ADMS647Summer2010

Few things should be as important to our community as regaining and establishing our common sense that the classroom should be a place for learning and interaction. Visitors to classes, as well as many of our students, report that the rate of distracting Internet usage during class is astounding. Remarkably, usage appears to be contagious, if not epidemic. Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within twenty minutes an entire row is shoe shopping. Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated. I confess that as I have researched this subject, I have been made aware how offensive it often is when phone calls are taken in public and when Blackberry and other e-mail devices are consulted during meetings. I have promised myself that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at University meetings.

Numerous reports on filtering products have revealed that such products consistently over-block and thereby the prevent access to perfectly appropriate material. The reasons for such over-blocking --which could include technical inadequacies, process inadequacies, and bias -- are not easily discernable, due to the lack of access to necessary information.

The existence of these relationships and blocking categories raises the concern that the filtering products used in schools are inappropriately preventing students from accessing certain materials based on religious or other inappropriate bias.

You now have companies offering their services wherein you can just download or order your favorite movie and watch it with a fast internet connection.

An appeals court has struck down the FCC ban on "fleeting curses" in live broadcasts. Is this a win for freedom of speech or vulgarity?

Parents shouldn't be relying on the FCC, anyway: As the ruling demonstrated, it's futile for the FCC to try and enforce subjective standards of decency, says the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. "Besides, the FCC can't shield children from inappropriate programs — it has no authority over cable TV channels, and it can't stop kids from using DVRs or the Internet to watch late-night programming in the middle of the day." Luckily, parents now have better tools for blocking programs. The FCC should focus on promoting those methods.