The Perfect Storm...

[liz_marcs]

Let's see if LJ lets me post this.

I've been involved off and on with fandom since...ooooo...grammar school (that would be pre-teens for you non-U.S. people). I can't say for sure, but definitely almost that long.

And I have to say, before this week the only Perfect Storm I knew about was the one I lived through back in 1991 when the No Name nor'

Comments

[essene]

I'm all for it! Let's aim and fire! I'm all set to get rowdy over something in this damn country.

Although, I should say that I am all for limiting or banning access to social networking sites at schools. It eats the kids brains and they'll do nothing else if you let them, plus it jams the servers like hell. At home or someplace not school? Okay.

That said, I'm still fuzzy on if all this is rumor or an actuality? I trust the internet as far as I can pick it up and throw it some days...

[liz_marcs]

I can see banning it from computers sitting in the classroom, actually, although I can't see teachers failing to enforce a no-"MySpace" rule in the classroom itself.

School libraries, though? Considering that there are some kids who can't access the Internet any other way, and if they're in the wrong neighborhood with no easily accessible public libraries, I have a much, much harder time accepting that.

My issue is that it's all about access for people who might not otherwise have that access.

I can see room for debate on the school issue, certainly, but I think there's a half-way point here that maybe we should look at, rather than just banning access outright.

[essene]

although I can't see teachers failing to enforce a no-"MySpace" rule in the classroom itself.

Oh, you can try all you like, but unless the district or school has set up some sort of nanny/firewall that won't allow sites like these to open (as mine has) they'll still try, and you know they've tried when you hear the wail of "It won't load MySpace!" even after you've told them NOT to go there. ;-)

I did mis-speak in my haste. I don't think it should be a LAW. A site by site rule, or a district policy, fine--but at some, point we are crossing into censorship (however, you only have to look at the list of banned books to know that this is something the supreme court is already comfortable with our schools doing). There are valuable and educational things to be found in blogs, many of which are hosted on such communities. Much of the problem lies in teaching how to sift the wheat from the chaff and in an era of NCLB? There is no time to spend doing that AND teaching to the test. (Am I hiding my hatred of the current educational

[everenthralledx]

Oh, you can try all you like, but unless the district or school has set up some sort of nanny/firewall that won't allow sites like these to open (as mine has) they'll still try, and you know they've tried when you hear the wail of "It won't load MySpace!" even after you've told them NOT to go there. ;-)

You'll hear that wail for about two days, which is how long it will take the students to find a way to circumvent the firewalls and NetNannies.

[septembergrrl]

It seems to me like you're talking about a good rule, not a good law. An individual teacher, or even an individual school district, absolutely should be able to say students can't use the Internet for personal purposes during class time. But I don't see the need for federal legislation mandating that be the case everywhere.

And I can even think of legitimate academic uses for social networking sites -- looking at TWoP to understand criticism, for example, or viewing political candidates' MySpace pages in a civics class. There's no reason to make the entire site off-limits!

[Edited to fix HTML.]

[liz_marcs]

Ahhh, agreed.

Sometimes I forget that some high-profile people are using MySpace and Facebook to reach the masses.

It should be something, I think, that should be left up to the individual school districts which (in theory) are more responsive to the local population. I don't think you can necessarily make a blanket federal law. Some school districts would be a-ok with something like that, other school districts would pitch a fit.

[spookykat]

I would safely say that about 40% of the reason I use LJ is for academic reasons. The most frequent use of the social networking site? A semi-permanent place to store data. I constantly use LJ to archive papers in a privated entry if my disk freaks out and I can't save it on the A drive for some reason. Also, if you're in teacher education, you have to save everything you do in your education classes for your portfolio. I save them here so they're available within a click of the mouse.

I also used LJ post a survey on religion for Intro to Sociology, which can be found in my memories, which helped me get an A in that class. Not to mention, I also used LJ to get help on my homework, find people to proof-read my papers, and I've used MySpace to help me select professors for a new school I'm going to in the fall in a place where I didn't know anyone. So yeah, social networking sites definitely have enhanced my academic experience, and I don't see any reason for that to change in the near future.

~SK

[septembergrrl]

Thanks. I graduated in 2000, so my academic use of the Internet in school was limited to very occasional research. It's interesting to hear how things have changed.

[essene]

No, you're right, I don't think it should be a law, a district rule perhaps, or a site by site basis.

Many, many schools (mine included) have already set up firewalls, nannies, etc. that do not allow these sites to get through.