Celebrating 30 years

By Janee Mitchell - Feature Writer

Illinois Issues has been dedicated to providing quality news coverage for 30 years and every issue involved coverage of important topics such as; the constitution, other constitutional issues, world affairs, handicapped citizens, voters, crimes and congressional issues.

Illinois Issues focused on the various issues surrounding government with a reactive approach and gradually moved towards being proactive, while still reacting to the issues that arose in government.

In some of their 1975 issues the more descriptive tones of the inner workings of the governmental system can be seen throughout the articles. The stories appeared to take a more passive, yet necessary approach to governmental issues. This stance was necessary because it was what the times called for.

With the coming years as society changed and the various facets of Government began to shift into a body that encompassed the interests or at least appeared to encompass the interests of society, Illinois Issues grew as well. Illinois Issues grew from a strong news source to an even stronger one as it developed more things to write about and more of a voice to report in.

Illinois Issues was already succeeding in providing quality news coverage but with the changing times it gained more reader interest through continuing to cover the important issues and keeping up with the new developments or attempts at policy making. The articles also included more women's issues, information on sex crimes, healthcare and the election of Supreme Court justices among other things.

In the beginning of Illinois Issues' history they were informative and gradually grew to become the Illinois Issues seen today, an informative public affairs magazine that not only informs the public but writes stories in such a way as to compel an action upon the part of its readers and legislative bodies.

The mission statement of the Illinois Issues magazine reads, “ the magazine pays close attention to current trends and legislative issues, and examines the state's quality of life. The magazine also engages its readers in dialogue, enhancing the quality of public discourse in Illinois .” The magazine has followed this promise through for 30 years.

Illinois Issues will be celebrating its 30-year history on Friday Sept. 30 at the Union League Club of Chicago. Individual tickets are 40 dollars and group tables of 8 are available for 450 dollars. According to sources Chicago state representatives, Susana Mendoza and Robert Molaro, Belleville state senator, James Clayborne Jr., Tom Cross, Illinois house GOP and Attorney General Lisa Madigan will be among the participants.

The Center for State Policy and Leadership said the celebration luncheon will feature “a panel discussion on future challenges facing Illinois (and) will be moderated by former Governor Jim Edgar.”

The Illinois Issues staff, while already celebrating 30 years of accomplishments, looks toward a bright future. The Illinois Issues editors said, “ but this much is certain: Illinois government and politics have changed in the past three decades. Illinois Issues is about to enter its fourth decade of publication, and next year we'll celebrate that achievement with a look forward. In the final months of this year, we'll take a look back at where we've been .

UIS professor brings podcasting and vodcasting to the university

By Janee Mitchell - Feature Writer

Michael Cheney embarks on a fresh start as he pioneers new technology at UIS. The technology of podcasting and vodcasting is a relatively new technique growing in popularity. Wikipedia attributes the growing popularity and use of podcasting to the latter part of 2004. Wikipedia said vodcasting is an emerging technology and it allows video on demand that can be seen via a portable media player.

With the support of educational technology services Cheney uses vodcasting and podcasting to instruct online courses. According to educational technology, “a multimedia project is organized so as to promote empowerment of the student. Elements contained in such a project enable the instructor to deploy varied apt technological means to increase student motivation to learn.”

The educational technology website proudly bares images and a brief description of the new technology Cheney uses to teach “The Beatles: Popular Music and Society.” In a statement Cheney said, “I came up with the idea as a way to further enrich the online learning experience. Having students not only read the material-but also listen to my comments and view images-gives them a fuller experience, especially because this course deals with many sounds and images.”

Victoria Brinson, biology major, is currently taking an online course and she said her lectures are on audiotape. Brinson said that with podcasting and vodcasting widely available to the students she would “be able to understand the material better if I heard the lecture instead of trying to learn it on my own.” Brinson also said, “having an audio (file) there to listen to while you learn may create incentive to wanting to learn the material because there is something there to keep your interest.”

The university may have found its edge with podcasting and vodcasting, according to sources, and now Cheney's use of podcasting and vodcasting is being discussed in some classrooms. According to www.masternewmedia.org “ although Podcasting and, more recently, Vodcasting (or video-casting) have taken the online world by storm, with geeks and their like adopting these new RSS 2.0-based digital content broadcasting and distribution technologies with huge enthusiasm, their impact outside of geek-dom has, so far, been quite limited.”

There have been some arguments on the effects of podcasting and vodcasting but overall the technology is seen positively as a means to enhance the learning experience.

Celebrating 30 years

UIS professor brings podcasting and vodcasting to the university