Lori Van Order

SLM521

Elective-Silicon Snake

Summer 2003

This site gives my views on 5 points taken from Clifford Stoll’s book Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Superhighway.

“Information available over the Internet is often stale, incomplete, misleading, unreviewed, or simply wrong.”

I find myself agreeing with this statement from my own experience surfing the Web. I have found several sites having to do with the particular topic I am searching, but sometimes I discover that the site is actually posted by a third grader or a younger student who did the project for school. This shows that almost anyone has access to posting information on the Web, so it cannot be guaranteed that the information found is accurate or produced by a competent, knowledgeable person.

“E-mail is clumsy, inefficient, and impersonal. It appears to be free, yet is actually quite expensive, and can be much slower than ordinary postal mail.”

I have to agree that email can be very impersonal. Being a teacher, I find myself sometimes communicating with parents through email, and I feel that sometimes it is too difficult to read the tone in what is written. I have found it much easier to communicate with parents via the phone or in person, in order to understand and perceive reactions more acutely. Also, I do agree that email can be slower than postal mail at times…there have been too many incidents of the server being down and email not working for several days for it to be completely reliable in communicating efficiently.

“Computers will deviously chew away at libraries from the inside.”

I have seen this to be a problem in my own school, as kids are more and more using the internet for research and not the references in the library. I think sometimes the problem is that the references in the library can be outdated in comparison to quick, easy access to updated, current information on the Internet. I think the Media Specialists need to keep educating the students in how to properly use the references in the library, but also keep their collection as updated and current as possible.

“Face to face meetings are far more meaningful—and valuable—than disembodied network interactions.”

This statement goes along with what I stated above, about meeting with parents in school in order to better perceive reactions or tones in what is being shared. Also, as stated earlier, communication through email can be slower than anticipated, especially if the person being emailed does not check their email often, and it is an urgent message. When there is something important to be said and responded to, it is much more efficient to meet face to face, then any misunderstandings can be cleared up immediately, and one can be assured that the other received the message.

“Computers are not necessary for college studies.”

Even though the Internet was not as commonly used for research as it is today, I still found the computer very necessary in my college studies. For one thing, typing up papers was a must for any college student, and it was especially easier for procrastinators like myself to have their own computers, so that when caught in a jam they didn’t need to rely on computer labs being open. Also, the internet is a much faster, more convenient way for a college student to do research on a specific topic.