[LINK] The three best .au emails

[stephen loosley]

At 03:34 PM 13/02/2000 +1000, Greg Taylor wrote:

 > .. Teach them to enquire for themselves, to seek out information
 > for themselves, to engage with others who share their individual
 > interests, and to treat with scepticism the flood of corporate and
 > political "messages" that swamp us.  

Thanks for these well-considered comments, Greg .. and everyone
would agree there is a place in schools for information disseminated
via a wide variety of sources. The Internet is yet another such source.

[ The kids I teach (the state-high in the suburb where 'Neighbours' is
filmed & 95%+ have the Internet), still opt for a TV/Net utilization ratio
of around 8:1 hours / week. Be sure we're working on that, however]

 > The Internet provides the most marvellous tool ever invented for
 > reaching out and communicating with our fellow human beings.
 > To use it merely as a vehicle for passive consumption of "information"
 > is to turn your students into couch potatos - targets for the passive
 > consumerism that governments and corporates are frantically trying
 > to convince us is the future of the Net.  Greg

There is no real danger of that, imho. Have you met an .au teenager
who believes everything they're told, or read, and who isn't interested
in communicating, especially with other teens? They would claim they
are nobody's 'passive information consumer', and I'd agree with them.

If you're ever around Vermont in Melbourne, please drop-in to the local
high school, see our resources, and talk with some teenagers of today.
And that invitation extends to every member of link. It's possible linkers
might be surprised at the level of student media-sophistication evident.

Of course, don't expect to escape without at least a cuppa and a talk to
our Senior I.T. classes however. You can even help us bring on-line the
26 new pentiums arriving next week, if you like.. and in the meantime I'll
still be hunting up email resources with this class, and also for the other
five classes I and many of my colleagues now teach. (Thank you, Jeff :)

Thanks again for your thoughts, Greg, and the invitation is most sincere.

Cheers Link (btw, is 'Link' a proper or common noun, i.e. Link or link?) 
Stephen Loosley
www.stephen.hm