Towards the Further Completion of My Paper

Having gone to the university library yesterday (and being further 'encouraged' to use a blog as part of research) I found some material that I think would be very helpful in my paper, assuming that I stay with the topic I have chosen.

My original desire was to write a paper centering on the dangers of the technology gap between teachers and students, and this will remain part of my paper, but I think I'm going to carry this thesis to its natural destination, which is to write about the dangers of the internet and the need to monitor what children are viewing and interacting with online.

Most of my desire to use the books I found came from looking in the table of contents to see how relevant they seemed to be to my topic. To this end, I have found the following books:



1. Web.Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. Edited by David Gauntlett
This book has a few articles on pornography on the internet as well as some articles about other things on the web that might addict or otherwise be problematic for young web surfers. Overall, however, I fear that this book will be the least useful to me because it is mainly about web design and the rising use of the web as a media tool. Though this pertains to my topic, it is off centered from what I am trying to write about.

2. Children and the World Wide Web: Tool or Trap. Samuel Joshua Friedman
This book's title alone attracted me to it. I was looking for another book and saw this one one the shelf. This book has to do with what regulations have been attempted and implemented as well as it discusses some problems of internet use. It speculates on where the internet will be going and what might be problematic in the future. It has less, however, to do with internet exploitation as it does to do with how children are interacting with the web and what the differences are between previous generations and a generation of children on the web.

3. Non-Technical Strategies to Reduce Children's Exposure to Inappropriate Material on the Internet. Edited by Joah G. Iannotta.
This one's title also attracted me. This book promises to be the most relevant and helpful that I have found, short of the next book I will talk about. This book, I think, is going to focus on how teachers and parents can regulate their children's use of the internet and web resources without necessarily having to be smarter than them, or more tech-savvy than them. One of the problems that I intend to address in my paper is the idea that children can surf circles around most authority figures in their lives when it comes to the use of technology and internet. This book seems to seek to solve that problem.

4. Youth, Pornography, and the Internet. Edited by Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin.
This book, like the one I described just before, seems to center on the very topic I am trying to write about. Apparently, this book, however, focuses more specifically on pornography and children's access to it. This book centers on the struggle to keep children away from pornography while at the same time not impinging on the pornographer's right to sell his product to adults. It also discusses some of the litigation and legal issues of regulating pornography.

Trying to do a little research using a Blog

So, I'm going to try and do a little research using a blog to help me. I don't exactly know what I'm doing, and getting here was a little on the annoying side. Apparently, blogger wants me to go through google mail to have a blog now, but I finally got through. In any event, why anyone would find my ramblings and babblings to be interesting is beyond me.

Okay, well, I'm going to list a few web articles related to the technology gap between teachers and students that I might find useful. Here goes:

Here is an online article about a substitute teacher facing a 40 year term in prison because her students were able to access pornography. I intend to use this information to show why finding a bridge in the technology gap is important in schools. I don't know, but my paper my turn into a research paper about pornography and students or how to implement safer internet procedures for our students.
http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/feature/473AA0E2EC3CF67DCC2572E40078AADD


Here again is a website where a news report shows how students are using technology to abuse and ridicule their teachers. This pertains to what my report will have to do with. But before I lose what I have found here, I'm going to post this particular message to the blog.
http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3332631&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.1.1

Okay, so I finally found it

Yes, I want to do something about the technology gap between teachers and students. I'm thinking about opening with the following lines from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

MR. TURKENTINE: I shall need an assistant.  Come and give me
a hand. 
    (Charlie joins him at the front.)
We have here nitric acid, glycerin, and a special mixture of
my own.  Together it's horrible, dangerous stuff; blows you
up.  But mixed together in the right way, as only I know
how, what do you think it makes?

CHARLIE: I don't know, sir.

MR. TURKENTINE: Of course you don't know.  You don't know
because only I know.  If you knew and I didn't know, then
you'd be teaching me instead of me teaching you.  And for a
student to teach his teacher is presumptuous and rude.  Do
I make myself clear?

Why am I starting with this? Mainly because it shows what is held as the traditional role between teachers and students, which may come into question and flux as new technologies emerge and the older generation gets farther and farther behind. Particularly, my paper is likely to focus on such things as the online community, blogs, wikis, etc. So, that's a start anyway.

Thanks for noticing.

Research Project

My ideas for my research project are:

1. The Technology Gap between teachers and students.

2. Why the Wiki Novel is not working.

I'm not terribly sure which of these I'm going to choose to do yet. I'm leaning more towards the technology gap, mainly because I feel that I can find more information on it. The Wiki Novel idea is not even finished yet (it hasn't rapped, so to speak) and it won't be for the next three weeks. However, the idea is still interesting to me. Even so, I think I'm going to discuss the gap between teachers and students and why it is of utmost importance to figure out a way to bridge that gap, if we can. So far, it is looking like a persuasive paper of some kind, but is still forming. I am yet to be completely sure of what I want to do.

Hello and Welcome to Me

Hello,
This is Class Project 1. This is what I'm doing for class right now. This will not be updated yet.

I will be back to write a real one.