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| The New Sexual Education: Part One | ||||
| www.birdsandbees.edu | Modern Sex Education | |||
| Sources for Part 1 | Web Sources and Links: Part 1 | |||
| James Gosling: Part Two | ||||
| Sources for Part 2 | Web Sources and Links | |||
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| www.birdsandbees.edu | |||||
| Despite strong concerns, parents have never posessed absolute power over their children's | |||||
| sexual education. Assume "sexualeducation" is a
process. It is like paving a path of knowledge and accumulating facts about
the sex act through life experiences. Children can collect this information
anywhere: in a classroom, schoolbus, on the playground or during the infamous
"birds and the bees" talk. Many of these encounters happen by
accident. I used to marvel at the a group of naked African dancers in National
Geographic Magazine, for example. As children progress along this education
pathway, their curiosity drives an all-out investigation. This so-called
explicit journey is usually devoid of their parent's knowledge. |
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| Computers and the Internet have been marketed for their amazing tools for education. Children | |||||
| can use search engines for their scienceprojects and can even
chat with experts about biology or history. Not only can computers assist
in school projects, they also have the ability to entertain and quiet children
or adolescents for hours. Many times, a personal computer is installed in
an isolated area, a study, or sometimes a child's own room. The Internet
provides a new medium for children to aquire this knowledge. Mounting fears
of graphic pornography available on the web has resulted in a fervor of
V-chips and other Internet-blocking software. |
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| This fear is nothing new. The moral crusade against pornography didn't start with Tipper Gore. | |||||
| It should be noted, however, that while the Internet is not
the sole catalyst for the early sexualization of children in the late 90s,
it may be a factor. As children embark on their investigations, searching
the internet makes their task almost too easy. The only hurdle a child scales
when trying to enter a pornographic website is a flashing icon that probably
piques their interest even more. The Internet is still the "Wild, Wild
West" of today, largely unregulated and full of wackos, weirdos and
perverts. Because of this, a word of caution for those parents who want
better control the direction of their child's sexual education. |
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| Sexual Education in the schools has changed dramatically since the late 70s. Sociologists have | |||||
| pointedly commented on the aftermathof the Sexual Revolution. "Sex today is increasingly mechanical and without commitment, [It has become] a department of plumbing, hygiene, or athletics rather than a private sphere for the creation of human meaning. The result: legions of unhappy adults and confused teenagers deprived of their innocence, on their way not to maturity but to disillusionment," sociologist Myron Magnet said. The change in curriculum is due to the rise in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), particularly the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV. The repercussions of the sexual revolution involve a premium placed on sexual freedom, awareness and safety. These approaches crowd the traditional notions surrounding sex, romance, morality and marriage, out of the curriculum. | |||||
| Baby boomers might recount their sexual education class, if they had one at all, involving a | |||||
| filmstrip about the reproduction of a plant. This was complete with a diagram of the flower, a cross-section of the stamens and pistol, and maybe even a bumble bee. Today, sex education has become something of a procedural task. The moral values that have promoted the institution of marriage are presently in the bag. Students now get a tutorial on how to put condoms on bananas in seventh grade. Children as young as six are already getting lectures about AIDs. | |||||
| Questions for JOMC50 Research Project | |||||
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+ How effective has the introduction of Internet-blocking software changed
parents' regulatory behavior?
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| 1. Levine, Judith. Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting
Children From Sex. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Unibersity of Minnesota Press,
2002. 2. Gresh, Sean. Tell It Like It Is: Straight Talk About Sex. New York: Avon Books, 1991. 3. The Facts of Love in the Library: Making Sexuality Information Relevant and Accessible to Young People. Writ. by Patty Campbell and Marlo Bendau, dir. and prod. by Marlo Bendau. Vidiocassette. ALA Video Chicago, 1987. |
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| JOMC50
Research Part II: James Gosling, Changing the (Inter)face of the Internet |
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| James Gosling changed the face of the World Wide Web in 1995. Before his innovations, the | |||||
| Web was a monstrosity, an intricate mess of text pages and images. Gosling introduced his new software in a Monterey conference in Canada early that year. It impressed programmers with its ability to allow programs on the Web to function on anyone's computer-- anywhere. It also facilitated the use of interactive programs to the Web. | |||||
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The famed programmer developed Java script out of necessity. He had problems with the | ||||
| inadequacies of C++, an object-oriented programming (OOP)
language, and simply innovated for greater efficiency (Fawcett 1998). Gosling
invented his new object-oriented language in a matter of months in 1991.
He and a team of engineers, the Green Team, initially underestimated the
magnatude of the Java brainchild. The team formed with the intention of
developing an easy way for various appliances in a house to connect and
work together (Venners 1999). The project went through several modifications
on its way to modern-day Java (Venners 1999). First, the language was used
for a project called "First Person," an interactive television
project (Venners 1999). Then, when the Internet gained momentum in the nineties,
the team concentrated on adapting Java for the convenience of Web clients
(Venners 1999). |
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| Java is a programming language used for the use of the distributed environment on the Internet, | |||||
| meaning data is spread out over more than one computer or
network. Javascript is generally easier and faster to code than other structured/compiled
languages such as C or C++. Java takes a little longer for browsers to process,
so it is ideal for shorter programs. Java is a logically sequenced serious
of operating system commands and is by no means easy to learn. The application
of these commands is an essential element to how the Internet is viewed
(Lohr 2001). |
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| Microsoft imposed a major obstacle for Gosling and impeded his vision. Shortly after he | |||||
| to make it Microsoft-ware dependent. Microsoft allowed for
Java-based pages to run faster and more efficiently on computers that were
using Windows and Internet Explorer. Microsoft's move frustrated Gosling
because he wanted Java to facilitate communication, not hinder it(Lohr 2001).
He believes that Microsoft is stifling technological development by functioning
under a profit incentive. Gosling handles this resentment in good humor
by posting a photo of Bill Gates getting a pie in the face on his personal
website. |
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| Gosling still is considered a major figure in the development of the Internet. He is revered among | |||||
| programmers for his genius and continues to give lectures across the country (Lohr 2001). He started off with a dream: To make Java superior to any platform out there. This year, Gosling is still hard at work, trying to improve Java, making it more efficient and expanding it in terms of parallel processing. He wants it to be flexible, and to operate under any browser (Venners 1999). Industry leaders agree that Gosling and other programmers at Sun Microsystems need to continue to maintain the integrity and edge of Java so that it doesn't fragment and go down in history as a fad. Gosling is now working hard to allow libraries to function based on the core language, extending more data to more places through Java (Fawcett 1998). Windows is opposed to this activity, claiming that these engineers are trying to reinvent THE operating system. Gosling sees it as pushing the boundaries, enabling a better, more connected public (Fawcett 1998). | |||||
| Sources | |||||
| (1)Neil Fawcett, "The man, the language and the Borg
mask," Computer Weekly, 19 Feb1998 p38(2), Also available [Infotrac
database online]: NC LIVE Expanded Academic [Accessed July15,, 2002]. (2) Steve Lohr, "Canada's Programmer," The Ottawa Citizen, 19 November 2001, Section: TECH WEEKLY, pg B2, Also available [Academic Universe online]: Lexus Nexus [Accessed July 15, 2002] (3) Steve Lohr " A 'Rare Form' of imagination: Canada's most famous programmer Part 2: James Gosling's amazing coding skills propel Java," The Ottawa Citizen, 26 November 2001, Section: TECH WEEKLY, pg. D2, Also available [Academic Universe online]: Lexus Nexus [Accessed July 15, 2002] Websites: |
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| Additional Sources | |||||
| Title of Web page: James Gosling Web Address: http://java.sun.com/people/jag/ Brief Description: Gosling's own personal webpage which he designed himself! Picture of him with his computer, pictures of Bill Gates getting a pie in the face, links to his research, etc. Source of Web Site: Sun Microsystems Title of Web page: James Gosling looks back at the Java language's
past and forward at its future Title of Web page: Adventures in Science and Technology: Computer
Programmer James Gosling |
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home | resume | research | profile | photographs | beetles | links | email Kelly last updated July 25, 2002 |
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