Our computer policy at Ocean Tides is somewhat limited/restricted. We use a very strict web filter which even blocks many of the blogs we are assigned to read for this class. I don't know how it decides what to block. Our resident students are adjudicated, therefore they are not allowed to access emails or any type of social networking web site. This presents challenges to my integrating this blog into classroom assignments. I have been working with our network server team to figure out how we can address this.
Here is what we are currently doing:
We have a computer lab with eight computers. We also have twenty-four laptops which are divided into two carts (we call them cows) of twelve computers each -one cart per floor. This provides for enough time and resources that each student is guaranteed some personal computer time throughout the semester.
In order to prevent "digital mischief" (of the type where another student's work may "accidentally" be erased by another student) each student is assigned 1 gig of space in a personal folder on the Ocean Tides server. In order to access this folder the student must log in with their name and personal identifier (it is the student's school ID # to prevent passwords being forgotten). Anything they save automatically goes into their folder. Each teacher then has their own log in name and password access to the network from the teacher's computer. In other words we can open the students folders from our desks and put in comments, personalized tests and projects and we can also check progress on tasks.
This sounds wonderful and secure but as the internet expands and creates ISP filters/bypasses (vtunnel for example) vigilance is still required when the students use the internet.
This system is new and we are just discovering wrinkles and ruts that we are trying to smooth out.
I will take pictures later this week to show the cows and lab.
Tomorrow is career day and I have a lot of organizing to do!
3 comments:
Chris,
I have to laugh. The first time I looked at your posting, I was just skimming it. I got to the bottom where you said you were going to send the pictures of the 'cows', and I thought, "OK, cows are cool"; (I was picturing your school out in some pastoral setting.) Then I went back and read the blog more thoroughly. Oops- looks like your pictures will look different from the ones I was initially expecting!
I wish my school had a computer lab. It sounds like you have a really neat way of communicating with your students, by accessing their personal folders. I'd love to learn more about this in future blogs.
Interesting setup.... just deleted a lot of techie questions and will go back a step... you're using PCs? Can they take the laptops home? I assume they cannot access their gig of space from home...
My blog site was working great at school- no filter issues which surprised me- I assumed anything with "blog" would be blocked. But then today none of it works! I'm guessing this is connected to the URI flodding issues from Friday. I emailed my net admin but no news yet. Was hoping to use it tomorrow, too. :(
Good luck with Career Day!
Trish
The kids in Ocean Tides are on Temporary Community Placement from the R.I.T.S. so they live here and they can't take the laptops to their rooms.
We really have to watch them closely to make sure that they don't go where they shouldn't(which they always try to do) but at the same time our filter is wayyyy too sensitive.
As for the cows - I don't even like calling them that , I call them cart #1 and Cart #2. I do like cows though so i'll put one of those pics up.
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