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"The students are getting around software that lets school district officials know where the iPads are, and what the students are doing with them at all times."

by jccc 13y ago

"The students are getting around software that lets school district officials know where the iPads are, and what the students are doing with them at all times." (Emphasis added.) This is not in the lead, not in any way suggested by the headline, and not mentioned again anywhere in the article. So I guess this feature of the district's monitoring isn't really worth thinking much about and it's okay to condition young people to get used to it?

monkeyspaw 13y ago
I dunno, I could see that really resonating with parents who want complete knowledge of their child's location at all times. And what they were doing. That type of technology satisfies every parent: those who want to be helicoptering, can see where their child is at this very moment. The parents who don't care, can do nothing. I applaud your general cynical outlook. However, I tend to think schools can only control 1 thing: parents being upset. Politicians / standardized scores / etc., all are generally outside of the individual school (staff, admin, teachers) control. So schools optimize to minimize parental complaints and staff time, because it's one of the few knobs they can turn.
- jccc 13y ago
  Parents != school staff. I don't think anyone asked parents, "Let our IT staff monitor your child's location and activities at all times, on campus and off." Even if it were parents alone instigating this, I'm not okay with conditioning teenagers to get used to this kind of surveillance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Hv-Rrqr8PsJ:thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/school-accused-of-using-webcam-to-photograph-student-at-home/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Hv-Rrq...

by jccc 13y ago

monkeyspaw 13y ago

I dunno, I could see that really resonating with parents who want complete knowledge of their child's location at all times. And what they were doing. That type of technology satisfies every parent: those who want to be helicoptering, can see where their child is at this very moment. The parents who don't care, can do nothing. I applaud your general cynical outlook. However, I tend to think schools can only control 1 thing: parents being upset. Politicians / standardized scores / etc., all are generally outside of the individual school (staff, admin, teachers) control. So schools optimize to minimize parental complaints and staff time, because it's one of the few knobs they can turn.

jccc 13y ago
Parents != school staff. I don't think anyone asked parents, "Let our IT staff monitor your child's location and activities at all times, on campus and off." Even if it were parents alone instigating this, I'm not okay with conditioning teenagers to get used to this kind of surveillance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Hv-Rrqr8PsJ:thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/school-accused-of-using-webcam-to-photograph-student-at-home/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Hv-Rrq...