Reading online isn't really going to make a difference in a child's learning. As many other posters have noted, the question isn't online vs books, its whether parents encourage their children to learn.
To those who moan about "they'll all learn chat-speak", I would say it depends on what a child reads online. Some sites have more value in them then others, and a good parent should try to direct their child's interest towards the more valuable ones. However, when you think about it, doesn't the same thing go for books? If you go into a library, yes you'll find Shakespear and Hemminway, but you'll also find a well-sized section with trashy romance novels. The question isn't how you read it, its what you read in the first place.
While it may be true that having books around the house is related to disposable income, that does not mean that poorer parents can't encourage their children to become literate and interested in knowledge. In my case, my parents are only middle class-ish, but they most definitely went out of their way to provide plenty of books for me and my siblings to read (they're both teachers.) Instead of buying more obvious forms of entertainment, like video games or movies, my parents would instead buy books. However, when my interests turned more to technical stuff, I would simply visit the local library to fulfill my needs.
My mother also would often send me and my siblings to a local library after school so we would could get my homework done. In retrospect, that was one of the smartest decisions she ever made in raising me. It sure beat what I am sure is the insane cost of daycare, and it pretty much forced me to do my schoolwork. Even if for some reason I didn't want to do my homework, well, guess what, the only thing else to do at that point was read one of the hundreds of books sitting around me. Either way I ended up becoming a more educated individual, a definite win-win if there ever was one.
Believe it or not, at my high school we had a "Career Center" that each english class would visit 1-2 times each year and pretty much do exactly that: research prospective careers, and find out what that career entailed, what the average pay was, and what kind of academic prep we would need. Outside that they'd give out information on ROP classes and other neat career building stuff.
That would be fine, except for from what I hear, the pay in these women-dominated field is generally less then male-dominated ones. Now, its perfectly acceptable to say some work is 'more valuable' then others, and thus merits better pay. However, the problem comes in that by having female-dominated fields consistently getting less pay, society is in essence saying that a woman's work is worth less. Now THAT I would take issue with.
This actually came up in my government class once, and there are some logistics concerns. In California at least, people have the right to demand a paper ballot instead of an electronic one. Therefore, each polling place has to have enough paper ballots to supply each person registered to that precinct. There's no way to know how many paper ballots to issue to each polling place without there being some vague count of how many people are in the precinct in the first place. That's one reason why we have voter registration.
As far as the "voting ticket" idea, how do you get tickets to those who don't have a permanent address? What if someone has multiple addresses, do they get multiple tickets? (the issues with that should be obvious)
Yeah, especially given that its a crime to have any political discussions within 100 feet of a polling place. Such an area is designated as a political neutral zone. Poll workers are also required to aggressively log anytime a person views a ballot that is not their own. As far as "no republican candidates" are concerned, you have heard of the write-in concept, yes? Or have we forgot that little detail in our story?
I think my brother's math professor actually does something like this. In his math class any edition of the book is acceptable, and somehow the professor has a modified assignment list for each one.
Second on that one. My brother is currently working for his college bookstore and he has the exact same complaint. However, he is somewhat lucky in that his professors are in tune with the publisher's BS. They know that in many cases the different editions are functionally identical and make it a point not to specify the edition. Instead, I know his math professor keeps a different assignment list for each one (how this professor keeps up is anyone's guess)
I would have to say this is 100% true. I finished going through a magnet program at my local high school, and I have seen the pattern in both myself and other students. Because of the nature of the program, many of my peers were said 'smart students': they coasted through junior high, or were the top of their class. This magnet program was the first real academic challenge for a substantial chunk of us, myself included.
However, the ones that went on to become the top of my high school did differ from the others in their pre-high school preparation. The ones that did well in this environment were those that had been fully challenged and pushed to work hard beforehand. These students were not allowed to coast through on B grades; either their parents demanded they get straight As and/or they had gone through previous academic programs of a similarly high level of difficulty.
This only further illustrates the point of the article. Its not so much even that a lack of attention will prevent the smart kids from learning. In that much NCLB is correct - smart kids can indeed learn on their own. Actually, that's part what makes them smarter then their peers. Instead, neglecting gifted students will foster an attitude that the minimum is enough, and coasting through is ok. In other words, it encourages them to be lazy, and develops poor work habits later in life. I will be the first to say it is very painful when you don't learn these habits sooner rather then later.
The other thing that makes me want to vomit is some other points Roberts makes. According to the NYTimes link his thought was "The public will âoelose a bit more control over the conduct of this nationâ(TM)s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges,â". WTF...we've just been through an administration with some of the worst abuses of executive power in history, and we're supposed to be complaining when the Judicial branch reigns it in because their "unelected" and "politically unaccountable"?
Roberts makes the impression that judges should simply bend to the will of the other 2 branches...except part of the whole damn POINT of the SCOTUS is that its un-elected, and can thus do the right thing by the constitution when the mob majority doesn't want to. He is SUPPOSED to vote to over-rule the Executive branch when it steps outside the constitution, not whine about the judicial branch taking away power from the the executive branch. As I said before, regulating the powers of the executive branch is the reason we even have the Supreme Court. I now seriously have to wonder whether our Chief Justice understands the responsibilities of his own job.
I have tried to keep on the positive side of the new edition, and not immediately dismiss it as many others have, but as far as alignment, I really can't find anything good about it. Part of the problem is that WotC is trying to pidgeon-hole the alignment of an adventuring party as heroic paragons of good/law.
The problem isn't so much that they are trying to eliminate stereotypes. On the contrary, they simply want to force you to play with the stereotype they think is best. They want to get rid of the moral ambiguities that go with LE and CG and make it a nice black-and-white world where you're either a shining beacon of light or a raving mass murderer. And guess what, you don't get to choose which one, you pretty much are stuck with shining beacon by default. This is further supported by the omission of evil gods from the PHB.
The discouragement of morally ambiguous DnD games is just plain retarded, and there's really no excuse for it to be honest.
Well, Iraq and Afghanistan already got nailed...my bet is Iran is on the chopping block next (assuming a more sane president doesn't get elected first)
Umm, one question, if all of the above is so easy, why hasn't it been used to annihilate current malicious botnets(as you say they would do to a military one)?
Of course, you certainly have deniable plausibility there. Oh yes, I can see that one..."No, I have no idea what's on that partition...the bits just arranged themselves into Paris Hilton porno flicks, all on their own!"
But that brings another point - having a more educated populace tends to help with governmental problems as well. The reason being, smarter people are in a lot better equipped to notice and speak out when their government is screwing them. Also, assuming they do go elsewhere to make their fortunes, they then have financial resources to potentially do something about the issue.
The USMA academy is some of the best of the best. Meaning, these guys have to be appointed by two state senators to even apply... That is why the kids that go there are the top 2% of the nation. I don't know...my sister makes me wonder about what the hell our tax dollars are financing...
3. Fiscal responsibility: In the last 20+ years, both parties have had their chance to control both the legislative branch and Presidency simultaneously, but we have deficits every year and the national debt continues to swell. I thought we had a surplus at some point during the Clinton Administration...
Forget the limit. If people aren't willing to spend the time to actually research the actual retail price of a product(which should never take more then a few minutes of googling), then they deserve to lose out. Really, if you can't bother to make yourself an informed buyer, then why should you expect to not waste money, let alone save it, as is intended by many online auction-goers.
Slashdot Mirror
And your alternative is...?
To those who moan about "they'll all learn chat-speak", I would say it depends on what a child reads online. Some sites have more value in them then others, and a good parent should try to direct their child's interest towards the more valuable ones. However, when you think about it, doesn't the same thing go for books? If you go into a library, yes you'll find Shakespear and Hemminway, but you'll also find a well-sized section with trashy romance novels. The question isn't how you read it, its what you read in the first place.
My mother also would often send me and my siblings to a local library after school so we would could get my homework done. In retrospect, that was one of the smartest decisions she ever made in raising me. It sure beat what I am sure is the insane cost of daycare, and it pretty much forced me to do my schoolwork. Even if for some reason I didn't want to do my homework, well, guess what, the only thing else to do at that point was read one of the hundreds of books sitting around me. Either way I ended up becoming a more educated individual, a definite win-win if there ever was one.
Believe it or not, at my high school we had a "Career Center" that each english class would visit 1-2 times each year and pretty much do exactly that: research prospective careers, and find out what that career entailed, what the average pay was, and what kind of academic prep we would need. Outside that they'd give out information on ROP classes and other neat career building stuff.
...because Wrath of the Lich King has only been out for three weeks.
That would be fine, except for from what I hear, the pay in these women-dominated field is generally less then male-dominated ones. Now, its perfectly acceptable to say some work is 'more valuable' then others, and thus merits better pay. However, the problem comes in that by having female-dominated fields consistently getting less pay, society is in essence saying that a woman's work is worth less. Now THAT I would take issue with.
As far as the "voting ticket" idea, how do you get tickets to those who don't have a permanent address? What if someone has multiple addresses, do they get multiple tickets? (the issues with that should be obvious)
Yeah, especially given that its a crime to have any political discussions within 100 feet of a polling place. Such an area is designated as a political neutral zone. Poll workers are also required to aggressively log anytime a person views a ballot that is not their own. As far as "no republican candidates" are concerned, you have heard of the write-in concept, yes? Or have we forgot that little detail in our story?
God did I always love my friend B.O.B(Back of Book) in high school...I'm guessing there'll be no such luck in college :(
I think my brother's math professor actually does something like this. In his math class any edition of the book is acceptable, and somehow the professor has a modified assignment list for each one.
Second on that one. My brother is currently working for his college bookstore and he has the exact same complaint. However, he is somewhat lucky in that his professors are in tune with the publisher's BS. They know that in many cases the different editions are functionally identical and make it a point not to specify the edition. Instead, I know his math professor keeps a different assignment list for each one (how this professor keeps up is anyone's guess)
However, the ones that went on to become the top of my high school did differ from the others in their pre-high school preparation. The ones that did well in this environment were those that had been fully challenged and pushed to work hard beforehand. These students were not allowed to coast through on B grades; either their parents demanded they get straight As and/or they had gone through previous academic programs of a similarly high level of difficulty.
This only further illustrates the point of the article. Its not so much even that a lack of attention will prevent the smart kids from learning. In that much NCLB is correct - smart kids can indeed learn on their own. Actually, that's part what makes them smarter then their peers. Instead, neglecting gifted students will foster an attitude that the minimum is enough, and coasting through is ok. In other words, it encourages them to be lazy, and develops poor work habits later in life. I will be the first to say it is very painful when you don't learn these habits sooner rather then later.
Roberts makes the impression that judges should simply bend to the will of the other 2 branches...except part of the whole damn POINT of the SCOTUS is that its un-elected, and can thus do the right thing by the constitution when the mob majority doesn't want to. He is SUPPOSED to vote to over-rule the Executive branch when it steps outside the constitution, not whine about the judicial branch taking away power from the the executive branch. As I said before, regulating the powers of the executive branch is the reason we even have the Supreme Court. I now seriously have to wonder whether our Chief Justice understands the responsibilities of his own job.
And somehow I'm not surprised that the other half of the dissenters are Bush appointees.
What if you're dating your DungeonMaster? Serious, you'd be surprised how many game hints you can weasel out of them ;)
I have tried to keep on the positive side of the new edition, and not immediately dismiss it as many others have, but as far as alignment, I really can't find anything good about it. Part of the problem is that WotC is trying to pidgeon-hole the alignment of an adventuring party as heroic paragons of good/law. The problem isn't so much that they are trying to eliminate stereotypes. On the contrary, they simply want to force you to play with the stereotype they think is best. They want to get rid of the moral ambiguities that go with LE and CG and make it a nice black-and-white world where you're either a shining beacon of light or a raving mass murderer. And guess what, you don't get to choose which one, you pretty much are stuck with shining beacon by default. This is further supported by the omission of evil gods from the PHB. The discouragement of morally ambiguous DnD games is just plain retarded, and there's really no excuse for it to be honest.
Well, Iraq and Afghanistan already got nailed...my bet is Iran is on the chopping block next (assuming a more sane president doesn't get elected first)
Umm, one question, if all of the above is so easy, why hasn't it been used to annihilate current malicious botnets(as you say they would do to a military one)?
But that brings another point - having a more educated populace tends to help with governmental problems as well. The reason being, smarter people are in a lot better equipped to notice and speak out when their government is screwing them. Also, assuming they do go elsewhere to make their fortunes, they then have financial resources to potentially do something about the issue.
Allow me to finish for you. 10. ???? 11. Profit!
I thought we had a surplus at some point during the Clinton Administration...
Forget the limit. If people aren't willing to spend the time to actually research the actual retail price of a product(which should never take more then a few minutes of googling), then they deserve to lose out. Really, if you can't bother to make yourself an informed buyer, then why should you expect to not waste money, let alone save it, as is intended by many online auction-goers.