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Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

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Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#91

Post by japanuspus »

dlevine wrote: post #58

I've been teaching my nephew how to code using Scratch. He told me that they blocked Scratch at school because some of the kids were using it to play games during school. Kind of a shame, because it is a great way for kids to learn how to code.

Similarly, my attempt to get my son started on simple HTML was stranded by his school disabling the "developer view" in Chrome. I suspect the simple reason is that seeing the source allowed you to cheat on some of the educational websites the teachers use for assignments.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#92

Post by bandyaboot »

safety1st wrote: post #87
bandyaboot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well kids don’t tend to be great at thinking about long term consequences or moderating their time spent having fun, so how would you have the lazy pencil pushers handle the problem of kids being distracted by games at school?

Using Scratch to create programs is one of those cases where a kid can learn and have fun at the same time. Sounds like the best possible sort of activity to encourage at school. So what if the programs are games?

Absolutely, creating games is a great learning activity for school. But, if it was blocked, I’m guessing the issue is that most of the kids were just using it as another gaming website—just playing games that had been created by others. But I’ll admit, I only have a general familiarity with Scratch. Perhaps the scenario I’m describing doesn’t make sense/isn’t how Scratch works?

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#93

Post by out-of-ideas »

gnicholas wrote: post #75

A school IT specialist told me about a clever student hack. Their school blocks all sorts of traffic, but teachers can allow exceptions via a password. One student installed a keylogger onto his BYOD laptop (many schools allow kids to bring their own, or use a mediocre school-provided device), and then made up a plausible excuse to hit the firewall (e.g., doing a report on anatomy, but innocuous site was blocked beca…

TOTP would do well here for this case for a really simple path forward - but then having the student login themselves and the request be formally logged and allowed via not-their-computer would offer a bit more scaleability and auditability

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#94

Post by kevingadd »

dlevine wrote: post #58

I've been teaching my nephew how to code using Scratch. He told me that they blocked Scratch at school because some of the kids were using it to play games during school. Kind of a shame, because it is a great way for kids to learn how to code.

Back when I was 14 I interned at the local department of transportation office doing IT, which at the time meant creating filemaker databases, scanning and manually entering lots of forms, carting massive CRTs and desktops around, and deleting viruses from civil engineers' computers.

I still clearly remember the day I was showing one of the other interns an application I wrote in visual basic. I was quite proud of it since I was fairly new to programming at the time, and I had been working on mastering GDI. If you know what GDI is, you can probably guess where this is going. It was what game devs call a "map editor", where you could take a palette of images and place them around in a grid to author scenes. This was during our lunch break.

One of the supervisors walked over, saw something "game-like" on the screen, and angrily unplugged the PC at the back. (Good thing I didn't have any important files open.) Once I explained what it was he wasn't angry anymore, but he didn't apologize.

So I guess "no fun allowed, even if you're learning" is a pretty old mantra everywhere.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#95

Post by creatonez »

TIL about Eaglercraft, an illegal copy of Minecraft compiled to HTML5 using TeaVM and a custom opengl compatibility layer. That's pretty remarkable. It runs horribly and doesn't go beyond Minecraft 1.5, but it would definitely get the job done if you're trying to goof off when the teacher isn't watching.

Also, if one is not concerned about being cool enough to run the real Minecraft Java edition, Minetest is a similar game that has been ported to web browsers, and it runs a lot better than eaglercraft.

Mojang has also developed a clone of Minecraft Classic for HTML5, it supports invite-only multiplayer, but unfortunately for old players the lack of mass-multiplayer public servers has taken away most of the charm from Minecraft Classic, which is a surprisingly boring game without multiplayer (lava survival and classic capture the flag were some seriously fun custom game modes that we don't have anymore in the Minecraft ecosystem)

---

Eaglercraft: Google it yourself, not linking because of copyright

Minetest for the web: https://minetest.dustlabs.io/

Minecraft Classic HTML5: https://classic.minecraft.net/

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#96

Post by aaron695 »

dlevine wrote: post #58

I've been teaching my nephew how to code using Scratch. He told me that they blocked Scratch at school because some of the kids were using it to play games during school. Kind of a shame, because it is a great way for kids to learn how to code.

[dead]

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#97

Post by tigeroil »

switch007 wrote: post #81
gnicholas wrote: post #75

A school IT specialist told me about a clever student hack. Their school blocks all sorts of traffic, but teachers can allow exceptions via a password. One student installed a keylogger onto his BYOD laptop (many schools allow kids to bring their own, or use a mediocre school-provided device), and then made up a plausible excuse to hit the firewall (e.g., doing a report on anatomy, but innocuous site was blocked beca…

There are plenty of better ways. You make the student auth in some manner then grant an exception from your own computer. Entering the password on the student’s BYOD is pretty stupid

Wholeheartedly agreed. Even if the student has the absolute best of intentions, you have no way of knowing that the laptop doesn't have say, malware on it.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#98

Post by creatonez »

gnicholas wrote: post #75

A school IT specialist told me about a clever student hack. Their school blocks all sorts of traffic, but teachers can allow exceptions via a password. One student installed a keylogger onto his BYOD laptop (many schools allow kids to bring their own, or use a mediocre school-provided device), and then made up a plausible excuse to hit the firewall (e.g., doing a report on anatomy, but innocuous site was blocked beca…

> The school eventually figured this out. It's not clear how they avoid the situation however; do you tell teachers never to grant exceptions on student-owned devices?

Make it so the firewall exception process on student devices gives a 6 digit code which the instructor enters into a staff-only interface on the instructor's device, so that the process always requires input on both a student and an instructor's computer.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#99

Post by creatonez »

tigeroil wrote: post #97
switch007 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of better ways. You make the student auth in some manner then grant an exception from your own computer. Entering the password on the student’s BYOD is pretty stupid

Wholeheartedly agreed. Even if the student has the absolute best of intentions, you have no way of knowing that the laptop doesn't have say, malware on it.

Usually these sorts of passwords are single-purpose just for getting around mundane firewall blocks, so they're not that critical.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#100

Post by tigeroil »

ihatepython wrote: post #61
adriand wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do take the devices at bedtime, in fact, I have a reminder on my phone that goes off at 9:30 pm every night (which I started after discovering the problem). But it’s not just about the late night usage, which is mostly curtailed but not perfectly given I’m not a perfect authoritarian. It’s more generally what he’s doing with it. I don’t want him going down YouTube rabbit holes, developing a body image complex via…

What if he is watching videos about quantum physics, and he might have been the next Einstein, if his parents didn't restrict his access to the information superhighway?

I think part of it comes down to knowing your children well enough to know if this is likely.

In truth as someone with autism and ADHD I found myself down some pretty nasty rabbit holes if I wasn't at least given some guidance.

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