14,1
®fliesciay • April 4, 1995
The Battalion • Page 3
rofessors, students glimpse future with e-mail assignments
tov^By Nikki Hopkins
^merkiJnE Battalion
s, onii_
ome college courses might echo
with an audible groan from stu
dents on the first day of class as
e professor announces that every
|tudent will be assigned an e-mail ad-
ess and all homework will be turned
through computers.
The use of computers as an educa
tional tool has gone beyond word pro
cessing at Texas A&M and has become
a means of communication between stu
dents and professors.
I Dr. Richard Schaefer, an associate
professor of journalism, said he teaches
one class where he has attempted com
puterized homework.
Schaefer has his students send
[heir assignments as well as any
questions or comments about the
pass to him by e-mail.
“It is an incredible headache some-
es,” he said. “But in the long run it
ally helps my students.”
Schaefer said he spends up to four
hours a day replying to students over
The Internet.
Schaefer said he doesn’t like his stu
dents to turn in homework on discs be-
ause of the risk of computer viruses.
“I call it safe communication,” he
Said.
Using the computer as a communi
matic
i the el
eels 1
tube,
linati
cation tool between professors and stu
dents is becoming a trend for many de
partments on campus.
Visiting Professor Tom Parker in the
architecture department said his de
partment is installing 20 new comput
ers this year that will enable students
with an access identification to log on
the system and communicate with their
professors faster through e-mail.
Parker said using computers and
discs instead of conventional hard copy
assignments have advantages and dis
advantages.
Parker said an advantage of comput
erized teaching is that professors can
drop any information they want stu
dents to have on the server at any time,
without the restrictions of office hours
or class time.
“The disadvantage is that I can’t take
a drawing and write on it or make cor
rections.” Parker said. “The images are
so much smaller on the computer screen
than on a large piece of drawing paper.”
Dr. Douglas Starr, a journalism
professor, said he edits papers on a
computer because ink corrections
made on his student’s papers are a
source of complaint.
“Red ink is more than they can emo
tionally handle,” Starr said. “Once stu
dents get the hang of a computerized
system they tend to like it better.”
Starr said students are given a sys
tem disc that allows them to access the
department fileserver, or hard drive.
By using icons on the Macintosh
screen, students can transfer a docu
ment into Starr’s reserved file.
Starr said he saves all the student
files on one disc and takes them
home to grade.
“I can write more on what I want to
tell the student,” Starr said. “The beau
ty of this is no matter how many papers
I have to grade, the last paper is always
as legible as the first.”
Starr said the days of writing out an
assignment first, then typing it and
turning it in are long gone.
“Professionally, time is your greatest
enemy,” Starr said. “On the computer
you can almost type fast enough to keep
up with your brain.”
The next step in college computer
teaching may be computer notebooks
that students can take to class, carry in
the car or use at home.
Today’s college students may not
use this technology in school, but col
lege students five or 10 years from
now might.
Paper and pencil may not be re
placed, but the computer is definitely
making an entrance into education that
will change methods of learning and
communication.
Brett Summers is a student con
sultant at the Remote Computing
Center help desk. «.
“A lot of professors want comput
erized homework but they don’t give
students good instructions,” Sum
mers said. “If the professors want
students to use the technology, they
need to get down here and use the
systems themselves.”
Summers said a lot of businesses say
they use on the Internet because they
want to be known as companies on the
cutting edge of technology.
“In reality, they probably have one
guy who knows how to use e-mail,” he
said. “So any student who has Internet
skills is going to be very hireable.”
Dr. David Paradice, associate profes
sor of business analysis and research,
said more e-mail addresses are appear
ing on business cards.
“A few years ago it was novel to see
a fax number on a business card,”
Paradice said. “Now everybody has
one.”
Paradice said he thinks computeri
zation is going to continue to grow in
education without replacing the
classroom.
“It’s better for students to see a pro
fessor work out problems on the chalk
board than to simply see an answer
materialize out of nowhere,” Paradice
said. “We want to use technology
where it makes sense, not just for the
sake of using technology.”
Stew Milne / The Battalion
Dr. El-Shinnaway uses e-mail and a portable
laptop for teaching her BANA 439 class.
ourners crowd late Tejano singer’s funeral following Friday’s murder
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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — With a 2-
foot-high stack of white roses atop her casket,
Tejano music queen Selena was remembered
Monday for her laughter and inspiration to fel
low Mexican-American musicians.
I “She would want everyone to go on, including
her fans,” said Don Shelton, backup vocalists in
her band, Selena y Los Dinos. “She would want
leveryone to treat every day like a new day and
hold their heads up.”
I As services took place, prosecutors prepared
formal murder charges against Yolanda Sal
divar, a 32-year-old nurse from San Antonio who
founded the Selena Fan Club and became a per
sonal assistant to the emerging star.
Police accuse Saldivar of shooting the 23-year-
old Grammy-winning singer minutes before Sal
divar was about to be fired Friday amid embez
zlement accusations.
Selena Quintanilla Perez’s burial drew about
600 relatives, friends and music industry people
to a grave beside a freshly planted mesquite tree
in a new section of Seaside Memorial Park & Fu
neral Home.
Without words, Selena’s brother, bassist and
award-winning songwriter Abraham Quintanilla III,
embraced her guitarist husband, Chris Perez, before
the brief prayer service began.
Afterward, beginning with Selena’s mother,
Marcella Quintanilla, the mourners each placed
a white rose on her casket until it was stacked
more than 2 feet high.
“We’ve really appreciated that at a time like
this everybody is ...,” said one of Selena’s uncles,
Eddie Quintanilla, before pausing to switch into
Spanish.
“Dar su apoyo,” he finished, meaning “Giving
their support.”
More than 30,000 fans from across Texas
streamed past Selena’s casket during a public visi
tation Sunday, many of whom had journeyed from
all across Texas upon hearing the news of Selena’s
slaying at a budget hotel where she had gone alone
to meet Saldivar.
Accordion player Candyman Tovar, now with
the Texas Latino group, remembered that two
years ago he was nervous before a performance at
the Tejano Music Awards by his former group
“Culturas.”
Selena arrived to soothe his jitters, he said.
“She said: ‘We’re here together, brothers and
sisters, and we’ll take care of each other,”’ Tovar
said.
“We feel like we’ve had our hearts ripped out.
There’s so much emptiness now,” said Jimmy A.
Gonzalez, the marketing director at Selena’s Cor
pus Christi recording studio.
“There’ll never be another Selena, I tell you
that. She had everything in one package,” he
said, adding that one of her most memorable
qualities was her laughter.
“That’s all she was about — laughter. She
never said anything derogatory about anybody,”
he said.
Tejano music — a blend of traditional Mexi
can styles with German polka — has been in
Texas for decades, called “La Onda” (The Wave)
and Tex-Mex at various times.
In recent years it became known as Tejano —
meaning Texan. Selena’s career, which began at
age 9, propelled the sound well beyond this state,
where one in four citizens is of Hispanic origin.
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