This is BS. As someone with several kids who use chromebooks, it became much better for the kids when more active monitoring and blocking came in. Just as a practical basis, they were less likely to get distracted or wander into areas where they shouldn't, when they shouldn't.
Okay, so if it blocks something that is potentially useful? Don't care. At school they should be learning the curriculum presented by the teacher. Want to learn something specific? Go to the library or do it at home.
Seriously. This article is extremely messed up and weak.
It's one thing, and I agree with you, to block porn, social media, and other inappropriate sites on school computers. My school library didn't have Playboy or Penthouse magazines available, and though I think the public library maybe carried Playboy, it was not available to minors.
It's another matter to actively monitor what students are doing, or writing/communicating to each other, and reporting back to teachers/administrators. That's an invasion of privacy and enables worse. There have been cases where weirdo administrators were activating cameras on school computers while the computers were away from school in the students' homes, bedrooms, etc.
Teacher here (high school CS). The article has its issues, but the content filtering is naive and overly-broad, just like it says. Here are some actual examples in my district:
- A tool for converting Scratch programs to portable webpages was blocked as "shareware".
- A reference page about the use of SSSP algorithms in game development was blocked under the category "games".
- Whiteboard apps are sometimes blocked as "insufficient content".
- Pages about infosec topics like hashcat are blocked under the category (you guessed it) "hacking".
- Pages with the Minecraft source code (which I use in my AP Java class) are often blocked, so I have to spend extra time converting them to PDFs instead of just pasting the links into my lesson plans.
- Github was blocked until enough CS teachers in the district pushed back.
Issues like this cost me time which I don't have enough of as it is. Since the students just find games that aren't blocked, I'd rather have the ability to access all pages (except adult content) and give consequences to off-task students as needed.
Thank God I went to school in the 70s and 80s. Not only were there fewer online distractions, but there was a greater expectation of independence and responsibility.
In the 80s a bully broke my friend's arm and only failed to break mine because of a thick coat. Teachers were busy chatting it up and didn't believe he was truly hurt. I however left a mark on the bully when I bit him. My friend suffered in pain the rest of the school day. I got a stern talking to. AFAIK the bully was treated as a victim, even after my friend came back the next day in a cast.
Also got to witness a classmate getting spanked on his bare ass by a teacher.
The 80s weren't so great for safety in school.
Not sure if indoor cameras are the answer, though I wouldn't mind if they tried at my kid's school.
I chose a daycare because they have cameras in every room and offer streaming video.
I am not confident that there exists enough funding for enough staffing to properly monitor teachers, nor do they get paid especially well to attract the best candidates. I see cameras as an inevitability, and if I were a teacher, I would want them for my own liability.
They weren't (in ways that are different than now), but virtually all of us survived, and none of us were permanently mentally scarred by perpetual surveillance.
If your kids don't learn any self-control now, when they're finally 18 or whatever and free of parental control they'll go nuts. It's no wonder so many US college kids have serious alcohol problems.
This is BS. As someone with several kids who use chromebooks, it became much better for the kids when more active monitoring and blocking came in. Just as a practical basis, they were less likely to get distracted or wander into areas where they shouldn't, when they shouldn't.
Okay, so if it blocks something that is potentially useful? Don't care. At school they should be learning the curriculum presented by the teacher. Want to learn something specific? Go to the library or do it at home.
Seriously. This article is extremely messed up and weak.