-> SK>Well, I possibly fall into that category. It's true that it's easy
-> to >spend a lot of time on the Web. But if these people are doing it
-> in >their free time, time that would normally be spent on other
-> hobbies and >amusements, then what's the harm in it? How can you say
-> it is "too much" >time?
-> When the kids cloths are not getting washed :)  BTW, taught anyone
-> else how to do the laundry yet ?
Ha, ha. 
No, I haven't recently instructed the children in laundry per se.
But we are working on teaching a number of household chores. Most
recently: scrubbing the bathtub, washing the car, organizing the
closet, for example.
-> I think his point might have been that perhaps some teachers are
-> using school time to roam the net.  Perhaps they do not have access
-> outside of school.
If that IS his point (and I'm not certain that it is), I'd have to say
it is really irrelevant.
Even if the teachers didn't have Internet access on campus, those who
want to frivel away time will do so in many other ways. We have teachers
who come in and play games like solitaire on the computers in our
teachers lounge (not incessantly, but...), or some read the newspaper,
or take naps or...whatever. Whose to say that these same teachers don't
go home and do a few hours of work at home for the courses they teach?
Dedicated teachers will continue to prepare responsibly for class.
Slackers will continue to slack. I think that you get the best
performance from responsible, dedicated employees by allowing them to
make decisions about how to do their job while still holding them
accountable for their job performance. If the classroom performance
doesn't suffer, then who cares how much time these teachers are using
on-line?
I think that part of the problem is this: There is simply too much stuff
out there on the Web. Even when I go looking for something in
particular, I can spend "too much time" because my search queries find
SO MUCH stuff and it takes a long time to go to all those sites and
check it out. To skip one is maybe to miss a gem.
That is why some organizations are creating job positions (this would be
a good thing for a school district to do) where someone's full time job
is to go out there on the Web and look for good stuff for the other
employees of the organization (like the other classroom teachers) and
report back to them on what's out there in such a way that the teachers
can access this stuff quickly and without a lot of wasted time searching
for things they need or want. If you have a URL in your hand and know
it's the one you need, there's not much time wasted!
Sheila
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