questions to Public Policy
graduate
student
Heath
Bergmann,
a
captain
in
the U.S. Army, Chemistry
chief
administrator
Jan
Malaikal,
a
retired
U.S.
Army lieutenant colonel and
Troy Nienberg, legislative
director for U.S. Rep. Dan
Kildee, D-Mich. and an Air
National Guard officer.
The event was organized
in part by lecturer Stephanie
Sanders, the Public Policy
School’s Diversity, Equity
and
Inclusion
officer.
Sanders said she felt it is
important for citizens to
understand
how
policy
affects
those
who
have
served in our country.
“I think because if we want
to think about recruiting
and retaining veterans for
workforce
development
in
our
organization,
it’s
important
for
those
of
us in the organization to
understand where veterans
come from,” Sanders said.
After a brief introduction
by Public Policy School Dean
Michael Barr, veterans were
asked questions regarding
their time in active duty as
well as their transition back
to civilian life. Bergmann,
Malaikal and Nienberg all
agreed though there are
decent support systems for
veterans currently in place,
there could be more done
to give more people access
to resources after serving.
Though
most
veterans
receive benefits from the
government
after
being
discharged
related
to
housing, health care and
education, the panelists said
local communities and close
friends and family play a
crucial role in facilitating a
veteran’s transition back to
civilian life.
A central topic of the
discussion was the stigma
surrounding
the
concept
of
post-traumatic
stress
disorder.
The
panelists
said
veterans
who
have
experienced combat often
struggle to cope with these
memories
once
they’ve
returned home, but Malaikal
said she doesn’t want people
to call this a “disorder.”
“We expose our veterans
to all kinds of abnormal
circumstances, and they’re
reacting normally,” Malaikal
said. “They’re reacting in
ways that someone who has
seen extreme violence and
destruction would react.”
Instead
of
making
veterans
feel
like
their
reactions
are
somehow
abnormal
or
unjustified,
Malaikal
suggested
the
term PTSD be renamed so
the term doesn’t connote
negativity.
Speaking on the same
subject, Nienberg discussed
how
he
channeled
his
experiences in combat into a
positive learning experience
after hearing Secretary of
Defense James Mattis refer
to a veteran’s experience as
“post-traumatic growth.”
Nienberg said veterans are
able to transfer the emotional
stress
from
combat
into
positive empathy at home.
Radesky, a pediatrician, and her
team found after analyzing 135
of the most popular free and paid
apps for children 5 years old and
younger. She began the project
with the goal of simply analyzing
the prevalence and structure of
childhood apps when she became
concerned about the advertising
content and its impact on the
audience of children. The team
had researchers explore the apps
and evaluate their advertisements
in categories such as pop-up
ad videos, in-app purchases or
prompts to rate the app.
“The
reason
I
care
about it as a developmental
behavioral pediatrician is the
distraction caused by advertising
in apps can lead to a less
meaningful experience when a
child is engaging with the app,”
Radesky said. “I am not only
concerned about the distracting
nature of ads, but we also found
ads that are inappropriate for
children.”
Radesky
said
the
study
uncovered potentially unethical
advertising for young children,
as children ages six to eight
may not be able to recognize
and distinguish advertisements
from the app itself. According to
Radesky, those concepts are too
abstract for children of that age
to understand. In their analysis,
the team tracked advertising that
manipulated children to tap or
download certain programs and
collected data from the device.
“I think the majority of apps on
the market for young kids are not
going to be helpful, necessarily,”
Radesky said. “Most of them have
not been proven to be educational
even
if
they
are
labeled
educational. It winds up becoming
not helpful (to the child) and in
some cases potentially harmful.”
They
also
noticed
some
advertisements in apps that were
not
age-appropriate,
including
violent of political ads, potentially
doing damage to the child. While
many apps are categorized as
educational, Radesky said apps
could actually introduce children
to unexpected content.
LSA junior Kendra Nash, a
psychology student who works in
a school with young children, has
concerns about the influence of
inappropriate advertisements on
children.
“Screens
are
becoming
a
pseudo-babysitter
for
many
children and they can have
harmful
side
effects,”
Nash
said. “This is especially an issue
because phones store information
and display ads that might be
appropriate for adults, but not for
the children who are using their
parents’ phones.”
Nash spent her summer working
in an autism center that advocated
for technology use. She said with
YouTube becoming increasingly
popular for kids, limiting their
exposure to inappropriate content
is difficult.
“The autism center I worked at
… allowed and even encouraged
the children as young as four to
use phones,” Nash said. “The staff
were basically told that we can’t
restrict their access to videos at
camp because they have access
to it at home and we can’t disrupt
their routines.”
Radesky noted there are some
well-crafted apps developed for
children, such as the apps for
Sesame Street and PBS Kids, but
many are not free. She categorized
most apps as “gamified play
experience” and said children can
have better experiences in the real
world.
“What I do find with many of
my patients is the parents let the
child download what they want,”
Radesky said. “Our study suggests
that could lead to a lot of low-
quality free apps that collect data
from the device or bombard the
child with lots of advertisements.”
Radesky said it’s possible the
advertising elements in apps can
impose a high cognitive load on
children when they pay attention
to fast-paced media. According
to Radesky, children struggle to
focus and have lower executive
functioning and impulse control
after consumption of this type of
media.
LSA junior Marisa Meyer joined
Radesky’s study as a research
assistant because she wanted to
better understand and improve
childhood media.
“There’s
a
widespread
acceptance of children’s apps,
without a real understanding
of
what’s
included
in
these
apps,” Meyer wrote in an email
interview. “I was interested in
learning more about its presence
in early childhood, and wanted
to contribute to a study that can
help improve children’s media
environment.”
Meyer said children use mobile
devices for about one hour per day,
on average. The study revealed
95 percent of the apps studied in
the age five and under category
contained at least one type of
advertising, and 100 percent of
free apps contained advertising
as opposed to the 88 percent of
purchased apps.
them after facing difficulties
scheduling courses needed for
his Computer Science major.
“With my experience with
the
courses
in
Computer
Science the main problem is you
don’t really know what you’re
going to be taking,” Salvador
said.
“It
really
helped
me
improve my experience in terms
of scheduling and planning
my semester because I could
add — for some classes — like
4 different discussion sections,
which you can attend to any
of those in CS courses. I could
really understand all of the
possibilities of how my schedule
would look but using only this
tool.”
Though some students have
started using Coursicle, others
use
Schedule
Builder,
the
University-provided
platform
for students to visually see
schedule combinations and plan
their semester.
Still, other students are not
looking for scheduling help, but
rather information on specific
courses, which Coursicle does
not provide.
Many choose to use the
University-backed
Academic
Reporting Tools, or ART 2.0.
Like Coursicle, ART 2.0 allows
students to check courses for
the upcoming semester, but
it does not have the option to
create a class schedule or track
open seats in a class. Instead,
ART 2.0 focuses on providing
separate tabs for “instructors,”
“majors” and “courses.” It also
lets students look at professor
ratings, see what kinds of
classes people in a certain major
tend to take and look at grade
distributions.
The Michigan Daily has also
launched Grade Guide, which
allows students to compare
grade
distributions
among
classes to help decide which
classes might fit their desired
level of academic rigor.
Salvador
commented
he
was not familiar with ART
2.0, and finds he needs a
schedule platform more than an
informational guide.
“I
have
not
used
that
platform. I don’t know how old
it is,” Salvador said. “If it’s old
then the University has done a
really terrible job promoting it.
I try to keep updated with stuff
regarding technology around
campus ... If I really missed it
and it was good, then I guess it
was my bad.”
But ART 2.0’s creators say
the user base of their tool has
grown a lot over the last year —
they say nearly half the students
on campus use it. Throughout
the fall 2018 term, the site has
averaged around 500 visits
a day. The website also has a
feedback feature, and over the
past year and a half has received
about 60 suggestions.
Prof.
August
Evrard,
faculty lead of ART 2.0, said
collaboration between students
and designers is crucial when
it comes to creating the most
effective interface for ART 2.0.
“A lot of the design of ART
and its functionality is built
out by student interns,” Evrard
said. “The office hires interns
and they do fantastic work,
we’re engaging right now with
a School of Information class
(SI 501) and a team called
Team Blue Solution is working
with us to explore how course
descriptions
are
managed
across the University.”
LSA junior Yara El-Tawil
has consulted ART 2.0 before
taking classes. She hoped the
tool would give her a better
perspective about her workload
for the upcoming semester.
the University of knowing
of
Daniels’s
abusive
behavior towards him and
other students and still
declining to take further
actions.
On
Oct.
31,
Daniels
denied all of the accusations
of
sexual
assault
and
misconduct in a statement
sent to the Detroit Free
Press.
Whether
the
Music,
Theatre & Dance School
will be keeping Daniels
on the faculty is still in
question. Daniels has not
officially been fired, but
there has not been an
interim
professor
hired
since his leave. Daniels still
receives pay and benefits
from the University because
of his leave status.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, November 13, 2018 — 3
COURSES
From Page 1
OPERA
From Page 1
SACUA
From Page 1
APPS
From Page 1
WE LLNESS ZONE
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
E. Royster Harper speaks at CAPS Graduate Student Wellness Zone Opening Celebration at Munger Graduate
Residences on Monday.
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
People test massage chairs at CAPS Graduate Student Wellness Zone Opening Celebration at Munger Graduate Residences on Monday.
VETERANS
From Page 1
and staff. Pendse was appointed
this August.
Pendse
previously
served
in a similar capacity at Brown
University. When arriving at
the University this summer,
Pendse said he wondered why
the University wasn’t one of
the top leaders in technology
use in the classroom and across
campus.
From
employing
technological
advancements
like
voice
recognition
of
professors in the classroom, or
transparency for students in
regards to how their personal
data is used by the University,
Pendse asked the assembly to
consider the implementation of
such breakthroughs.
“The question is now … would
it be possible when I walk into
the classroom for it to recognize
me and have the technology
in the classroom adapt to my
needs?” Pendse said.
Pendse
explained
his
philosophy
behind
effective
communication between him
and his staff. In his job, he
provides staff with weekly
memos and offers his cell phone
number if they ever want to
contact him when off the clock.
Pendse emphasized the need to
relay missions of teamwork and
unity to his staff by making goals
for the technology aspect of the
Read more at
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Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
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