DOPA is very disturbing, but reading the ‘talk’ page of the DOPA Wikipedia page was pretty disturbing, too. Some nasty behavior by participants is perpetually there for all the world to see. (as an aside, it certainly didn’t encourage me to make a contribution to a Wikipedia page anytime soon..)
Reading the ‘talk’ page did, however, give me some insight into the history of the bill, and the implications. One interpretation of the law that was voiced there mentioned that the law may actually prevent access to Wikipedia itself (due to the “unregulated” content of the talk pages). That would be a real loss. Reaching back to last semester’s reference course (seems like a long time ago already…) I went to the Thomas website, and see that it is still in the House Subcommittee on Technology and the Internet. So, it’s not carved in stone yet. (And hey, isn’t that’ an RSS aggregator collecting information on DOPA at http://www.andycarvin.com/dopa.html ? One more link for my Google Reader….)
You know, I can understand the thinking behind H.R. 1120. Do we want people in libraries, public, or school, to be able get to a porn site, unrestricted? Do we want them soliciting minors? I think most people would say ‘no’. But, don’t most libraries have acceptable use policies that rule out using the internet for pornography, etc? So really, it’s the ‘social software’ that’s presenting the difficulty here; it’s open, so anyone can register, and that includes people you don’t want to be talking to your teenager. But, lots of software is going ‘social’. You can have a chat session within a Google Spreadsheet from the ‘discuss’ tab! So how on earth do you enforce restrictions?!?! You effectively can’t, and so you just have to teach kids to not do things that are dangerous. Repeatedly. And hope they listen.
Technology isn’t bad or good, it’s what we do with it. But it is certainly a big part of our lives (and getting bigger by the minute). That’s sort of the theme of this course, isn’t it? It’s up to people in education to find ways to incorporate it, explore it, find positive uses, in short, to use it to help us and our students work and learn.
1 comment:
Yes, your last paragraph says it all. It's not technology's fault that bad people do bad things with it. What's most important is that we teach students how to use technology safely and smartly. Simply telling them "no" you can't isn't going to do that. Talking to them about the technology, giving them ways to try it out with adults around who can help mediate and educate, that's what will keep students safe.
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