um…where does the research end and the non-research begin? it’s absolutely impossible to draw that line. everything a student does is learning, so the school administration should just take their collective nose, and bugger off.
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ok, here’s another scenario: kid gets dressed in the morning while finishing a writing assignment. so it’s ok for a school administrator to go peeping on the camera? this is an absurd invasion of privacy. there is absolutely no defense for what they are proposing, this is what is mind boggling.
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Enjoy that slippery slope.
It’s a slope with a well-trodden path.
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I work in this field (K-12 education technology and policy) and first picked up this story a couple of weeks ago when the RI ACLU first released the report. My take is here: https://www.edtechstrategies.com/news/a-thinking-persons-guide-to-edtech-news-2017-week-22-edition/.
A few pieces of context that I’d add:
1/ Thousands of districts are issuing school-owned devices to students under agreements largely similar to what is happening in Rhode Island. I do not believe the state to be an outlier in either its embrace of technology in schools or in the legal protections districts cloak themselves in with respect to controlling taxpayer purchased devices.
2/ Futuresource Consulting offers the best insights into what types of devices are being purchased and used in schools: https://futuresource-consulting.com/Press-K-12-Education-Market-Qtr4-0317.html. TL;DR it’s Chromebooks by and large.
3/ As school are increasingly embracing digital tools and services in teaching, learning, assessment, and school operations, school administrators and teachers are in the position of having to evaluate the privacy policies and terms of service of myriad online tools and services. By normalizing the surveillance of students via school-issued devices, I fear that it may desensitize them to the potentially unsavory behaviors of the software systems they choose to use with their students. That is, it may contribute to a prevailing view that students should have no privacy rights so long as the technological tool is being operated ‘in their best interests’ by an authorized party under current law.
4/ For me, perhaps the most troubling new tools and services are those focused on ‘digital safety’ and on ‘social and emotional health.’ These apps normalize the surveillance and real-time analysis of all student communications occurring over school-managed networks and devices. Some vendor examples that I believe are more or less representative of this class of products: Impero Software & Base Education (sorry can’t link them as I don’t have the rights as a new poster).
The large scale use of technology in US schools is a very recent phenomenon at scale - and I think it incontrovertible that our technology-related policies have not kept pace.
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“Welcome back from school kids. Remember to hang up your jackets, put your shoes away, and stick your chromebooks in the Faraday cage.”
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How do you feel about the fact the camera cannot be turned off, not even while your children are changing clothes? Do you know who is looking at them?
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There are certainly arguments to be had about all this stuff, and maybe it is right to allow schools to surveil students in some ways.
What presses my panic button is the seeming consensus that, when a new tool of surveillance appears, the authorities can and should deploy it against everyone. As though the only reason the police don’t search your house once a month is that they don’t have the right kind of skeleton key yet.
Maybe schools do have good reasons to spy on kids at home (though I very strongly doubt it). I guess the right balance will eventually be dialed in. But why is our starting position to have the absolute maximum possible level of surveillance? Because that is the exact opposite of all historical wisdom on the subject.
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I find it hard to imagine circumstances when schools need to spy on kids via laptops.
They probably do need remote access to update software or provide tech support - and those uses should be circumscribed in policy. I also think it likely that law enforcement may desire this access in certain cases, and they should be allowed to pursue it with judicial oversight (others can disagree).
The issue at hand is that some schools claim excessively broad and unconditional rights to remote access to student computers - any school employee, at any time, for any reason.
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I am willing to concede that a school has a right to some limited form of surveillance on school-provided devices. Monitoring of their browsing history, making sure the software is current and verifying that they haven’t installed unauthorized games or rooted the damn thing should cover it.
I am not willing to concede that a school has any right to use the device’s camera or microphone to monitor activity outside of the school.
Any school administration that doesn’t take steps to prevent this kind of thing is asking for trouble. Not only did that case in Pennsylvania cost that school district money in legal fees, but it most likely discouraged use of the devices for legitimate purposes. I mean, the kid was nearly expelled for eating candy.
Frankly, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. An overzealous or unscrupulous administrator is only the start of potential problems. If the surveillance software isn’t secured properly, random students or people from outside the district entirely could have access to it. Imagine the lawsuits when somebody gets blackmailed or footage of half the district’s students undressing ends up on the Internet.
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Let me be the thirty first person to remind you that schools should not be in the business of wiretapping families. That is not the function of schools. Unless you live in the dystopia world of Little Brother.
Right now, your cheering of needless and egregious surveillance comes off as not much different than the fascist bootlickers cheering Theresa May’s War on Crypto.
Students in that district are permitted to use the Chromebooks for personal and family use. Imagine if an employer put a hot bodyvam on you as a condition of employment, which you had to wear on the job and off. A violation of privacy for no benefit at all.
Time to do the daily exercise comrade. Please view the telescreen and follow my movements…
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some people like the idea of incorporating video conferencing into education. This sort of thing allows a teacher to experiment with such services, and then give up in frustration later on.
Without builtin cameras and microphones, the infrastructure wouldn’t exist,
I suppose that some could actually learn “microphone skills”.
There’s no need to engage in silliness or hyperbole. The heart of the matter is that, to some of us, if even one school collects even one naked picture, that is pornography according to law. You or I would serve hard prison time for the very same thing.
Actually, these systems are guaranteed to collect hundreds of such pictures over time, if they work as advertised. Given enough schools and enough time, the chances of somebody truly creepy gaining access approach one.
And some people like the idea of universal surveillance so much, this is acceptable to them, even without any positive benefits at all.
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There is also every reason to believe that K-12 schools are not well equipped to secure any sensitive digital data they collect. I’ve been tracking these incidents and unauthorized breaches of data due to human error by school personnel are significant and growing: https://www.edtechstrategies.com/research-insights/there-can-be-no-privacy-without-security/
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I occasionally do (non-video) educational conferencing (i.e., i’ve taught some classes that were online only and some where most students were present in body and some only digitally) and i just want to say this somewhat related thing:
FUCK BUILT-IN MICROPHONES!
A built-in microphone is only going to lead to feedback and collecting all the sounds around you. You need some headphones with a mic (the simple ones for smartphones work great). Also, i can’t imagine a situation where having the student on video during the class could work at all except if the class had no more than five students.
Admittedly, i teach college students and so don’t have to be in loco parentis for them (a.k.a. the reason i teach college level).
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I dunno, do you still have a set of Encyclopedia Britannica lying about?
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No. And neither did my parents. I was bought a single volume children’s encyclopaedia when I was eight. I read every word several times and it was well worth the pound it probably cost in 1963. As an adult I bought a copy of Chambers’ but that is for my personal library and is as much decor as anything else.
Just wait till some kid decides to educate the system concerning how they feel about being spied on…those snoops would see more assholes than a proctology clinic. PS, Kids don’t try this at home.
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Things strange to modern audiences in Film Noir movies:
- Everyone smokes.
- Police ask questions like “Where were you on the night of June 15th?”
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