John Silva Blog

When I first signed up for this course, my thought was, “cool, let’s start arguin’ ethics!” I had very high hopes going in to this course. With each week though, I felt more and more disappointed. Each week I needed to reflect on another module, seeking something that made me sat, “Oh My!, Oh, No!, [...]

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What I found most interesting about this module is the article “Is Google Making us Stupid?” The idea that Google, and by extension The Internet, is enabling us to to avoid having to read and learn at a deeper level is reflected in how I have approached many of the assignments for this course, and [...]

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As I noted in my previous post, and expanded on in the article “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, one important skill that many of us seem to lack is information literacy. Computers and the Internet are at the same time making finding information easier and allowing us to cede many of our knowledge and memory [...]

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About 13 years ago, I worked in retail sales at a store called Computer City in Rockville, MD. In that year, Microsoft debuted its “Windows 95” operating system, a supposed leap forward in software. I remember that year was also the first time a computer came with a hard drive of 1 gigbayte of storage. [...]

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This module primarily dealt with social connections online and the concept of online anonymity. It is the latter that held my attention the most. When reading the lengthy article from the NY Times, I kept going back to the simple idea that there is a distinction between being anonymous online and illegal or unethical conduct [...]

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The concept of an Internet Driver’s License seems to be popular in elementary schools and teachers attempt to teach kids about the dangers of the Internet and how to effectively use the Internet. PBSKids.org (2007) has an online tool to teach kids about the Internet and “issues” them a web license. It has ten different [...]

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Creating a profile for Facebook had a few challenges. It’s a very personal thing putting yourself out there for the whole world to see. One of my concerns was the fact that I am a teacher and sharing personal information with students, however indirectly, has a certain taboo. I wanted to share information with people [...]

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Finally things start to get lively.
I found it very ineteresting to see how a little thing like wearing a button can inspire such debate. 1st Amendment issues are some of my favorite things to discuss and probably why I love coaching debate so much.
As with much of the previous modules, a lot of the topics [...]

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According to the Federal Communications Commission (2008), the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a federal law enacted by Congress in 2000 to address concerns about access by children to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers. The law did not require schools and libraries to install filters unless they received funding [...]

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*  What does an internet filter do? Do libraries have to install them? Do schools? Name any laws that are related to internet filters.
* Explain the pros and cons of internet filters. What is your opinion of these filters? Support your opinion with logical reasoning.
Simply put, an Internet filter regulates and restricts access to information [...]

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