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Opinion
Sense & Clickability
3/29/2007
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Having been asked by Campus Technology a couple of months ago to think a lot about student risk-taking behavior, especially online, I've collected quite a set of interesting links. For example, a senior at Boston University started the magazine, Boink, which solicits real students to "portray" sexual behavior ("soft porn"). Its tagline is: "College sex by the people having it." Oh, BTW, don't visit that site if you're at work. It is what is known as "NSFW" (Not Safe for Work). At Harvard University, H BOMB publishes articles, fiction, poetry, and art about sex, sexuality, and related topics. Tagline: "Don't believe the hype; read it for the articles."So, college student-aged human beings do some pretty stupid and potentially unsafe things. There's nothing new about that observation. That's why wars are mostly fought by the young: Everyone else is smart enough to let young enthusiasts "portray" cannon fodder in places like Iraq and Vietnam. It bears noting, though, that neither of the magazines mentioned here have much of a substantial on line presence, which I hope indicates that the students portrayed are at least smart enough not to license their images for Internet display. (Although, like I said, you could get into trouble at work just from viewing the front page of Boink.) And, H BOMB appears to have only published a single issue, in 2005.
Age and responsibility
Although most college students would deny me the memory, I can close my eyes and recall what it felt like to be "lectured" by older people about ethical things. I also retain from those years a strong resistance to not considering an 18-year-old an adult, although I find myself more and more frequently referring to my work-study students as "kids," something I'm trying to get under control as it is not only potentially offensive to them but dangerous to me.
However, recent brain imaging research funded by the National Institutes of Health "suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws." That's a daunting finding, and might just become the motivator for not only more in loco parentis action by colleges and universities but for more (and better) early training about risky online behaviors.
In my research, the best piece of writing about actual online risk-taking prevention I have seen, and which I highly recommend, is an ECAR Research Bulletin titled "
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
