“A mother in Richmond, Virginia, is raising concerns about the use of laptop computers in her son’s high school. She says she is not the only parent whose worries about uncontrolled usage of the computers are being ignored by school officials,” Jim Brown and Jody Brown report for AgapePress.
“Three years ago, Henrico became the first county in the nation to purchase laptops for every secondary school student in the district. The school system signed a four-year, $24.2-million lease for the laptops as part of its vision to “close the digital divide.” The purchase of 23,000 iBooks, according to manufacturer Apple, constituted the single largest sale of portable computers in education ever,” Brown and Brown report.
“Under the school’s guidelines, students pay only a minimal insurance fee that covers loss, theft, or damage to the computer, and they have the option to purchase their laptop after four years at a reduced cost,” Brown and Brown report. “But Sally Booth, whose son attends Godwin High, says the policy was put in place quickly and without measures to block pornography. The Virginia mom contends that instead of furthering education, the multi-million-dollar investment has led to problems with students viewing porn, hacking into grades, and cheating.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: These sound like problems originating with the computer operators, not with the iBooks themselves. Perhaps the concerned parents should have worked harder on their respective computer operators upbringing? Then they’d realize that cheating, playing games, viewing porn, etc. on laptops provided by their school are not the proper things to do?
Whoops, sorry. Wrong link (but that one is good too)
Here is the area about Henrico.
http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/henrico2/
The woman doesn’t want to take resonsiblity for rasing her own son. It’s as simple as that. Is she so clueless that she doesn’t know he has access to porn, Internet or not? It’s always easy to attack that which you don’t undersatnd and live an illusion that you’re in control. But she obviously lost control a long time ago when she abdicated responsibility to teach her son what is right and wrong.
If her son watches porn on the Sony DVD Player she bought him last Christmas is that Sony’s fault? If he buys a copy of Penthouse with money she gave him is it her fault?
All the school has to do is have a decent IT manager configure the iBooks with the Teacher having Sys Admin access and the students as users. Using OS X System Preferences, instant messaging, iTunes and the like can be easily shut off. The school could also likewise operate 2 wireless networks- one a closed LAN (no internet) and an open LAN (internet). The internet LAN could easily be controlled room by room by the teachers. Since each AirPort Base Station (classroom) can be assigned different passwords, overlap of signals would not be a problem. The district can also filter internet access at the server level should they desire to do so.
Finally, do the teachers have the Remote Desktop Software? If they do, monitoring student usage should be no problem.
Regardless of what people think about nudity, one thing is certain. Many parents have kids without any good reasons beyond wanting to have kids. I know parents who let the school provide education then let nanny and babysitter take care of the kids all afternoon and then let the kids watch TV all evening because they don’t want to be bothered. They want the goverment/schools to make rules for kids. Now, if they don’t want to be bothered with making meals for the kids, taking care of the kids’ needs, and educating the kids, they should never have kids in the first place. It seems they use children to obtain some status or think them as a property. Granted that some families undergo some hardship while the parents are trying their best. It’s the other kind that bothers me much.
NoPCZone: You’re kidding me, right? That’s beyond teachers’ pay (and knowledge) scale.
i am a student at a high school. no matter what the school has done their filtering software can be by passed. we have obtained the password twice. and found alternate routes around a blocked IP. the funny part is that virtually no one went out to view porn. it was games and the like that student were interested in. and the 8E6TECHNOLOGIES company was the provider of the block. this is an off site server level block. the major problem is that the password and user name from any school wil work as long as those schools have the same ISP. in our region there are at least 9 schools on the same server. so any one of those password username combos will work. there is no way to permanently block student from getting where theree going. and god forbid we see a boob along the the way.
More fud! Look if kids are going to view porn or hack there is ultimantley no way to stop them from doing this. I don’t understand parents who are all uptight about there children viewing nude photos and learning bad language and the like. All of these kids will learn to swear, masturbate and look up porn just like everyone else. I think these actiovities are essential for the development of a well adjusted child. When I was younger I used to hack all the time and it taught my brain to think in ways that i never would have if i diden’t have the oppurtunity. Lets stop focusing on the “negitive” and focus on the positive things that access to computers opens up to young people, even if it is a clear and present danger to conservitives. Hmm looks like conservitism dosen’t work in the real world after all…
1. Treat them like children until they’re 18.
2. ????
3. Profit!
So far from every entry I have not seen the issue. Maybe everyone is still thinking Computer. IT’S A TOOL. Sure you can find porn on the internet. GO VISIT THE LIBRARY. When I was 13-today (I’m 31), If I need info I can use the library to find information. Has anyone ever looked for the BOOK :The Joy Of Sex” by Dr. Joyce Brothers? I found it when I was 13, Its in your library, or they can request it. So is the Kama Sutra, and many many other publications. It just take the inititive to learn. Knownledge is not just on the internet. so don’t let anyoene blame Apple for not prrotecting out kids. tey didn’t dessign the internet. Time for responsibility, or a parennt to buy an internet blocker.
Ohferchrissakes!!!
If the kid starts writing erotica, I say take away the goddamn paper and pencils– or better yet, chop off his hands! Wait, wait, or a lobotomy, yeah, that’s the ticket! A lobotomy!
That’ll teach him…