Internet Crackdown

In Stephen King’s Ur, Wesley believes that he catches Robbie Henderson playing on some sort of electronic device in his class. He attempts to take it away, but instead realizes that it is more helpful for the student than hurtful, because he is reading the assigned book on it. During my freshman year of high school, my school gave the students Macbook Airs. It was a small school, the only computers that we had ever really used at school were big, slow desktops in the computer lab, so the new ones were very exciting. We could now download textbooks, type notes, and submit homework all with the laptop. Ths solved a lot of back problems for students, because no longer have to carry around several heavy textbooks and other supplies. Everything was at the tips of our fingers… which my school soon realized was not such a good thing. Students were watching movies in class, playing games, texting their friends, and using Google to find the answers to their homework and other lessons. Suddenly, the administration cracked down on what we could do on our laptops, putting software to be able to block websites and monitor our screens at all times. If you were caught doing something deemed “inappropriate”, you were sent a private message by the principle or disciplinarian, (usually saying something sassy, such as “What does online shopping have to do with your English class?”) and served a detention. Students complained about this, saying it was an invasion of privacy, even though it was the school’s laptop and it was going to help them focus on their work. In Maria Cecire’s Massively Open, it does not seem as though that anyone is monitoring the Ivy Digital Degrees, or very closely, at least. Because of this lack of monitoring, Ford was able to see Zoe’s location, along with many others’. Perhaps with some monitoring of the activity that happened, this could have been prevented. According to Edtechnologies’ article Safeguarding students: more than just internet monitoring, while schools recognize that the student’s use of the internet needs to be monitored to keep them on track of school work, it can also be used to check on the students mental health. An example they used was “a student searches for ‘jollop’ (a slang term for laxatives) and then, a couple of hours later, searches for ‘Boots.com’ (a provider of dietary supplements including laxatives). Individually, these searches may not seem concerning; however, when reviewed in sequence, they may indicate a potential issue related to eating disorders”. This monitoring allows for both the school and the parents, to take action before the problem even presents itself, allowing the student to stay safe. While the rise of the internet and new technologies allows for students to have easier access to information (and distractions), monitoring can quickly solve the problem and help keep students safe.