I can appreciate the skills developed in the creation of the course website for this week. I just wish there was a way to sequence the courses within the IT program so that if you have demonstrated success in this particular skill, you would not have to complete this particular task again. This is probably the fifth or sixth course website that I have built using Weebly. I would be interested in learning some of the actual HTML/CSS skills needed to create the course from scratch. I will say however that the whole WYSIWYG class of products has improved greatly and Weebly is one of the simpler ones to use. You can find my course site at:
https://it643course.weebly.com The internet is a great tool for learning. While I do believe that the open internet should be protected and the first amendment applies, I do not feel that to be the case with educational institutions. Educational institutions that have students under the age of 18 and provide internet access are responsible through FERPA and CIPA/COPA for making sure that appropriate filters and proxies are put in place to protect children while they are using the internet. When the students are at home, students can still be provided appropriate filtering through the school's filter system. I think that distance education will continue to grow in popularity. The days of the teacher being the filter through which all education flows is rapidly becoming obsolete. I know that on a personal level now anytime I need to do a repair, the first place that I turn is YouTube. As high speed internet becomes more ubiquitous, more and more students will turn to online or distance learning. Many students today stream games on TWITCH or watch streamers on TWITCH. This means that there is an entire generation of learners that will be seeking knowledge that are already familiar with the online environments. I think traditional educational institutions will either have to adapt or cease to exist. Departments such as the Instructional Technology department could be a very valuable asset to educational institutions seeking to make this transition. Shane
2 Comments
Gina Pepperman
7/14/2019 02:13:28 pm
The first amendment and the internet is an area that needs to be looked at on so many levels. The filters put on devices in schools are a great way to keep inappropriate content from minors but the content still gets through when they are on non filtered devices. I do not by any means think that we should censor content but I feel some content should have a filter on it at all times. How to do it is beyond my area of expertise but I feel something needs to be done and by whom I do not know that either. Because the internet is not just in America it is International.
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Merita Swan
7/14/2019 06:35:51 pm
I agree with both you and Gina on the security, filters or some type of protection for the internet. We do have watchers at USM, but they have never interfered unless a threat was found. Spring 2018 while working on a weebly site, they blocked everyting weebly on campus. It took several phone calls and a lot of talking to get them to unblock it so I could complete my website. It was even blocked for personal computers being used on their server. How to monitor it, I have no clue, it is international, not just USA, and it would probably do more harm than good to try and filter everything.
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AuthorShane Seal
Systems Engineer Apple, Inc. Blogroll |