of the more prosperous.
But we can't avoid not harming anyone with economic progress. If we did that, then all of our technology would still be stuck in the middle ages. Unemployment is no doubt a burden, but beneath the mucky exterior, there lies opportunities for an entire nation's economy. And luckily, it means we do not have to write essays on typewriters.
John Olson is a sophomore from Wichita studying economics
GREEN APPLES by Jeff Harris
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