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> Date:    Fri, 16 Feb 2007 21:44:49 -0500
> From:    rshull <rshull@GREENAPPLE.COM>
> Subject: Re: Amero: Scarier and scarier
> 
> I can understand how it happens.  I had a student assistant use the
> circulation computer to go to some pretty obscene sites (at 50 I thought
> I had seen a lot but this was beyond me). When I found this web site and
> clicked on it the porn site came up. I hit escape another site came up;
> I hit to logout another site came up. Each one getting more obscene. OH,
> MY, I WAS GOING BLIND IT WAS SO NAUGHTY. I believe this is called
> mousetrapping. It took less than 30 secs to reach behind the computer
> and unplug it. Our tech guys came and took the info as evidence and
> cleaned up the machine. They also gave me a lecture on not turning off
> the computer by unplugging it.  Needless to say, student assistant when
> she came back from out of school suspension, was no longer a student
> assistant. I think the court case was a travesty. However, I know that
> it is not good for the computer but it takes nothing to pull the plug.
> Becky Vasilakis

However, what would you have done if you had been specifically told, with
some emphasis, that as a substitute you were never to turn off the computer?
And if, as a computer neophyte, you were not even sure how to turn off the
machine without breaking it - for which you would be held responsible?

Apparently what Julie did was to turn the screen so that students could not
see (a couple unfortunately could, but not very well) and she tried,
apparently the entire day, to get the porn sites to stop popping up. She
also quite apparently did not know that the only way to stop this kind of an
attack is to turn off the machine.

Julie actually did an incredibly good job of trying to deal with this
situation -- to the best of her ability. I do not have exact class figures,
but at least 5 classes. And only a handful of students saw glimpses of stuff
-- and virtually all of them knew something was afoot and used a "sneaky
method" to try to go and look.

Unfortunately, it also appears that your student assistant was highly likely
the victim of this kind of garbage-spewing technology -- and not at fault.
And as a result she got suspension and removed from a job she likely
enjoyed. 

How many other teachers and students have been falsely accused because no
one understands? 

Nancy
-- 
Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://csriu.org
http://cyberbully.org
nwillard@csriu.org

Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social
Aggression, Threats, and Distress. New edition, published by Research Press.

Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the
Internet Safely and Responsibly. Jossey-Bass (March 16, 2007)

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