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STARTUP
Secure a parking spot with Park Ave New app. could be the parking solution our university needs MIKE BRESTOVANSKY Campus Reporter
The game hasn’t even started, but there’s already fighting in the streets. The fans mill about and shout angrily at each other as they vie for position. But, despite the fury of the combatants, the fight is moot. After all, the parking lot is full. At OU, the problem is inescapable. Finding a parking space during a major sporting event can seem like an impossible task. However, a team at the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth is working on a way to achieve the impossible. “Park Ave is an online platform and iPhone application to streamline the process of connecting buyers and sellers of private parking at special events,” said Sarah Yung, an industrial systems engineering senior and team leader for the project. The application is simple. Sellers can post their parking spots on Park Ave for free, and buyers are able to reserve and pay for their preferred parking spots entirely online, Yung said. While the app is ideal for securing parking
at sporting events and concerts, it could also be used daily for commuters, Yung said. “Parking seems to be an issue everyone runs into on a day-to-day basis,” said Meghan Saunders, a public affairs and administration junior and business intern for Park Ave. “When we thought about OU game days, in particular, this seemed like the perfect application to solve these issues,” she said. A team of 13 students from across six OU colleges was selected by CCEW to develop Park Ave. The project, which began in January, received $10,000 in seed funding from the Sooner Launch Pad accelerator program, which provides funding and support students’ business ventures. “The official project ends this semester, and then it will transition from being in the hands of CCEW to being an actual business,” Yung said. The team hopes to begin early alpha testing of Park Ave this summer and transition to beta testing by early fall, iOS developer Nick Sparks said. Ideally, Park Ave will be available on Android devices in the future, but for now, the team is targeting only iOS devices, Sparks said. Over the next six years, the team hopes to
JESSICA WOODS/THE DAILY
Graduate student Matthew Stangl and University College freshman Jeffrey Terry look on as computer science sophomore Jeremy Littel and computer science junior Ali Hajimirza debate aesthetic changes to their soon-to-be debuted website and iOS app. Their project, entitled Park Ave, will help homeowners in the campus metro sell their parking spots on game days and other busy parking days in advance of the event.
expand Park Ave from the Norman area to Oklahoma City, Stillwater, Dallas, Houston and Austin. “There’s no reason to believe (Park Ave) couldn’t work anywhere in the U.S.,” Yung said. The team will publicly unveil the first
TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
OLD VS EMMA SULLIVAN CAMPUS REPORTER
A
fter OU launched its Digital Initiative in summer 2012, there has been an influx of open-source content and changes in the way professors and students see the classroom. The Daily spoke with two professors from similar disciplines about how technology has affected their teaching. They teach similar subjects and groups of students, but one professor has been teaching for 38 years and the other for just three.
prototype of Park Ave at its final presentation at Sam Noble Museum of Natural History on Tuesday. Attendees must RSVP by emailing the CCEW at ccew@ou.edu. Mike Brestovansky, mcbrestov@gmail.com
ATHLETICS
Soccer more than just a sport for some
NEW
Lack of lit fields at OU cause issues for students and intramural teams alike TONY BEAULIEU Life & Arts Editor
EDGAR O’REAR III
DIANA BAIRAKTAROVA Experience: three years Subjects taught : Dynamics and Interactive Engineering Design Graphics Both of the courses Bairaktarova teaches are simultaneously fundamental and abstract. Because of this, her students need a lot of examples to learn to solve problems, she said. Bairaktarova starts class every day by demonstrating the real-world value of whatever she is teaching her students, instead of just teaching them its theoretical value. “I once used a figure skater to present the moment of inertia to my students,” Bairaktarova said. Following this example, Bairaktarova presents four to five problems for students to solve, but she lectures for no more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time. She encourages the students to solve these problems themselves in groups, but she will help if they get stuck, Bairaktarova said. Bairatarova is a big believer in the different types of learning: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. At the beginning of each semester, she conducts a learning style survey so she can meet her students’ learning needs. “My most important job is to create a learning environment that maintains my students’ motivation,” Bairaktarova said. Bairaktarova uses Desire to Learn (D2L) to post lectures, power points, solutions to problems from class and notes for her students. By doing this, she can see how many times the students use those materials. “When I was in college, we didn’t really use technology. Now it’s amazing what we can do,” Bairaktarova said.
Experience: 38 years (33 at OU) Subjects taught: Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer I, various upper-division, graduate and honors courses “My teaching style has changed over the course of my career,” O’Rear said. O’Rear started out as a traditional lecturer and now has become more of a hybrid-style teacher, meaning that he lectures some but also includes activities both on paper and computers. “For example, I once had my students design a depth gauge for scuba divers,” O’Rear said. During activities, O’Rear walks around his classrooms to check how his students are doing. “I like to have a classroom that allows me to be among my students,” O’Rear said. O’Rear uses the chalk/white board in class but also uses a document camera and a laptop. His students are required to have a computer or iPad, so they can work on some problems that require the technology. O’Rear uses D2L for all of his learning material. Some is covered in class and some is supplementary, he said. He provides a “methods for success” area in D2L that lists where students can get help if they need it and also provides a bulletin board for students to introduce themselves to other classmates and form study groups. Since O’Rear was in school, he has noticed changes in the variety of eating options, the amount of students wearing backpacks and also noted that students now use two hands when working with a calculator instead of one. This is a result, he believes, of texting. O’Rear’s only concern with all the new technology is that students don’t have as much time for contemplative thinking.
When petroleum engineering senior Abdulrahman Alsousy first came to OU six years ago, he came carrying a soccer ball. “The first day I got here, I bought a ball and looked for people,” Alsousy said. Disappointed by the absence of an OU men’s school soccer team, Alsousy set out to organize his own independent group. Growing up, Alsousy learned to play soccer at the same time he learned to walk, perhaps even before. Alsousy’s father tells him stories of witnessing him practice shooting the ball with both feet in the back yard when he was just four years old. He can’t remember this, but as far back as he can remember, Alsousy has loved the game of soccer. Alsousy got a few phone numbers his first week at OU, and his ad-hoc soccer group started right away with five members. Membership doubled in the second week, and by the end of the semester, the number of regular players had steadily climbed to 20. The group has evolved during Alsousy’s time at It’s very dangerous OU and currently includes more than 100 members. because it has holes It now exists as a more caand stuff... Not the sual alternative to OU’s ofbest place to play.” ficial intramural and club programs — where soccer ABDULRAHMAN ALSOUSY, lovers, OU students or not, ENGINEERING SENIOR can gather every week and play just for fun. On the soccer field is where Alsousy is happiest. “I forget about everything,” Alsousy said. “I get to be creative, have fun, make friends.” Yet the university’s lack of lit fields has been a major challenge for Alsousy’s group, as well as other intramural sports at OU. During the winter months, when the sun goes down at 5:30 p.m., the only lit field the soccer group could find was at Lion’s Park on Flood Ave. “It’s very dangerous because it has holes and stuff,” Alsousy said. “Not the best place to play.” Paul Kingery is another leader in the group along with Alsousy. Kingery grew up in Norman and attended OU briefly before moving on to UCO. In 2008, after receiving a master’s degree in theology from Midwestern Baptist
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