Blogs
Risk of using the Interent Perspective
Submitted by admin on Thu, 01/11/2007 - 10:16am.The enclosed blog post link contains a good perspective on the risk of using the Internet.
"We don't take a "zero risk" approach with our sports programs where the chance of injury, paralysis, and, in rare cases, death, is always present. We don't take that approach with field trips where students travel to museums and historical sites in locations where they might be touched by crime. We don't take that approach with recess on our playgrounds, or transporting our kids to and from school.We can never eliminate all risk; but there are ways to maximize our students' safety while using these incredibly powerful tools. Each tool needs to be analyzed individually to ascertain its benefits and the specific risks it might present. From there, thoughtful people can find solutions to the student safety issues that may arise."
"The Past, Present, and Future of Libraries"
Submitted by admin on Tue, 08/22/2006 - 1:08pm.Every once in awhile I come across a great blog post that captures how things are changing in our use of information. Joyce Valenza, an ex-librarian, captures the past, present, and future of libraries.
This link takes you to Joyce's blog post:
"You'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, For the times they are a changin"
Practical Internet Safety
Submitted by lcannell on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 8:22pm.In today's highly connected society parents are torn between two opposing needs. How can we prepare our children with skills that help them master high-tech Internet-based communications while the Internet is full of bad people who want to take advantage of the innocent?
On one hand we want our children to grow up to be comfortable with technology so they can focus on achieving the great things that these advances in productivity enable. But, connectivity comes with risk, just like the first time your parents had to deal with the prospect of cable TV. Wasn't it great to have all of these new TV channels? But what about those movies on Cinemax and HBO? With the steady march of progress come new opportunities to embrace, and potential new risks for our children.
A Combined Strategy for Internet Safety
Submitted by admin on Fri, 02/03/2006 - 12:45pm.The Internet is a valuable educational and social resource for children. However, it can also expose our children to danger through their discovery of inappropriate materials and experiences. Though the public debate over Internet safety has been cast in terms of whether or not filters are desirable or effective, the most important way to keep kids safe on the Internet is to teach them to make wise choices about what they view and what they participate in, such as chat rooms. The ability to make responsible choices is important since the Web can be accessed ubiquitously—in the home, school, or library.
Save your PC from being a Zombie
Submitted by lcannell on Thu, 12/29/2005 - 9:30pm.If you are like me, you are the one friends and neighbors call when they are having problems with their home computer. I love providing this type of help to those I ...well, love, but it gets a little frustrating when you see the same problems over and over again.
Microsoft and the FTC had a press release last week called "Don’t Get Tricked on Halloween: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Action and Microsoft Warn Internet Users of Zombie Computers". It was accompanied by a really good Powerpoint presentation that illustrates what can happen to an unprotected computer. Be sure to read the speaker notes to get the full story.
Apologizing for a child's natural inclination to "tinker"
Submitted by lcannell on Thu, 12/29/2005 - 9:29pm.A recent post by Joe Wilcox on his Microsoft Monitor Weblog made me stop and scratch my head at what we are calling bad behavior. In his post Sleepover Sunday Joe tells an engaging tale of the good time his daughter and some friends had playing with his computer during a slumber party. It seems the girls took images from Nintendo's website and pulled them into a photo editing program. They were having a blast changing the images (the digital equivalent to drawing moustaches on pictures in a magazine). Clearly harmless fun but in the end Joe says:
Of course, I may need to talk to my daughter about the risks of snatching copyrighted characters from a Website, even for innocent offline fun.
But, do you think anyone told the school about the "risks of snatching copyrighted characters" from the book. It was obvious to me that these posters were violating the publishers intellectual property rights by creating a deriviative work. Perhaps the school received permission but in most of these harmless situations they don't.
This is a theme in Lawrence Lessig's Free-Culture book. In chapter 2, "Mere Copyists" Lessig says:
Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and curiosity, would otherwise ensure.
