cornell engagement | The Cornell Daily Sun

Opinion

DEMASSA & DELGADO | Swapping iClickers for iPhones

By Laura DeMassa & Canaan Delgado | April 8, 2019

In 1997, physics professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed our dear iClickers — the “i” denoting Illinois. It was an instructional triumph, engaging large lecture halls and providing immediate feedback on student comprehension. However, today — 22 years since the iClicker’s conception — the collegiate classroom looks vastly different due to the almost ubiquitous ownership of mobile devices. For reasons financial and pedagogical, Cornell should phase out iClickers in favor of integrated web-based polling apps, namely Poll Everywhere, that come at no cost to students if funded by the University. Students spend up to $50 per new iClicker device at the Cornell Store and a considerable price of around $35 for used ones.

Opinion

VALDETARO | Engaged Cornell Should be a Mantra, Not Just an Initiative

By Giancarlo Valdetaro | March 24, 2019

Last semester, my friend Evelyn Torres ’21 woke up at 6:30 a.m. every Wednesday to go to Belle Sherman Elementary School. There, she was a student teacher in a third-grade classroom for three hours as field work for Prof. Jeffrey Perry’s, developmental sociology, EDUC 2410: The Art of Teaching. Although I thought of the experience that prompted her tiredness later that day as a unique one among Cornell students, it turns out that there is a wide array of classes taught far above Cayuga’s waters that include in their curricula engagement in communities close to and far from the lake’s shores. In CS 5150: Software Engineering, a group of students is working to gamify snow-shoveling so that city sidewalks aren’t impassable for pedestrians of all ages and abilities following snowstorms. This semester, a group of students in GOVT 3121: Crime and Punishment are beginning research with two Cornell professors and a colleague at Ithaca College on the challenges of re-entry faced by those who have intersected with the criminal justice system in Ithaca and Tompkins County. In DEA 2203: StudioShift and DEA 2500: The Environment and Social Behavior, students are collaborating with Tompkins County Action to design a living space for 18 to 25-year-olds who don’t have a safe place to stay at night.