[LINK] Students not pro-NBN??

Wed Mar 30 12:40:03 AEDT 2011

Interesting that 50% of the kids interviewed thought the NBN was a good
idea, but felt the censor filter was a risk for slowing it down, and the
other 50% felt current internet speeds were ok "for now".
Not really a ringing endorsement of the headline.
Regards,
Michael Skeggs

On 30 March 2011 10:44, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com> wrote:

> [gee let's base public policy on 14-17 y.o. kids.
> Well, it may be just as good as some of the
> politicians involved, come to think of it. Naw, couldn't be.]
>
> Students shrug off NBN as a 'waste'
> Jewel Topsfield
> March 30, 2011
>
> "THE national broadband network may have secured
> the support of the independents and squeezed
> through Parliament but according to the next
> generation of internet users it's a waste of money.
>
> Diamond Valley College, in Melbourne's
> north-east, was one of only two schools in
> Australia that made a submission to the federal
> inquiry into the role of the NBN.
>
> The school surveyed 380 of its students and found
> they were prodigious internet users, with 99.5
> per cent of them on Facebook. But year 11 student
> Alex Klammer believes the $35.9 billion broadband network is a waste of
> money.
>
> ''The … government wants to speed up the internet
> but it's going to slow it down with all these
> firewalls and proxies to stop you getting on to
> certain websites,'' Alex said. ''It doesn't seem as if it would work.''
>
> The federal government's proposed mandatory
> internet filter will stop blacklisted websites
> from being allowed past Australian internet service providers.
>
> Alex and other students at Diamond Valley College
> were galvanised into making a submission to the
> inquiry after deciding that almost $40 billion
> was a fair chunk of change, and that the
> parliamentary committee holding the inquiry might
> be interested in how young people use the internet.
>
> ''We did a bit of research into it and it seemed
> like a good idea to have our say on it. We were
> the only school [students] to do it,'' Alex said.
> [no, they weren't, if you take Alex's unedited comment]
>
> The 214 submissions were dominated by local
> councils and universities. The Hutchins School in
> Tasmania was the only other school to
> participate, with a submission by its director of information services.
>
> Diamond Valley College's submission included its
> survey, which also found 75 per cent of students
> in years 7 to 12 use the internet for chat sites
> and email, 88 per cent for music, 73 per cent for
> weather updates, 72 per cent for movies and 66 per cent for games.
>
> Many students who attend the school live in
> Kinglake and other areas devastated on Black Saturday.
>
> ''Knowledge about community disasters like
> bushfires is also noted as a huge need …
> approximately 90 per cent of all young people
> living in bushfire-prone areas want to use the
> internet to protect their future safety,'' the
> students said in their submission.
>
> But despite the submission pointing out that
> speeding up communication would be a ''huge
> benefit in the future'', Alex was not the only
> Diamond Valley College student to question the value of the NBN.
>
> ''I personally think the money could be used for
> better things like hospitals,'' said year 9
> student Ashleigh Gentles, who helped write the
> submission. ''I feel the internet is sufficient for use now.''
>
> The federal inquiry into the role and potential
> of the NBN is due to report in August."
>
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/students-shrug-off-nbn-as-a-waste-20110329-1cesr.html
>
>
>
>
>
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
> blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
>
> Our truest response to the irrationality of the
> world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find
> truth.
> ~Madeline L'Engle, writer
>
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