WHO NEEDS ACADEMIC FREEDOM?....... like really?

I just got back from listening to DR. Howard Woodhouse give a speach titled "Who Needs Academic Freedom?" and was pleasently surprised and much to my peers dismay I was totally engauged without the use of my Laptop. The speach centered on post secondary academic freedom from a philosophy standpoint and was geared very much toward informing the public on just exactly our university is doing in regards to our education with their own coporate agenda.
One key point of the speech and question period that fallowed centered on the Canadian Light source Synchrotron and how is has cost us 450 million not including operating budgets. The one fact that was brought up that struck close to home for me was that the companies using our technology to create thing for the corporate agenda actually end up costing us twice as much, for example the drug companies, use the facility that we payed for to make medicine and drugs for us, we then pay for those drugs? please stop me for thinking in Communist ideologies but does this not seem wrong? should we not either benefit from those drugs derived from our facility or at very least allow that drug company to pay their taxes and allow us to benefit in some other way?
Another reason this idea struck me close to home is that the university operates in very much the same manner, we pay incredible amounts to get an education which is funding by the public purse due to major cuts by government during the educational student movements in the 70's. We pay taxes that used to pay for our education and then pay again when we graduated to fund private corporate agenda ventures like the light source synchrotron? Woodhouse mentioned that upon graduation of his Doctorate he had a debt of 0$ thats right ZERO, lets just think about that? on average we could say one degree and bachelor's mind you, would cost on average roughly 50 grand, and not only are we thrown into debt and forced to feed the corporate agenda machine but the fact that this makes us work through school hurts our quality of education and also allows no time for political movements on the part of students. It has been said that the cuts to education was a direct result of the uprising to the students movements in the 70's and i would say that the plan worked.
If we look at some western European countries like Scandinavia, we would see all post secondary schooling paid for and we would also see a much higher standard of education and living among others. I realize they pay higher taxes but is that not a good trade off? lets allow our students to go to school for free and when their out we will have a much larger smarter tax base, and i think not making people pay over and over for the same result may be a smarter model.

It seems to me that the highest for of accountability we have in university is the personal integrity of our staff, go figure?

well here is to changing the system one blog at a time

live life, love, laugh and design unlikely futures.

Ways to integrate a blog into your classroom teaching (using your area of specialization)

NOTE THIS IS AN ASSIGNMENT,
"ways to integrate a blog into your classroom teaching (using your area of specialization)"

First off my Areas technically are Practical and Applied Arts Industrial, Minor in Drama, area of expertise within PAA is PhotoGraphic, CPT (Communication Production Technologies) and Graphic Arts.

I am working on my Website as we speak, or blog. I have the domain name of Marcgobeil.com and will upload my site asap. This site will be used to integrate my classes and be a hub for my teaching. From this site the students will be able to look at all the tutorials and videos for the class along with looking at what is expected of them during the course of the work. I will be incorporating a blog into this website by using word press. This is a great way for parents to be connected to their students work the fact that it is a website and accessible to anyone allows parents to find out what their kids are doing in class and find out if their kids are doing the work they are supposed to. Also a blog on a website is a good way for students and parents to ask questions after hours as long as the teacher checks their blog.

Second Life:...... a real can of Creepy

My intentions are to illustrate the horrible truths that have become Second Life in hopes that teachers and parents around the world will see it for what it is: a sick twisted world rampant with deviants and sexual predators that have inhabited this failed academic experiment who extort and prey upon the innocent as long as it remains legal to do so.

With the popularity of MMO’s and other MMORPG’s we are starting to see the immergence of many new social disorders linked to a world created that has evolved to foster illicit and illegal behavior. Second Life is one such MMO world that clearly has become a haven for the new age predator. Although its intent was not to be a world that fosters these actions it has been inhabited and overtaken. Why can’t we just appreciate it for what it was and destroy it before we allow it to go any farther.

Did you know that Second Life has a Sex Island, Red Light district and “Rape Rooms”?(Grant). Real world companies have even set up virtual whorehouses, brothels and strip clubs monitored by virtual pimps. The sex industry within Second Life is one of the biggest and most profitable within this creepy microcosm of an online world. The very real and very disturbing aspect of this online sex world is that is evolving into including phone and video sex within its companies set up to profit from this disturbing trend. This isn’t your 90’s chat rooms anymore where there are four teenagers pretending to be a girl and laugh when a dirty word comes up, these companies have policies and hiring practices when selecting these “avatars” to work for them in their virtual cesspools. (Boutin)

There are only two possible argument in defense of this online world and other MMO’s, the first is to allow those who have failed to succeed in the real world to develop social skills to the point where they may go on to succeed in reality. For those who believe this is a valid argument I would rebut with demanding clarification on the existence of “rape rooms”, Sex Island, virtual prostitution and the prevalent Red Light districts and their impact on ones development of social skills One other possible argument that could be made in defense of second life is the account settings where teens are supposed to register for a teen account and adults are supposed to register for an adult account. First off I would imagine there is likely more predators that register as teens than teens themselves, also this system only works if individuals respects EULA’s and do not abuse the system.

Google had come out with a similar MMO world called Lively, which has since being disabled most likely because it was PG rated and Censored by Google. “Anecdotally, many of Second Life's users are there for virtual sex. (The company has banned gambling, so there's little other reason to go there.) The PG-rated Lively, censored by Google, did not even have that; its only draw was innocuous chat, with the occasional subversive attempt by users at raciness” (Thomas)

As an education that utilizes technology in every class I would say that this concept has great concepts but this is definitely not a place for our students. We must acknowledge that Second Life is one of the first MMO worlds that was created and is now a basis or a framework of which we could build something much better and more importantly safer for students.

You would have to be naïve to think that the internet was not created for or benefited from the sex industry, e.g. online chat, video conferencing, online banking, money exchange like Paypal and just the growth of the internet can be attributed to the sex industry. Ask any student about pornography and they will tell you that it is easier to find on the internet than any other place in the world. Being that it is so easy to find pornography on the Internet more often than not there is some sort of safeguard, I know they are ineffective and pointless to say the least but even this small token of sensitivity is not evident in Second Life.

Do educators know the ins and outs of this Creepy Tree house? If not, it is my intention to inform the masses. Second Life is NOT a place for students. Nor is it a place that should exists on the Internet. It perpetuates illicit and illegal behavior and by not shutting it down we are condoning these actions. Second Life needs to be discussed in our universities an our classrooms but only that it is to be avoided at all costs, despite any potential benefits people believe it held in the past.

Sources
Boutin, Paul. Virtual hookers to help us get laid off. 8:00 PM on Tue Oct 21 2008,
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5066792/virtual-hookers-to-help-us-get-laid-off

Grant, Melissa Gira, Congressman gets in on Second Life's "rape rooms" 8:00 PM on Tue May 6 2008, http://valleywag.gawker.com/387829/congressman-gets-in-on-second-lifes-rape-rooms


Thomas, Owen, Second Life's death knell, 1:40 PM on Thu Nov 20 2008, http://valleywag.gawker.com/5094671/second-lifes-death-knell

Thomas, Owen. The End of Second Life. 12:00 PM on Sun Feb 22 2009, http://valleywag.gawker.com/5158190/the-end-of-second-life

Definitions:
MMO: Massively Multiplayer Online
MMORPG Massively multiplayer online role playing game
EULA: End License user agreement