At the beginning of this course last year, I had a rather long critique of the Solomon intro:
The Perils of Publication
While many of the philosophical points raised in the introduction remain depressingly valid — actually showing almost no significant change — many of the descriptions of current condition depict a world that no longer exists.
Check it out while you’re waiting for your books to arrive. If you’ve received your books already, tell me what you think about this.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
You bring up a lot of interesting points, and now I am compelled to respond to your post.
I was questioning the statistics and percentages written in the text, and now, after your explanation, it makes sense to me now. I think that it is unfortunate that we are unable to keep up (in print) because advances, or as you have implied ‘improvements’ are made fairly quickly. I agree that the ‘new’ technology made available is not ‘new’ at all, but mearly an upgrade to get us to spend our hard earned money! My husband works for a cell phone company, and he comes home often to tell me about a “new phone that the company is coming out with.” While the phone may have different features and/or different capabilities, there is not anything ‘new’ about these phones (with the exception of the original i-phone, I guess when it gained full internet access).
This brings me to the next point that you made about blocking content on school servers. I (like the first responder to your post) have had a problem accessing websites at school which have been related to school content. I, however, was not fortunate enough to have a student know the way around it, and had to resort to a plan B, but it wasn’t without feeling frustration. I have to wonder who decides what to block and why he/she chooses to block so many sites. I understand that some sites DO need to be blocked because of unappropriate content, but I have a feeling that if a student wants on the site badly enough, he/she will find a way. This is when a teacher has to be aware of what the students are doing. I know we cannot be everywhere all at once, and see everything, but making rounds to look at the minimize bar on a students computer screen can be revealing and make a difference!