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Back to school

I haven’t been enrolled in school since 1997, and although I never thought it was possible, part of me misses it.

I haven’t been enrolled in school since 1997, and although I never thought it was possible, part of me misses it. That’s not to say I’ve stopped learning – I read, I research, I get hands on training doing something almost every day of my life – but I haven’t focused on a single stream of education in a long, long time.

Obviously it would be impossible to go back to college or university at this juncture in my life, but thanks to the Internet it’s not impossible to bring the college or university to me. On your own time you can work on certificates, diplomas and even full degrees without ever stepping foot in a classroom.

I can even go back in time and give Grade 11 math another shot – I only passed on the second attempt with a suspicious grade of 51 per cent, and haven’t taken another math course since.

The place to start looking for new online educational opportunities is, of course, online.

If you’re looking for high school level courses – you may need a few pre-requisites before you apply to a post-secondary school – try www.openschoolbc.ca. Once there you’ll be able to browse an online catalogue with more than 3,000 learning resources. Grade 11 math courses are available for about $20 a module, and there are 13 modules available.

Other courses are offered through various school districts around the province. Go the provincial government’s Web site at www.gov.bc.ca, click on the tab for Ministries and Organizations, and go to Education – you’ll find everything you need right there.

For post-secondary courses, check out www.educationcanada.cmec/EN/Prov/BC.php and scroll down to the heading "Distance Education in British Columbia" to see all the different e-learning hubs out there, like BCcourses.com (http://bccourses.com), B.C. Open University (www.bcou.ca), and the Open Learning Agency (www.ola.bc.ca).

A list of institutions offering online courses, including BCIT, UBC and SFU, is available at www.bccat.bc.ca and www.openingdoorsbc.com.

The Canadian Virtual University (www.cvu-uvc.ca) is a partnership of post-secondary universities across Canada offering e-learning opportunities – take your pick of thousands of programs.

For practical continuing education in Whistler, visit the Whistler Chamber of Commerce (www.whistlerchamber.com) and check out your options under the Learning Network tab.

California gets tough on video game ratings

California has always prided itself in being years ahead of the rest of the world, from its stringent environmental laws that lead North America to the technological advancements of Silicon Valley.

With about 35 million people sharing an area about half the size of British Columbia, California is also a unique social experiment. While it’s liberal enough to accommodate the diversity of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hollywood and Hugh Heffner, it’s also conservative enough to elect Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan as Governors.

Both sides of California’s split personality were on display last week when California’s Senate debated a bill on whether to make Entertainment Software Ratings Board video game ratings mandatory in the state. Current game ratings are EC (Early Childhood), E (Everyone), T (Teens) M (Mature) and AO (Adults Only). The ratings take into account things like violence, language, sexual content and game themes – slaying a dragon to rescue a princess is considered less harmful to kids than taking over a Mafia empire one hit at a time.

Under the proposed law, Kids under the age of 17 would not be able to rent or purchase games rated as Mature unless of course a parent or guardian buys it for them. AO Games, of which there are an increasing number, are for kids 18 and older.

In addition, Mature games must now be stocked at least five feet off the ground. Promotional materials, such as posters and stand-up displays, would also be subject to the new laws.

The Senate passed the bill 21-14 last week, just months after the State Assembly passed the bill in late May. Now all that remains is for Governor Schwarzenegger – I still can’t get used to that title – to sign the bill into law.

It’s somewhat ironic, given that Schwarzenegger is best known for his violent movies that appeal to younger audiences, but all indications are that California will soon become the first state to build laws around the video game ratings system.

Other state governments are watching these developments closely, as are the video game developers. While studies consistently show the gaming population is getting older, game developers may elect to take the same route as movie producers in trying to garner the biggest possible audience by keeping the ratings down in the Teen (14 or older) or Everyone categories. That doesn’t mean that games like BMX XXX and Grand Theft Auto won’t continue to get made, but if they’re not as lucrative as in the past then we could see some of the less popular franchises die out or get toned down.

U.S. cracks down on Internet fraud

They’re calling it Operation Web Snare, and the U.S. Department of Justice is dead serious about it.

Starting last week the DoJ has being actively going after people involved in Internet fraud schemes, computer hacking, piracy and identity theft, and illegal spamming. In the opening days of the crackdown, they made 103 arrests with 53 no-contest convictions.

Still, some Internet security groups are concerned that the high-profile crackdown isn’t going far enough. Rather than making an example for would-be felons, they say that this relatively small number of arrests will actually give online criminals a boost because it shows that the odds are still in their favour –103 arrests is a drop in the bucket when it comes to online crime.

One area that the DoJ is targeting heavily these days is "phishing" – an online identity theft scam that has seen the number of reported attacks grow more than 52 per cent a month this year. Phishing scams use e-mails to draw people to Web sites by asking them to update their personal information, pretending to be from a legitimate source. Under this subterfuge people have given out Social Insurance Numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers and other important personal information to scammers (for a complete definition of phishing visit www.webopedia.com).