Dark side of Technology

Often it is hard to come up with a topic for this blog, but today it was easy. Unfortunately. Today my parapro confiscated a digital camera from a group of boys. They were watching a video and making some very telling comments. For the sake of decorum, I will not share what the boys were saying. When she figured out how to work the camera, we found that a girl in the middle school had made her own little amateur porn video. I did not view the video and I did not ask for details (I do not need the nightmares) so I do not know exactly what was on the video or how explicit it got. Now I realize that I was on the naive side as a child, but when I was in middle school I was incredibly embarrassed just to hold my boyfriend's hand in front of people. This young lady is passing her camera around to several boys to watch. I sincerely hope this is a very isolated incident, but I fear that it is not. Tools like digital cameras, cell phones with cameras, and the Internet allow people to do so much without having to go through a third party. For example, you do not have to go to a photo department to get film developed. How does posting explicit videos or pictures in a public forum fall under doing things anonymously? As I work with teens and many adults, even though they are posting on a public forum they do not seem to understand that anyone can see it. Maybe they are counting on the sheer size of the web to protect them from people they know seeing what they post? I am not sure if people feel more bold because of the sense of anonymity or if all the outrageous things available makes some think they have to do something bigger and bolder. I realize I am being a bit cynical, but what is it about human nature that makes us take new technology and one of the first things that happens is we figure out how to use it for porn? Think about it. When a new technology starts to catch on, people bulk at it because it starts being used in relation to sex. Social sites are dangerous because sexual predators are on them. The Internet must be filtered because of all the porn. Movies must be rated so minors cannot see anything with the wrong rating. Music and TV must be rated for the same reason. Geez, it makes me understand why the Amish think technology corrupts. However, even with all the problems I am still willing to take my chances, I will just make sure that I never borrow someone else's digital camera.

Random observations

Technology has been pretty good to me these last couple of weeks, so I will be making a few short observations as opposed to one long blog on a single subject.

I took on the part of the wiki where we are posting the reference librarians' favorite resources. The purpose of this part of the wiki is to provide the student workers a quick list of ready reference sources. I assumed that since we were approaching the full-time academic reference librarians for suggestions that I would get back mainly print sources. Lo and behold, so far they have all only given me websites. I am totally surprised! Maybe it is because I am currently taking my reference course, but I thought I would get answers like World Almanac or assorted encyclopedia sets, maybe a few odd books that Notre Dame students often need. I feel so mislead now in my reference prof.

Last week, I taught a unit with one of the English teachers. We decided to write obituaries. Seriously. To introduce the kids to authors, we had them pick one from a list or they could get one approved. Then they researched the author's life and works using the Biography Resource Center through Inspire. Once they were finished with their research, then they used the timeline template in the Inspiration program to create a pre-writing graphic organizer. The hook and the impetus for this project was the story that the AP has written Britany Spears' obituary just in case. I really thought that the teacher and I did a nice job of incorporating technology into a lesson in an authentic way. The students did a better job using a database and navigating Inspiration then what I have seen them do with other lessons.

Speaking of other lessons, a project that is a staple around here is the disease brochure. In this lesson, the students research a disease and make a brochure about it with pictures. So far, in the many times I have witnessed the health teachers doing this project, the main goal of many of the students seems to be "how can I get a really disgusting or naked picture around the filter." Breast cancer and elphantitus are both very popular with the male students for those reasons.

Cobbling technology

As I have discussed before, I work in a high school with some old technology. As far as I can tell, the school won a technology grant in 1999. Most of our laptops, digital cameras, data projectors, and other various pieces of equipment are from that year. This means I often find myself cobbling together different pieces to make one usable unit. For example, one DVD player stopped working. I used the cables on another DVD player and the remote went to another unit. Then I took the TV it had been hooked up to and traded it out with another TV whose sound had started to go. When teachers need a laptop with a projector, we have a session of twenty questions. I have one laptop that can be hooked up to the Internet. Another that has a USB port and another that can only take floppies. Then there are two more that are newer and are tablets. One is missing the stylus pen and while both of them can hook up to the Internet, both of them have broken ports where a data projector would be hooked into. It becomes very frustrating trying to meet the needs of teachers and students. Also, it can be a bit embarrassing. Sometimes I do not ask all the right questions or the teacher comes in and signs-up for the projector themselves. If they sign-up for a projector that does not meet their needs, then I am called in to fix the un-fixable. It is hard to constantly have to apologize for it and then the teachers are frustrated because they have to change their plans on the fly. On the bright side, I have found that I can be pretty creative on finding my way around these problems. Before you know it, I may be the MacGyver of LHS.