Slashdot Mirror
Deleting Online Predators Act - R.I.P.
elearning 2.0 writes "It looks like the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) has died a slow death. DOPA was proposed during the height of last year's moral panic around the issue of child safety and sites like MySpace. The legislation would have banned the use of commercial social networking websites in US schools and libraries which receive federal IT funding — therefore undermining much of the pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space."
e-learning 2.0 space
In any just society, whoever wrote that would swing next to Saddam, Idi Amin, and the guy who invented clamshell packaging.
Most schools already have those kind of sites banned.
therefore undermining much of the pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space
Banning MySpace is undermining much of the pioneering work of what?
I must be missing something.
pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space
I was mildly interested until that. Then my "pretentious, meaningless buzzword" alarm went off.
I hope they are at least leveraging their e-synergies and fully embracing AJAX and SOAP in that 2.0 space.
Finkployd
We will see it again just in time for the 2008 campaign cause theres nothing like flashing the mug shots of creepy old men across the tv with ominous music while stating that ur opponent supports child predators.
Not only is elearning 2.0 a really poor attempt at piggybacking the Web 2.0 buzzword trend, the submitter seems to have some sort of investment in it as well (look at the name). E-learning 2.0 seems to be teaching using so-called Web 2.0 sites and tools, which is a good concept, but not one that needs its own buzzword. Why not just call it online learning or online social education, as those are more descriptive? Let's lay off the stupid buzzwords (Web 2.0, E-Learning 2.0, etc).
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
WARNING: You have exceeded your buzzword quota for the day. Any future buzzword emissions will result in fines from the EPA.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
It looks like the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) has died a slow death. DOPA was proposed during the height of last year's moral panic around the issue of child safety
What do you mean "last year's" panic about child safety? The whole "child safety" cliche is every politician's trump card. I don't think it went out of style when we began 2007.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Parents need to start financing their own kids rather than expecting the rest of us to pay for them - via taxes for the salaries of politicians to make this unnecessary rubbish up.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I seriously doubt blocking myspace at libraries and schools will make any dent in the number of teens using it, and any rule about proxies is just a challenge
Aside from the obvious problems with the sentence "pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space", how does banning myspace et. al. prevent learning? Are teachers seriously encouraging kids to get on myspace during class time for educational purposes?
I don't see anything wrong with banning social network sites inside school libraries. Wikipedia, Nasa, etc. are legitimate learning sites, I don't see how myspace compares to these.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
"e-learning 2.0"? Is this a subset of Web 2.0?
This is where one can leverage their synergies to create new paradigms while using colored parachutes to find out who moved their cheese.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Just more data that shows that this and just about every similar measure whether in cyberspace or meatspace is ignoring the fundamental problem:
Children are vastly more likely to be victimized by someone they know than by a random stranger online or otherwise. Your typical sexual predator does not search for victims online, they look for victims down the hall.
All of this hand-wringing and legislating is just a way to avoid recoginizing this admittedly sad and disturbing fact.
The enemies of Democracy are
The legislation would have banned the use of commercial social networking websites in US schools and libraries which receive federal IT funding -- therefore undermining much of the pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space.
Every time I walk into the library at my university, I have to actually force some myspace addict off the computer so I can write a paper or do actual research. The school's library has over 300 computers, and there are additional computer labs on campus too.
"undermining"!?!? What the FUCK! Would legislation to block large distractions and bandwidth wasting really "undermine" anyone's "pioneering" work on a school's IT policy and/or hardware/software?
Freespeech sure - if you really need to use myspace for school, ask your "pioneering" IT staff for special access.
While we're at it, can we please block hotmail and ebay? Most schools provide a local email account for students anyway...
So do I have this thing totally wrong? Or am I right in believing that there are some educators out there that believe government-funded schools shouldn't stop students from wasting their bandwidth? Pioneering!?!? WTF!
I'd like to see you say that to my face, buddy. I'll pop you right in the jaw. We speak English in these parts.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
Encouraging peer communication and collaboration in a learning environment? Good.
Using the fetid cesspool of MySpace, et al to accomplish it? Silly, if not completely irresponsible.
We upgraded our filtering device last summer, with the main impetus being effective blocking of MySpace. This is for several K-12 school districts. Why the hell would you even consider MySpace for education, when there's Moodle and other products you could choose?
If I were magically imprisoned because someone decided that "hanging out at telling dirty jokes and throwing innuendo around" was nefarious, there would be a serious problem. And I see it as a potentiality.