Kids trying to play video games on school laptops • Hacker News Board

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#101

Post by 878654Tom » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:06 AM UTC

japanuspus wrote: post #91

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.

We had something like this but for French. The website was used for real tests and assignments but the answers would be loaded somewhere even if the test/assignment would not show you if you got it wrong.

So we made a Javascript one-liner that would retrieve and fill in the answers.

The first edition also submitted them but the teacher could see how fast you completed a test so we removed that as students who normally could not pass the test suddenly had 100% and in 5 seconds of time.

In the end, manually removing, answering some answers wrong and waiting to submit made that class a breeze.

Too bad my French is now very bad but that wasn't something youth-me thought of at the time.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#102

Post by creatonez » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:09 AM UTC

abrookewood wrote: post #72

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.

Scratch is great - such an excellent introduction to coding.

Try Snap as well. It's like Scratch and has the same learning curve, but has more features (functions, 2D arrays, hashmaps, local variables, recursion, string manipulation, etc.) that make it more suitable than Scratch for more advanced computer science concepts if the student wants to speed ahead. It could be used all the way from elementary school through high school without running into serious limitations, if an instructor wanted to.

https://snap.berkeley.edu/snap/help/SnapManual.pdf

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#103

Post by gnicholas » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:18 AM UTC

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

> Entering the password on the student’s BYOD is pretty stupid

I wouldn't say it was stupid of the teacher to enter the password, given the amount of technical expertise that elementary school teachers can be expected to possess.

The blame should probably go to the person who set up the exception-granting system, who should have used a system that doesn't involve authenticating on a non-trusted device.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#104

Post by bearmode » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:20 AM UTC

japanuspus wrote: post #91

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.

Had the IT apprentice at my office disable dev tools on Chrome. They didn't realise that we, as web developers, used them.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#105

Post by wiredfool » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:24 AM UTC

adriand wrote: post #5

This relates to something that has been bugging me lately, which is as a parent I have zero parental control over the devices that our school board issues to my children. My kids have iPhones and iPads, which are part of my Apple family account, and I can both monitor what they are doing and also set limits on screen time including hours of usage and for particular apps. However, I recently became aware that my son w…

YouTube shows up everywhere, and unless you dns block it, there’s always some way to get sucked into the rabbit hole. Google.com, DuckDuckGo, all the search engines make it possible to watch YouTube without it showing up as site:YouTube in parental controls.

Yes, there are useful videos, and that’s why it’s not hard blocked.

But the lure and attention tuning of Minecraft videos, other gaming vids, and whatever else is at the top of the list now is just too strong.

(Btw, assume for these purposes that restrictions at some level are necessary, and that any response with “just” in it probably has been considered and doesn’t work)

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#106

Post by bearmode » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:24 AM UTC

1letterunixname wrote: post #64

jonhohle wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally, I just emailed our school board about this. Our district claims to support BYOD, but has no documentation. As parents, we should be able to determine what our kids have access to based on our own family values. No two families will be the same. The idea that elementary or middle school children can handle having unrestricted (or minimally restricted) devices is absurd.

BYOD is partially a terrible idea. They shouldn't be sending kids home with devices. What about parents who object to technology screen time? Could we not invent a religion, say Reformed Mennonites, that objects to children using screen devices? How could they argue with that?

>What about parents who object to technology screen time?

As in, completely?

Then those parents should realise that they're severely hampering their kid's education and development in a screen-focused world, and set more reasonable restrictions.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#107

Post by bearmode » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:26 AM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #63

adriand wrote: post #5

This relates to something that has been bugging me lately, which is as a parent I have zero parental control over the devices that our school board issues to my children. My kids have iPhones and iPads, which are part of my Apple family account, and I can both monitor what they are doing and also set limits on screen time including hours of usage and for particular apps. However, I recently became aware that my son w…

> devices that our school board issues to my children Why is the school issuing anything to students? It should be your prerogative to outfit your child with whatever they need. School can ask for minimums (a pen, a notebook, certain textbooks, etc.) but they should not be issuing anything themselves.

Because a lot of parents are really not well off. Buying laptops, ipads, whatever is an expense they just can't afford. Pens, notebooks etc are cheap.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#108

Post by chclt » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:27 AM UTC

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.

god forbid anyone actually learns something at school

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#109

Post by seszett » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:34 AM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #68

madcaptenor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are 4 and 2. When they get to where they can read independently I intend to make sure they have flashlights, and if I have my shit together I'll make sure they always have batteries.

Years ago I thought the same thing, but one of my kids will stay up reading until well past midnight and absolutely obliterate his health over it. Re: shit togetherness and batteries, a great (maybe too great) solution is a dimmable headlamp with rechargeable batteries which charge from a USB port or something similar. They tend to get excellent life on a charge, and being able to dim them is nice so you don't have t…

I used to stay up all night to read, too late for my own good and my parents eventually started taking away every light source at 10pm or so (that's when I was less than 11, so it was really late enough).

I ended up collecting toys that glow in the dark, I would recharge them until 10 next to the light, and managed to read with them for a few minutes more (not much longer I guess). Under white bedsheets I would have enough light to be able to labouriously read sufficiently large-printed letters.

I guess my point is just that some kids absolutely do need some limits even for reading and other "good" activities, and they will use any means they can find to work around the limits you give them.

Re: Kids trying to play video games on school laptops

#110

Post by paxys » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:38 AM UTC

Trying to get through hardware/software locks, content filters, firewalls, spyware etc. at school is usually the first experience kids have with "hacker" culture. For a lot of them (myself included) this eventually leads up to a real career in the tech industry. So godspeed, all you young rebels.