To many people, the idea that wireless networks cause health problems seems wacky.
But four libraries in Paris have switched off their wireless connections after staff members complained that electromagnetic radiation from the networks was the source of their health problems, according to an article today in the newspaper, The Connexion.
The article states that the latest library to turn off the service is at Sainte-Geneviève University. The action was taken after a staff member threatened to take early retirement on health grounds. He said his symptoms included “headaches, balance problems, general weakness, stress and sight problems.” But he also blamed electromagnetic radiation from cell phones for his maladies.
College employees in North America, too, have raised health concerns about wireless networks. A library director at Southwestern College, in Santa Fe, N.M., left her job last year, saying the wireless network played a role in her insomnia. And two years ago the president of Lakehead University, in Ontario, prohibited his institution from deploying a wireless network across campus citing concerns about students’ health.
Despite these worries, the Centers for Disease Control says scientific research does not indicate “a significant association between cell phone use and health effects.” Cell phones also emit electromagnetic radiation. But an article in Tuesday’s New York Times points out that three prominent neurosurgeons do not hold cell phones to their ears in order to reduce their brains’ exposure to radiation.—Andrea L. Foster
6 Responses to WiFi in Libraries Blamed for Health Maladies in Paris
Justin Zamora - January 14, 2012 at 5:44 pm
I absolutely agree with both your points, that programming should be required of all students and that we need to be using a broad definition of programming. One obstacle is getting people to agree on how to teach programming. Some want to teach based on languages popular in industry, like Java, or C++ or based on current technologies like Web-based programming (JavaScript, etc.). A very real danger with these approaches that that students will learn more about the details of these languages/technologies instead of the fundamentals of programming.
The approach I prefer is that used by the Program by Design curriculum (http://www.programbydesign.org/overview), which emphasizes a programming methodology based on composing basic operations to build small programs, which in turn can be composed to build larger programs. This is very similar to ideas students are familiar with from English composition classes: learn to form correct sentences, then combine sentences to form correct paragraphs, then entire essays. This approach also heavily emphasizes the design process and building test cases into the design of the programs (something that rarely done in programming classes at any level).
Another advantage of “Program by Design” is that it uses a language called Racket (http://racket-lang.org) that supports “language levels”, so beginners can use the “Beginning Student” level that restricts certain difficult or dangerous features and provides error messages appropriate to their level. There are other levels for Intermediate and Advanced students. The point of using Racket is not to learn a language (very few language of its many features are actually used) but to provide a programming environment that encourages good design, exploration, and is especially useful for students.
Jan Jensen - January 15, 2012 at 5:21 am
I work in STEM education (Chemistry + nanoscience) so I’ll limit my comments to that.
I think a programming course should be required for 3 reasons: 1. it’s great at teaching logical, structured thinking and 2. every branch of STEM now has a strong research component that is purely computational (i.e. modeling and simulations), so students should be exposed to that like any other branch of the field. 3. Some students are natural programmers and they haven’t found out because they have never been exposed to it.
Because of the 2nd reason, the course I have in mind is an advanced course (3rd or 4th year) aimed at a particular major. I don’t think the language matters that much (but perhaps python or matlab is the most palatable for beginners). The real hurdles for beginners are the ideas behind algorithms and debugging.
Also (and for the same general reasons), I advocate using MAPLE or Mathematica (or similar) in any other STEM course as much as possible. Even here good programming practices (and logical structured thinking) come in, e.g. define your variables once in the beginning, break down complex functions (tasks) into simpler ones, rudimentary debugging, etc.
In all this, screencasting is incredibly useful (example, in Danish, sorry, but you get the idea: http://youtu.be/ziMiS2uJAjw).
Scholastica - January 16, 2012 at 2:20 pm
It seems like we might be approaching a tipping point in this discussion. There are articles similar to this one appearing at an ever-increasing rate. For instance, Douglas Rushkoff, the author of ‘Program or Be Programmed’ had an article on this subject on CNN last week. We’ve also had a discussion about this at Scholastica, our academic journal management platform and scholarly community, http://bit.ly/rzorvw .
It definitely seems like programming is becoming more of a skill that people outside of math and sciences need to know – because it effects every part of their virtual lives. For instance, you bring up HTML5. It’s very empowering for a young person to make a simple web page with HTML. Although, when we start teaching them to style with CSS and finally how to make them interactive with Javascript (a programming language), young people can begin to learn programming in a domain they’re very familiar with – the web. For instance, “Hi young person, let’s make a web page that says your name. Next, we’ll use CSS to style it by making it red. Now with Javascript, we’ll write a function that makes your name slide across the screen when you click it. Finally, let’s abstract this function so you can use it to animate many things.”
Programming should definitely be required at a college level, but there’s no also no reason to teach it earlier. It is probably helpful to teach people in such a way that they can make things that they find useful (and therefore exciting).
Robert Talbert - January 16, 2012 at 9:31 pm
I’m reading Rushkoff’s book right now and hope to finish it soon and do a review.
Seymour Papert, about whom I write a lot around here, felt programming should start in the early grades around age 8–10. He wrote the LOGO language to do just that. I recently read somewhere that programming could/should be introduced in the mainstream school math curriculum right after kids learn the division algorithm — namely, to program a computer to perform the division algorithm, which would be a lot more intellectually challenging and practically useful than learning how to do long division by hand.
austinbarry - January 19, 2012 at 10:33 pm
“Programming should definitely be required at a college level, but there’s no also no reason to teach it earlier”. As a programmer, I know what you are saying. Assuming “also” is a noise word in this context, theres no(no reason to teach it earlier), meaning that there’s every reason to teach it earlier. I agree!
Feifan Chang - February 8, 2012 at 9:41 am
Good point raised.
The future of programming is bright.
& student should learn programming.