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Deleting Online Predators Act


ju66l3r

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http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.5319

 

House passed this bill 410-15-7. On to the Senate.

 

It's intent is to keep unsupervised children from using library or school computers to access "Social Networking Websites". This will somehow "delete" online predators...because the bill sponsors act as if the fishing pond will dry up for these criminals on those types of sites. Unfortunately, the bill does nothing about unsupervised kids using every other computer in the world. But, hey, they pulled 400+ votes in the House because who's NOT going to go on the record as wanted to delete online predators?

 

The problem: their definition as to what is a "Social Networking Website" is so overly broad that it includes half of the internet these days. Basically all you need is a profile and a way to post a journal or communicate with other users.

 

Hmm, sound like a certain caching-related website that any you might have heard about?

 

It gets worse (and off-topic) as some schools/teachers/libraries are using blog/MySpace/wiki technologies to communicate with young adults...but it also hits home a bit as your 15 year old isn't going to be allowed to log caches from the library without you sitting them on your lap if this passes.

 

http://www.congress.org - If you want to write your Representative to tell them what a luddite tool you think they are. If you want to write your Senator to tell them how far to throw this bill out the door. If your Representative was one of the 15, send them a thank you. If your Senator is on the committee handling the bill right now, send them a pretty please.

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The problem: their definition as to what is a "Social Networking Website" is so overly broad that it includes half of the internet these days. Basically all you need is a profile and a way to post a journal or communicate with other users.

 

Hmm, sound like a certain caching-related website that any you might have heard about?

 

It gets worse (and off-topic) as some schools/teachers/libraries are using blog/MySpace/wiki technologies to communicate with young adults...but it also hits home a bit as your 15 year old isn't going to be allowed to log caches from the library without you sitting them on your lap if this passes.

 

My school denied access to the major social networks (myspace, xanga, facebook, Blogspot/Blogger), a long time ago, but left geocaching.com available. I hope this doesn't change due to federal law. You're right--the definition and legal interpretation of "social networking website" is a big part of the issue.

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In many schools/libraries, a case might be made for geocaching.com as an educational website. Schools include geocaching in their curriculum would certainly have a case.

 

I completely agree.

 

But forget my thumbs up. They've been approved by several "family" review sites.

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Its a silly bill. It received so much support because everyone wants to go back to their constituients and say they worked to to eliminate online predators. No one wants to go into the next election and have his opponent claim that he is pro-online predator.

 

Still, as you mentioned, the bill does nothing about unsupervised kids using every other computer in the world, so its basically a non issue as far is geocaching is concerned.

Edited by briansnat
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Dumb bill.

 

"We're going to protect our children by placing them in a plastic bubble and not letting them into the real world until they are 18."

 

Yeah, right. Then they wouldn't have the skills to deal with the real world. It's as if some folks, and most dangerously some politicians, think you get some sort of gift of knowledge and skill on your eighteenth birthday that allows you to function on your own. "...in the meantime don't you worry your pretty little head."

 

Dumb bill.

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Well, you know politicians have to look like they're doing something.

 

However, this is easily solved by removing online access from places it doesn't belong anyway, i.e., libraries and schools.

 

-ajb

I have my students in the computer labs all the time in the science classes I teach. Every once in a while I get a parent that agrees with you--Usually because they have caught the kids doing something inappropriate online at home. I need my students to have online access. The key is to watch what they are doing, and have very good content filters.

 

Text books are already out of date by the time they are published, and once we buy a set we use them for four years. By the last year we are using a text the data can be ten years old. Not a big problem if you teach Shakesphere, but a huge problem in some science classes. The last set of books for my Earth Science classes still credited Jupiter with having only a small number of moons -18-- while claiming Uranus has none. It also had nothing on the rings of Uruanus. We now know of over 60 satellites for Jupiter and 23 for Uranus--and that each of the gas giants have rings. There have been similar discoveries in many science fields.

 

Every class in a high school can use the Interent for some advantage--animated clips of difficult to grasp concepts, additional reading, contacting the original author of a subject. The Interent isn't just for games and fun. You can browse original research, take virtual tours of art galleries in foreign countries, access remote telescopes, and so forth.

 

We have rigorous content filters at my school. Naturally things like MySpace and all the chat rooms are automatically blocked, and we have it set to block out every form of email from the student accounts. It works a bit too well, especially for some biology topics, and if I have certain websites I want the kids to be able to access, I have to preview the sites and turn them on if they are blocked. But I do have the option to turn on some pages leaving others blocked.

 

The key is supervision and structure. We used to not have all the fancy web filters and nifty features like the program that allows me to set up the teacher station to monitor the screens of every student. If little Johnnie is trying to look up hot rods or skateboards instead

of Lynn Margulis, I can redirect his page and send him a private pop-up note to stay on task. Before we starting using those kinds of tools, I had kids who would slop quickly through the assignment and then play around. If I caught them, their response was "But I finished the assignment"--Now they really don't have the choice to play and they stay on-task longer. I get much higher quality work from them and they learn more.

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owever, this is easily solved by removing online access from places it doesn't belong anyway, i.e., libraries and schools.

 

That statement is about as silly as the bill itself. Libraries are places to do research. The Internet is one of the most valuable research tools available. Schools are places to learn and there are probably as many ways to use the Internet to compliment the learning process as there are teachers.

Edited by briansnat
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owever, this is easily solved by removing online access from places it doesn't belong anyway, i.e., libraries and schools.

 

That statement is about as silly as the bill itself. Libraries are places to do research. The Internet is one of the most valuable research tools available. Schools are places to learn and there are probably as many ways to use the Internet to compliment the learning process as there are teachers.

 

Online access at libraries and schools can be advantageous to everyone. It's getting kids and students to use it for this purpose that is the key. Kids will be kids so there needs to be filters in place where public computers are in use. The biggest and most important thing is that parents need to look over their children's shoulders from time to time. They need to talk and express concerns they might have with their kids.

 

Myspace and other sites like this are not helpful at all and in fact, sometimes detrimental!

Edited by Mudfrog
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To those putting down MySpace, you need to seperate the technology from the use. Great power, great responsibility...and all that.

 

For example, http://www.myspace.com/lansingpubliclibrary

 

The Lansing, MI library is using MySpace to keep young adults, who have signed up as a "friend" of the library, updated in a format/media that they're used to checking already. They're hardly the only library doing this too.

 

But besides the nanny state mentality of the "Suburban Caucus" (50 Republican House members who are hoping to pander to suburbia concerns without regard to who/what they steamroll over), this bill overreachs and invades into GC.com, on top of a lot of other good sites on the internet which are not the havens/dens of child predators...in the way that the bill sponsors treat MySpace and online chat rooms.

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http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.5319

 

http://www.congress.org - If you want to write your Representative to tell them what a luddite tool you think they are. If you want to write your Senator to tell them how far to throw this bill out the door. If your Representative was one of the 15, send them a thank you. If your Senator is on the committee handling the bill right now, send them a pretty please.

 

And if your representative was one of the 7 that didn't vote, write em and ask em how the fishing was that day. <_<

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http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.5319

 

http://www.congress.org - If you want to write your Representative to tell them what a luddite tool you think they are. If you want to write your Senator to tell them how far to throw this bill out the door. If your Representative was one of the 15, send them a thank you. If your Senator is on the committee handling the bill right now, send them a pretty please.

 

And if your representative was one of the 7 that didn't vote, write em and ask em how the fishing was that day. <_<

 

Excellent - and thanks for your vote. I'm all about the little guy. <_<

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As a network admin for a public library I know our library would not block GC.com. I would however favor blocking myspace/facebook/myyearbook and a few others. myspace is on the top of my list due to the fact that there is quite a bit of "adult" material on there. We're in a tight situation on finding policies that do the best to appease the public and conform with federal, state, and local laws. For example it is illegal in the state of Indiana to "view" any "material" that could "harmfull to minors" most commonly pornography or nudity where minors are within "auditory or visual" range. Since we are a public library and do not forcebly seperate our childrens and adult sections the entire library falls under this law. Open sites like myspace make it increasingly difficult for us to keep a handle on this situation, by allowing users to post what ever they like adult or not makes us want to block their site to conform with the state law, however the actual social networking standpoint is desirable. We have already heard the threats about "freedom of speech" and it's begining to get straight annoying. My advice to anyone please don't look at porn in libraries.

just my $.05

-PMaholm

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I have my students in the computer labs all the time in the science classes I teach.

...

I need my students to have online access.

No, you don't. You like your students to have online access, you may prefer your students to have online access but you don't need it.

Text books are already out of date by the time they are published, and once we buy a set we use them for four years. By the last year we are using a text the data can be ten years old.

If your textbook is running 6 years behind before it's even published, the problem lies with your supplier.

Not a big problem if you teach Shakesphere, but a huge problem in some science classes. The last set of books for my Earth Science classes still credited Jupiter with having only a small number of moons -18-- while claiming Uranus has none. It also had nothing on the rings of Uruanus. We now know of over 60 satellites for Jupiter and 23 for Uranus--and that each of the gas giants have rings. There have been similar discoveries in many science fields.

Indeed. And in the extra time you have while not shuffling the kids down the hall to the computer lab you could make a lesson out of that.

Every class in a high school can use the Interent for some advantage--animated clips of difficult to grasp concepts, additional reading, contacting the original author of a subject. The Interent isn't just for games and fun. You can browse original research, take virtual tours of art galleries in foreign countries, access remote telescopes, and so forth.

When the schools[1] make real strides at producing kids skilled in the basics, then the above might make some sort of sense. However, more often than not, computers are a panacea rather than an advantage.

We have rigorous content filters at my school.

You misunderstand.

My problem is not with what skintones or naughty words the kids might see.

It's the wasted time, energy and resources used to provide online access with dubious benefit.

 

-ajb

[1] For all the teachers out there: Note that when I say schools, I mean the monolithic education system in general. I had some decent teachers, so please don't take what I say as an attack on your proficiency or skill.

Edited by madajb
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You misunderstand.

My problem is not with what skintones or naughy words the kids might see.

It's the wasted time, energy and resources used to provide online access with dubious benefit.

 

They did have electricity and those long, yellow things with lead in them where you went to school, pencils I think they cal them, right?

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owever, this is easily solved by removing online access from places it doesn't belong anyway, i.e., libraries and schools.

 

That statement is about as silly as the bill itself. Libraries are places to do research. The Internet is one of the most valuable research tools available. Schools are places to learn and there are probably as many ways to use the Internet to compliment the learning process as there are teachers.

 

My library has subscriptions to leading scientific journals, to peer-reviewed research, to online archives of magazines and cataloged data.

Those are valuable research tools.

Myspace, yahoo mail, livejournal, etc, are not and supplying access to such things takes up more of an already tight library budget every year.

 

As far as schools, I heard that same statement for filmstrips, for VCRs, for cable TV and not once have I seen any of those technological band-aids live up to their promise.

 

-ajb

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Wait, now we're a "Social Networking Website"???

 

or burning valuable company time surfing the web. <_<

 

Ssshhh.... online access is an invaluable work tool which multiplies my productivity while synergizing my focus on core competencies by expanding metrics in a global competitive marketplace thus ensuring an effective development process.

 

-ajb

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As a network admin for a public library I know our library would not block GC.com. I would however favor blocking myspace/facebook/myyearbook and a few others.

 

Then you know that blocking sites is a game you can never win.

The only way a blocking policy can work is by whitelisting, where each site has to be individually approved, something that takes already scarce resources.

Even that is not 100% effective, but it would probably meet anyone's definition of due care.

 

-ajb

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You misunderstand.

My problem is not with what skintones or naughy words the kids might see.

It's the wasted time, energy and resources used to provide online access with dubious benefit.

 

They did have electricity and those long, yellow things with lead in them where you went to school, pencils I think they cal them, right?

 

No, we had a slate and a soft cloth.

And each of us had to bring one piece of coal for the pot-stove in the wintertime.

 

-ajb

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My library has subscriptions to leading scientific journals, to peer-reviewed research, to online archives of magazines and cataloged data.

Those are valuable research tools.

Myspace, yahoo mail, livejournal, etc, are not and supplying access to such things takes up more of an already tight library budget every year.

 

When did the library become solely about research?

 

The last time I checked, the fiction section was just as big and probably more frequented. The internet has more to provide a library than just research tools. Unsupervised kids should be able to visit the library and use the internet to read their friends' latest journals as much as you or I could go to use the internet to read a self-published sci-fi book. The pretext (of the bill) is to keep unsupervised kids from becoming predator bait, not to untax the library's resources. Of course, how this bill's design somehow "deletes online predators" escapes me, but that's what they titled it (to get a 410-15-7 result).

 

As for school, my guess is that most are already filtering a number of these sites through their proxy servers and this bill would only serve to encompass what good is already done and go onward to target all sorts of things that may actually be useful in a lesson plan/learning design.

 

In the meantime, I don't see you giving up your GPSr anytime soon to hunt geocaches, right? I mean, 20 years ago, letterboxers were doing this with clues and a compass. Computers and internet can easily become a vital part to a good lesson plan regardless of how it was done "before".

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Dumb bill.

 

"We're going to protect our children by placing them in a plastic bubble and not letting them into the real world until they are 18."

 

Yeah, right. Then they wouldn't have the skills to deal with the real world. It's as if some folks, and most dangerously some politicians, think you get some sort of gift of knowledge and skill on your eighteenth birthday that allows you to function on your own. "...in the meantime don't you worry your pretty little head."

 

Dumb bill.

Man, now I gotta agree with CoyoteRed AGAIN. :laughing:

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When did the library become solely about research?

I did not claim it had.

The last time I checked, the fiction section was just as big and probably more frequented. The internet has more to provide a library than just research tools.

No argument from me.

Unsupervised kids should be able to visit the library and use the internet to read their friends' latest journals

I'd rather they read an actual book, rather than catching up on the latest gossip.

. Of course, how this bill's design somehow "deletes online predators" escapes me, but that's what they titled it (to get a 410-15-7 result).

Don't ask me, I'm not defending this bill. Ask Jaime Lee Curtis, isn't this the one she keeps hawking?

In the meantime, I don't see you giving up your GPSr anytime soon to hunt geocaches, right? I mean, 20 years ago, letterboxers were doing this with clues and a compass. Computers and internet can easily become a vital part to a good lesson plan regardless of how it was done "before".

I am not a Luddite.

It is my belief that online access (specifically, and computers in general) have dubious merits in certain environments.

 

-ajb

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It should also be noted that this Act would only apply if you are taking the Fed's money to supply your online access.

 

Reading the prelimanry definition of "social networking website" geocaching.com might well fall under it.

I suppose it depends on if they define "social networking" as being the primary use or a side use.

 

-ajb

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I have my students in the computer labs all the time in the science classes I teach.

...

I need my students to have online access.

No, you don't. You like your students to have online access, you may prefer your students to have online access but you don't need it.

I'll just cut to the chase--anyone who wants to see your entire reply will surely scroll up (Can you tell I hate long quotes?).

 

No, I need my students to have access--because I don't teach cookie cutter kids, I teach real people who want to learn diverse things about the same topic. I refuse to give them all nice little hand outs and make them learn as a group exactly what I think is most important. It's an information age, an age of inquiry, an age of booming scientific discoveries.

 

Perhaps I have news for you--ALL science textbooks are out of date before they get to print. The average new discovery takes one-two years to be tested and promoted at conferences before the data is accepted by the scientific community and published in science journals. After being published, it takes some time to be selected for the next edition of a text book. After all the articles in the text book are updated, revised, rewritten and so forth, the book goes through the usual editing. Then a small group (200 or so per stae usually) of teachers and science professionals get an opportunity to look it over for clarity, accuracy, readability, and other factors before accepting the book for the statewide adoption. After they see the copies, the publisher has a chance to make any corrections, and then finally the book is made available for school corporations to look at to decide which books to purchase for their schools the following year. Because many of these textbooks costs an average in excess of $100 each these days, even purchased in bulk, schools tend to hang on to the books until the next adoption round---four to six years later in most states.

 

There is a lot of new and exciting information out there that won't hit the textbooks for years. Students need that info now, and they need it in a way that its relevant to their own life. The young fellow who is going to be a nurse one day will not be interested in the same slant on science as the young lady who will become an architect. They will be curious about the topic of the day--but each in their own way. He might want to learn how some constellations came to have Arabic names, and she might be more concerned with learning how to measure the difference in luminosity of two stars. And if they are going to be able to find information that is relevant to their line of inquiry, they need online access.

 

By the way, it's a 35 second trip from my classroom to the computer lab--and that's the actual time it takes to get my kids from seat to seat and beginning to sign in. I used to have laptops and an airport in my room, so it was faster --but budget cuts did away with that sweet set-up.

 

They also need computer access to talk with actual researchers in the field, who give them live data. They need them to create webpages to store and share the data they create from their own original research that we do in the field. They need them to "peek" at live (or recorded) real-life telescope data. They need them for distance learning opportunities, such as watching live shuttle liftoffs (we're in Indiana) or astronaut interviews. They need them to ask questions of Polar research station personnel as part of a co-operative learning opportunity. They need them to crunch amazingly huge amounts of data and generate statistics so they can analyze the data they collect from hands-on experiments.

 

Many of thsoe things are at risk from a bill like the one discussed. I still say that responsible school have already taken most of the steps that are needed to avoid child predation in school. Now if they just weren't on line all night at home...

Edited by Team Neos
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No, I need my students to have access--because I don't teach cookie cutter kids

I reckon I must be a cookie cutter. My school did not have any computers, and I somehow survived.

I didn't have that kind of early education either, much to my dismay. I was stuck in a mold with teachers who told us what and how and when to think. Don't get me wrong, they were good teaches, even a few excellent teachers--that was just how it was done then. 'Twas a different day and age. Business and industry drives education and they want computer literacy, team workers, and creative thinkers. In my day (oh that makes me sound old, and I'm not really!) we were expected to be good little robots who did what we were told. I didn't have computers to use in school until I went back to college, about 1996, and then --suddenly--our professors were feeling pressured to create computer literacy in students. The high school kids I was in classes with didn't have any more exposure to computers than I did (most of them less, because I had computer geek friends), which told me that I arrived there just as the attitudes were changing. Education still worked on the old factory mentality oriented way even a mere five or six years ago--it's all changing now, even at the middle school and high school level.

Edited by Team Neos
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the internet is a tool.

 

like any tool there are people who will use it sensibly and those who will use it to do harm/bad things.

 

all we can do is teach people how to be carefull with the use of the tool. legislation wouldn't stop someone using a hammer to mug someone would it?

 

so just be carefull

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No, I need my students to have access--because I don't teach cookie cutter kids, I teach real people who want to learn diverse things about the same topic. I refuse to give them all nice little hand outs and make them learn as a group exactly what I think is most important. It's an information age, an age of inquiry, an age of booming scientific discoveries.

So your contention is that you could not teach your class without online access?

Perhaps I have news for you--ALL science textbooks are out of date before they get to print.

No doubt. But if it is 6 years out of date before even being printed, your process is broken.

Further, we are talking school-age kids for whom the latest cutting edge is less important than the basics.

Your example before (the moons) was a good one, but I think it is easily something that could be covered in class without the need to go online.

Because many of these textbooks costs an average in excess of $100 each these days, even purchased in Now if they just weren't on line all night at home...bulk, schools tend to hang on to the books until the next adoption round---four to six years later in most states.

It would be interesting to see actual costs on this.

Poking around online (heh) yielded an average cost range of $50-90, but no actual data.

There is a lot of new and exciting information out there that won't hit the textbooks for years. Students need that info now, and they need it in a way that its relevant to their own life.

No doubt there is a lot of new stuff out there, but I disagree that students "need that info now".

As I said before, show me students that have mastered basic concepts, and I'll vote for all the bells and whistles you like. Until then, online access is a distraction.

They also need computer access to talk with actual researchers in the field, who give them live data. They need them to create webpages to store and share the data they create from their own original research that we do in the field. They need them to "peek" at live (or recorded) real-life telescope data. They need them for distance learning opportunities, such as watching live shuttle liftoffs (we're in Indiana) or astronaut interviews. They need them to ask questions of Polar research station personnel as part of a co-operative learning opportunity. They need them to crunch amazingly huge amounts of data and generate statistics so they can analyze the data they collect from hands-on experiments.

They may need online access to do all of those things, but they don't need to do all of those things to learn science.

Many of thsoe things are at risk from a bill like the one discussed. I still say that responsible school have already taken most of the steps that are needed to avoid child predation in school.

From my reading of the bill, they aren't:

`(i) is enforcing a policy of Internet safety for minors that includes monitoring the online activities of minors and the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that--

 

`(I) protects against access through such computers to visual depictions

and

`(II) protects against access to a commercial social networking website or chat room unless used for an educational purpose with adult supervision; and'.

 

I imagine that most schools already have some sort of monitoring system/filter as you say.

Anything else you do in the classroom "social networking" wise would allowed.

 

And again, if your school finds unfettered online access neccesary to accomplish its mission, it's free to not take the Fed's money.

 

-ajb

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Dear God, please don't tell you base your educational methods on what business wants!

 

You really need to put a smilie on these so people know when your joking.

 

What else is the majority of education after the 6th grade for IF NOT to prepare you for the workplace. Almost every job, not to mention everyday life, requires interacting with a computer and that necessity is only going to increase.

 

I understand you are not a teacher and truly hope you do not have direct educational influence on a minor if you feel truly feel this way, however I suspect we are all being trolled here.

 

Having been a teacher, I wish some of these tools, in particular the Internet, was available to my students. Now that I am with a major corporation I pray they learn to use the tools effectively.

 

Unfortunately if this becomes law, it has little or no teeth. In many districts, parents support the filters, but just as many fight them. Filters can be easily bypassed, especially by people who have been raised with this technology. The only effective means for the schools is monitoring, and this is an area that parents have issues with.

 

There is not an easy solution to the problem, however make no mistake, computers and the Internet are not a nice to have in schools, they are a necessity to prepare for the world at large.

Edited by baloo&bd
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Business and industry drives education and they want computer literacy, team workers, and creative thinkers.

Dear God, please don't tell you base your educational methods on what business wants!

 

-ajb

 

I'd hope so! Otherwise I'd have had alot more difficulty in finding a decent job. McDonald's may not want such qualities, but those three items are skills that my employer desires - and are skills I need on a daily basis.

 

Many schools (particularly higher education) listen INTENTLY as to what business wants. After all, it does a school no good to turn out graduates that do not have the skills that employers seek.

 

To get back on-topic:

 

I think it would be a real stretch to classify GC com as a social networking site - the forums might not be as much as a stretch.

 

Either way, alot of noise over nothing.

Edited by Crystal Sound
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Either way, a lot of noise over nothing.

Noise? Yes. Nothing? Hardly.

 

Never underestimate the power of government to make any bad situation worse through well-meaning and pleasantly labeled legislation.

 

From flag burning to toilet tank capacities, from price and wage controls to creation-as-science, government regularly attacks symptoms instead of causes, micromanages our lives, nibbles away at our rights and liberties, and, in the process, generates all manner of new and (mostly) unintended problems.

 

Government: Let's be SAFE! Let's be GREEN! Let's be MORAL! Let's be GENEROUS! Let's be HEALTHY!

 

Citizens: Are you going to leave us alone and let us either be, or not be, those things as we see fit?

 

Government: Hell NO!! We're going to SHOVE it all DOWN YOUR THROATS!!!!

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I think it would be a real stretch to classify GC com as a social networking site - the forums might not be as much as a stretch.

 

Not as much of a stretch as you think:

 

`(i) is offered by a commercial entity;

`(ii) permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;

`(iii) permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;

`(iv) elicits highly-personalized information from users; and

`(v) enables communication among users.'.

 

Commercial, yep.

Online profile with personal info, yep.

Online journal with sharing, yep (found logs, for example).

Highly-personalized info, yep...sorta coincides with #2.

Enables communication among users, yep (there's like a dozen ways to talk between members because of the need to foster a community environment for the benefit of the hobby).

 

Imagine if a child predator were registered here watching your kid's every move and intimate caching detail described. This place could be a haven for these bad guys and they MUST be deleted! Quick, yank your kid off the site when you're not around...*that'll* stop them from coming here! :(

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Having come from a long line of educators, I'd rather see our schools focusing on teaching basic skills first, then teach computer skills. Our education system is churning out a gazillion students a year, (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration), who know how to download photos to MySpace, but can't work calculus/trig on paper to save their lives. Students graduate knowing the life history of their favorite rap "artist", but don't have sufficient language skills to converse in business. Students know what LOL, BRB & WHTEVR means, yet they can't read Heinlein or Voltaire. Students can load MP3 files onto their Ipods so they can listen to Eminem on the way to school, but can't tell you what Tchaikovsky wrote.

Pitiful.

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Having come from a long line of educators, I'd rather see our schools focusing on teaching basic skills first, then teach computer skills. Our education system is churning out a gazillion students a year, (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration), who know how to download photos to MySpace, but can't work calculus/trig on paper to save their lives. Students graduate knowing the life history of their favorite rap "artist", but don't have sufficient language skills to converse in business. Students know what LOL, BRB & WHTEVR means, yet they can't read Heinlein or Voltaire. Students can load MP3 files onto their Ipods so they can listen to Eminem on the way to school, but can't tell you what Tchaikovsky wrote.

Pitiful.

 

You're confusing "basic" with "classic".

 

If the kids of today are technologically savvy enough to program a USB/Firewire device, upload image files to a website, and translate symbol-code into natural language, then their job prospects are very good. Tchaikovsky, Voltaire, and handwritten calculus are also useful in their own ways but do not necessarily get them a job when the boss will expect their quarterly spreadsheet/report by e-mail...not carrier pigeon.

 

An example: A few years ago, my mother's hospital moved to a paperless records system after their VAX mainframe (primarily for ordering) died and was replaced by modern technology. Jumping two feet first into the modern era for all units, 80% of the nurses in the hospital had to undergo Technology Training. The first lesson (that most had problems with) was "what is a mouse...how to point and click".

 

The technological differences of our society from when *I* was in high school (1990-94) until now are huge. In 1st grade, we saw a Commodore 64 play the lemonade game and it was astounding. In 1997, I worked as an electrician and installed ethernet cabling into a brand-new kindergarten classroom. Suggesting that today's students would be better off focusing on the classics at the expense of the moderns is highly limiting. I do statistics and calculus all of the time these days in my current field. I don't need to know how to do it on paper any more with Matlab and Mathematica available to me...but I'm sure glad I taught myself how to use a computer in transitioning from paper to monitor screen.

 

Computer literacy via Social Networking Sites, including our own GC.com, is a great way to engage today's students in a life skill they'll need and a method that they want to use. If these technologies (blogs, wiki, RSS, social networking) are also then implemented in quality lesson plans, all the better. Whether for recreation or not, minors should then be able to access these things even when unsupervised at school or at the library. There are already protections against other materials that we determine to be unhealthy for them to have access to (none of which exists here at GC.com...but DOPA would wholesale swat at here anyways).

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No, I need my students to have access--because I don't teach cookie cutter kids, I teach real people who want to learn diverse things about the same topic. I refuse to give them all nice little hand outs and make them learn as a group exactly what I think is most important. It's an information age, an age of inquiry, an age of booming scientific discoveries.

So your contention is that you could not teach your class without online access?

No, I didn't say that. I could teach my class on the lawn next to the school with no materials whatsoever. We'd use broken twigs to scrape symbols into the dirt or onto the sidewalk. if need be. It wouldn't be very effective, and it certainly wouldn't be very enjoyable, but it's possible. Computers, other electronics, and the Internet are part of today's technology, and it would be negligent of me not to employ them.

 

You either don't value individual learning or just completely ignored all the reasons to use the technology so you could better argue your response, so I won't repeat myself, but will just refer you to that last post again for the validation of why I do choose to use them.

 

As for costs per book, the prices you found on the Internet likely have nothing to do with the cost paid real high schools in my state. I did a hunt myself, and found a copy of the previous text for one of my classes for sale as a used book at Amazon for $69.70--that was the version printed in 2001. College texts are even worse. My daughter paid almost $200 for an Anatomy text last semester--of course it was discontinued for this semster, so she can't even sell it back. Our AP classes also use college texts. The discount we receive on those is even smaller than for our regular classes, because we aren't buying in bulk. State law where I live makes it illegal for school to make money off textbooks. We are one of the last few that still charge textbook rental fees. If we keep a book for four years, we divide the cost per year. The average textbook rental for the science department students is $24.80; other departments have lower costs generally. If the cost of textbooks continues to increase though, many schools may consider switching to electronic versions of the text. I personally hope they don't, as reading MacBeth off an iPod doesn't have the same romance as holding a musty leather book.

 

Frankly, I'm a bit mystified why someone involved in the electronics-rich activity of geocaching, who likes to converse online in this forum, would be averse to students using computers. That's a bit ironic, in my opinion.

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What else is the majority of education after the 6th grade for IF NOT to prepare you for the workplace.

Well, gee, here I was thinking the purpose of the school system was to turn out well-educated children, skilled in the basics with the free-thinking ability to acquire proficiency with any tool(including online access) presented to them.

(Man, does that sound like a mission statement. heh).

I understand you are not a teacher and truly hope you do not have direct educational influence on a minor if you feel truly feel this way, however I suspect we are all being trolled here.

Because I have serious reservations about the efficacy of online access in the classroom, I must be either a troll or an unfit guardian?

Filters can be easily bypassed, especially by people who have been raised with this technology. The only effective means for the schools is monitoring, and this is an area that parents have issues with.

A well-maintained whitelist filtering system is impossible for probably 95% of the population to circumvent, and highly difficult for the rest. However, this approach is resource intensive and intrusive to the users.

A better solution is to remove online access completely or, as I said upthread, refuse Federal assistance for online access.

That would free the school to implement (or not implement) whichever system they felt suited their needs.

 

-ajb

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I'd hope so! Otherwise I'd have had alot more difficulty in finding a decent job. McDonald's may not want such qualities, but those three items are skills that my employer desires - and are skills I need on a daily basis.

 

Many schools (particularly higher education) listen INTENTLY as to what business wants. After all, it does a school no good to turn out graduates that do not have the skills that employers seek.

No doubt they are.

However, I have a fundamental problem with the idea that schools exist to churn out well-trained worker bees.

 

-ajb

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I do statistics and calculus all of the time these days in my current field. I don't need to know how to do it on paper any more with Matlab and Mathematica available to me...but I'm sure glad I taught myself how to use a computer in transitioning from paper to monitor screen.

The thing is though, (and this goes more towards computers in schools than online access in schools) is that you _do_(or did) know how to do it on paper.

I see many kids today who don't know _why_ the computer or calculator gave them the answer, they just trust the answer is right.

With you, having done it by hand and knowing the type of value to expect, if the computer kicks out something wrong (because you hit a wrong key or something), you'll be able to spot it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting the kids calculate their own log tables, or whip out the slide rule to add a column of numbers, but too often computers in the classroom are a triumph of style of substance.

If these technologies (blogs, wiki, RSS, social networking) are also then implemented in quality lesson plans, all the better. Whether for recreation or not, minors should then be able to access these things even when unsupervised at school or at the library. There are already protections against other materials that we determine to be unhealthy for them to have access to (none of which exists here at GC.com...but DOPA would wholesale swat at here anyways).

Well, as passed by the House, the Act does contain an educational exemption, so I think geocaching.com will be safe in our schools.

 

-ajb

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You either don't value individual learning or just completely ignored all the reasons to use the technology so you could better argue your response, so I won't repeat myself, but will just refer you to that last post again for the validation of why I do choose to use them.

No, I did see them and they do sound like a lot of fun.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning your dedication or skill. You sound like an interesting teacher.

But it's my experience that you are the exception, not the rule.

 

Too often, the educational system jumps onto the latest technological bandwagon, rides it for all it's worth, than abruptly changes course. It may be that individual lessons guided by the teacher is the way of the future, but I am wary of the seemingly wholesale adoption of teaching methods that are, as near as I can tell, untested and unproven.

As for costs per book, the prices you found on the Internet likely have nothing to do with the cost paid real high schools in my state.

Yeah, it's hard to say. There were quotes from purchasing managers and school board officials who presumably should be accurate, but with no actual data, it's hard to be sure.

It's interesting about the book rental fees, I've not come across such a thing before.

Who says online forums can't be educational? heh.

Frankly, I'm a bit mystified why someone involved in the electronics-rich activity of geocaching, who likes to converse online in this forum, would be averse to students using computers. That's a bit ironic, in my opinion.

Perhaps. I even work in IT.

Maybe I sat through one too many filmstrips when the teacher needed to balance her checkbook. One too many videotaped 5-day Roots marathons. Too often technology is a crutch for bad teachers rather than an aid to good ones. I'd rather we spent the money schools now spend on IT infrastructure to train, recruit, and compensate excellent teachers.

 

-ajb

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A well-maintained whitelist filtering system is impossible for probably 95% of the population to circumvent, and highly difficult for the rest. However, this approach is resource intensive and intrusive to the users.

A better solution is to remove online access completely or, as I said upthread, refuse Federal assistance for online access.

That would free the school to implement (or not implement) whichever system they felt suited their needs.

 

I do now work in IT and this statement here does tell me you are simply trolling. No resonible individual could come to these conclusions you have spewed forth over several posts

 

A whitelist is only as good as the information that is in it. They tend to be reactive in that it is a discovered threat or site. As almost anyone with a PC knows, there are sites coming on line everyday that allow you to get around these whitelist, blacklists and other filtering schemes. Anyone with a 11 year oold or older knows that these holes spread like wildfire in the hallways.

 

I saw you mentioned a slide rule in one of your other posts. That to was consider a crutch at one time and a threat to real education.

 

I'm not feeding the troll any longer.

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I saw you mentioned a slide rule in one of your other posts. That to was consider a crutch at one time and a threat to real education.

Thank you for opening this ol' geezer's eyes. I did not know that. Is this a factual claim, or just an opinion? Can you support it with something other than, "my grandaddy told me so"? I come from an era of sliderules, and I never got the impression that they were frowned upon. (not looking for an argument. I'd just like to look at the data)

Thanx!

 

I'm not in IT, nor could I ever be. The most complicated computer I'm capable of operating is the lil' slide thingy on the toaster that goes from light to dark. :laughing: But if Al Gore ever takes his invention away, (the Internet), at least I'll still be able to figure the area of a circle.

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legislation wouldn't stop someone using a hammer to mug someone would it?

 

There's a gun control argument in there somewhere...

 

I KID, I KID.

 

-ajb

 

don't kid what do you think happened over here?

 

and what has it done to stop people being shot with illegal handguns? nothing.

 

dont stop the legal users of the web, find the abusers and lock them up until such time as they can be trusted to stop. if that's never then sorry that's how long they stay away. :laughing:

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