[Year 12 IT Apps] YouTube down the tubes?

[Russell Edwards]

On 06/08/2007, at 12:03 PM, Graham wrote:
>
> However, to state that 200, 000 of 100 million is inadequate seems  
> an exaggeration.  I doubt that your school library has that many  
> books.

No, it doesn't-- that's why the Web has taken over as the prime  
resource for research. Students very frequently are completely unable  
to obtain material they need for their classes, under the EC-only  
system. Now, it may be that they could also not obtain that  
information from the library, but that is irrelevant. It is the  
potential value of the resource versus the actual value experienced  
that matters, not a comparison to some other resource.   Imagine  
building a pharmacy in a third-world country, then only allowing  
natives to purchase paracetamol, because all other medicines have too  
much potential for abuse. "But it's still better than relying on the  
witch-doctor" is hardly a suitable defense.

> Using the same analogy, one would argue that, even if one's school  
> library has 200,000 books, it is inadequate and it must have must  
> have every book in the world.

If the Great Library of Alexandria only cost a couple of grand a year  
and an insistence on teachers fulfilling their supervision duties,  
that would be outstanding. Unfortunately there are logistical  
obstacles in the case of hard copy books. Those issues aren't there  
for the Web.

> The Internet is only one resource, not the only resource.  We  
> should be teaching our students to use a variety of resources and  
> not to depend upon one of! inconsistent, and often dubious, accuracy.

Books and other media are also of inconsistent and dubious accuracy.  
It is our duty as educators to teach critical literacy. Students  
should leave school being able to judge sources of information for  
relevance, accuracy, neutrality, et cetera, and knowing how to  
efficiently seek and find high-quality information. If this is done  
for conventional media but not for the Web, that leaves a gaping hole  
in their education.  Don't take it just from me; this is a major part  
of VELS and PoLT.   It is hopeless to expect students to acquire  
digital literacy if they never have access to low-quality information  
sources, and never gain experience using any search engine bar the  
Education Channel search.

> If your school library was inadequate, you would not just complain  
> about it - you would do something, such as purchasing books, making  
> recommendations to the librarian.  If the Educache is inadequate  
> make an effort to improve it by recommending sites.

The entire approach of whitelist filtering is flawed. Unless they  
will accept recommendations of the form *.com, *.net, *.org, *.gov,  
*.au, then that will not work.

You are correct that there is no point just complaining about it. We  
must take action. I'm doing it in my school. I'd love to see the EC- 
only option officially deprecated by the DoE but as a little tiny  
beginning teacher I'm conscious of not biting off more than I chew  
just yet.

Russell Edwards
Whittlesea SC


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