6. What steps do you take in order for students to reach acceptable sites while exploring the Internet during this activity?
There is often concern about appropriate use of time in an educational setting, and also acceptable sites on the Web. There is certainly a discussion about that. And many educational institutions and libraries have developed what are called AUPs- acceptable-use policies or appropriate-use policies. Our setting has developed one such document by a committee of instructors, administrators, and learners. All the learners in this program are adults.
My concern is that we are using our time in the classroom and using our technology wisely and appropriately. So really all I do when learners come into the program and have their first e-mail account is just to discuss the acceptable-use policy that's in place. We are all adults. We know that it's really a blessing, a luxury, and a tremendous gift to have this technology for our use. And so it's just pointing that out that we use it appropriately. It has not been a problem at all because we discuss the issue up front and address it before we ever start.
Certainly learners can use the Internet before class, during lunch, after class if they want to write personal e-mail messages, if they want to look up other information. As the learners in this program are parents and often are looking up things having to do with issues of parenting, medical questions having to do with their children. You know, "My child has chronic ear infections. The physician wants her to have tubes put in her ears. Ohh, that's scarey to me. How can I find out that information?" So they do that really on their own time, but the Internet is available to them for that.
