Colleges Work To Block Net in Class

SkewlD00d writes: "The story is that colleges spent a load of money wiring schools, now they want more money to censor them in class. I bet I can get around any of this, all I need is a proxy server running on campus on port 80. LOL! But breaking it would probably violate the DMCA. Oh no, proxy servers are now all illegal!" From the article: "some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see." Of course, a lot of classes do (and will) require Internet access -- the article is more about steps taken to control exactly when and to what degree students can reach it. Update: 09/26 13:32 GMT by T : If the AP server-choosing link doesn't work well for you, el_nino-2000 suggests this Yahoo! link to the same text.

Comments

dumb link

[rm-r]

Whats going on with the link? Sure doesn't lead to any story...

Re:dumb link

[Marc Boucher]

Whats going on with the link? Sure doesn't lead to any story...

Chose one of the partners sites, and reload the url. It worked for me. I think their site needs a cookie to allow access to the content.

Cell Phones, Pagers.

[BiggestPOS]

In class are just as big if not a bigger distraction, and yet they don't have giant RF emitters that block these signals in classrooms do they? This is almost the same thing, except its the internet, and well, the schools internet, especially when you are in a school lab.... But hey, its your education, if you'd rather be on Aim (getting help from the Jabber using Unix geek on your floor, during class) than listening to some Profs teaching assistant, uhh, yea. Do it.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want to do what you are supposed to be doing in class, then don't go. Reading email, browsing the web, or blabbering away on instant messengers trying to find out where the next party is in the middle of a class is simply put, rude. If people would act with a little bit of responsibility and common sense these steps would never be looked at.

This is the typical me me me mentality (its MY education, my money, i'll act anyway I damned well please in class) that causes money and resources to be wasted on things like this.

Do you maybe think that profs got annoyed at hearing the constant giggles and chuckles and tap tap tap of the keyboard going away while they are trying to talk? Or maybe the fact that the prof is annoyed that he or she is taking his time to walk around and see how people are doing on a lab, and you are there ignoring everything and doing your own thing?

As for cell phones and pagers, they should be banned from the classroom unless you have a reason or they vibrate only. No traditional college student is so important that they can't put there phone and pager on hold for 50 minutes.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[jmauro]

If you don't want to do what you are supposed to be doing in class, then don't go. Reading email, browsing the web, or blabbering away on instant messengers trying to find out where the next party is in the middle of a class is simply put, rude. If people would act with a little bit of responsibility and common sense these steps would never be looked at.

Not really an option, most introductory classes are required attendance, even if it's not worth your time and you don't pay attention. Don't show and you fail. I take it you haven't been in college for a while. Schools don't cancel class in very bad weather because they say it's your option to go or not, but since attendance is required, you usually must go anyway.

This is the typical me me me mentality (its MY education, my money, i'll act anyway I damned well please in class) that causes money and resources to be wasted on things like this.

It is your money and your time, but the professor has decided to waste it. Nothing that they students are doing are violating any fundamental set of morals. So let them do what they damn well like.

Do you maybe think that profs got annoyed at hearing the constant giggles and chuckles and tap tap tap of the keyboard going away while they are trying to talk? Or maybe the fact that the prof is annoyed that he or she is taking his time to walk around and see how people are doing on a lab, and you are there ignoring everything and doing your own thing?

Do you think students get annoyed by professors who just read out of the book, don't make the lectures even worthwhile to hear? The street runs both ways, but since the profs have the power their point of view (which is cheaper to fix, so it's their way.) Classes should be interesting and engaging intrinsicly, not because someone mandated that you cannot do anything else, but must sit here and listen to me.

As for cell phones and pagers, they should be banned from the classroom unless you have a reason or they vibrate only. No traditional college student is so important that they can't put there phone and pager on hold for 50 minutes.

For freshman just out of college that may be true, but a lot of people in college now have something called a life. Heard of it? They're returning to college, or have other responiblities, they may be expecting a baby. Blanket statements just don't cut it. Although cell phone use should be discouraged since it tends to make all the students not pay attention to what is going around on campus, because they're talking on the cells instead of listening.

In the end, it's better to actually try to improve classes and the college, so that the tendancy to do these "distracting" things would be reduced or even eliminated. But that is the sensible thing to do, and if college has taught me anything it's that it never actually does the senible thing. Almost always the excat oppisite.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[skotte]

a lot of people have posted similar comments. i think the wrong idea is being assertained here. just like if you were juggling in class, or talking LOUDLY on your cell phone, or perhaps listening to the radio, right in the middle of class, i could certainly see how this is annoying. similarly, if you were laughing it and whooping about with your ICQ buddies, or perhaps listening to MP3s, or you just had a really annoyingly loud keyboard, this would certainly be too much. but i think the idea being sought here is people typing quietly, getting a simple message fFrom fFriends or fFamily, looking up useful resources on the subject at hand, this sort of thing. It seems to me that an internet connection would make class-learning a lot easier to swallow, quite fFrankly. i mean, if the teacher fFlew by some concept you didnt understand, it seems to me it would be very good to go and seek information on your own right then and there on the net.

so, what i guess i'm getting at is: porn and games are obviously improper and should be generally banned in all school environs (dorms excluded, of course). but just pinging a message to or fFrom someone? mostly harmless.

I've been in classes myself where i knew the lesson, and had no reason to really listen. my options: nap, doodle, read, or surf. i maintain reading and surfing are equivalent.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[viking099]

Not really an option, most introductory classes are required attendance, even if it's not worth your time and you don't pay attention. Don't show and you fail. I take it you haven't been in college for a while. Schools don't cancel class in very bad weather because they say it's your option to go or not, but since attendance is required, you usually must go anyway I don't know where you went to school, but my university cancelled classes in very bad weather and disasters. And the fact that your attendance in your classes is mandatory is irrelevant. That doesn't give you the right to disturb your fellow classmates who may or may not be interested in the topic. You do have a right to do your own thing quietly (I've slept, read magazines, the textbook, etc), but not to tap away at a keyboard (unless you have some kind of silent keyboard). Do you think students get annoyed by professors who just read out of the book, don't make the lectures even worthwhile to hear? The street runs both ways, but since the profs have the power their point of view (which is cheaper to fix, so it's their way.) Classes should be interesting and engaging intrinsicly, not because someone mandated that you cannot do anything else, but must sit here and listen to me. If a class isn't interesting to you, it's not the classes fault. Take a different class or, if that isn't possible, don't blame the class or the instructor that it's not what you call interesting. I fell asleep just about every time I went to my Stats classes, but I didn't complain that the teacher didn't interest me. It's not his job to make sure I'm being entertained or interested. Also, there are some classes that are only interesting to people who want to do that kind of stuff. I mean, think about Lambda Calculus. Some people get off on that crap. Me? I didn't go for math, so I took a different track. For freshman just out of college that may be true, but a lot of people in college now have something called a life. Heard of it? They're returning to college, or have other responiblities, they may be expecting a baby. Blanket statements just don't cut it. Although cell phone use should be discouraged since it tends to make all the students not pay attention to what is going around on campus, because they're talking on the cells instead of listening. Sorry, but I don't think that movie times and party addresses are more important than an education. A student's social life should be left behind at the classroom door. I don't think I haven't seen a pager or cell phone that can't be put on vibrate (either with special batteries or with a flip of a switch). There is no excuse for your cell phone to ring aloud in class. IMHO, students should be kicked out of the classroom for that, and punished. It's a horrible disturbance, and made even moreso due to the fact that is can so easily avoided (either turn it off or turn it to vibrate). In the end, it's better to actually try to improve classes and the college, so that the tendancy to do these "distracting" things would be reduced or even eliminated. But that is the sensible thing to do, and if college has taught me anything it's that it never actually does the senible thing. Almost always the excat oppisite. In my experience, if there is candy on the table, people are going to eat it, even if they know they shouldn't. There is no way that a classroom of students with full internet access would be able to resist the temptation to log onto /., AIM, ICQ, IRC, Bearshare, whatever. The best way to keep the student from partaking of such forbidden fruit is to simply fence it off. Your arguments are based on a selfish view of your education (I don't like it, so it doesn't matter what I do). The fact of the matter is, you are ONE student among many, and your actions can completely mess up the environment for everyone else. If you want to waste your tuition money, go ahead, it's your right. But it is NOT your right to interfere with other students and their tuition money.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Happy Monkey]

I don't know where you went to school, but my university cancelled classes in very bad weather and disasters.

My alma mater has only cancelled classes once (as of my last info; I don't know about Sep.11). The mayor of Pittsburgh ordered them to shut off power to the academic buildings during one particularily cold winter.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[jmauro]

The fact of the matter is, you are ONE student among many, and your actions can completely mess up the environment for everyone else.

If it was only one student, this really wouldn't be a problem now would it?

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[viking099]

It wouldn't be a problem if there was only one selfish student in these classes, but that was not the point of my argument. You are only responsible for your actions. The worst excuse for poor behaviour is "Well, they were doing it."
The important thing to remember is that one student can mess up a lecture for everyone (I've seen it happen), and where there is one, there is probably more.
If a class doesn't interest you, don't make everyone else suffer just because you aren't happy.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't jam cellphone signals -- it's illegal. I work for an organization that we looked into that option for the same reasons as blocking internet access.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[jmauro]

In the end thought, it is the professor's responsiblity to control the class. If he or she lets the behavor get out of hand then it's just as much their fault as the students. The students are not the only ones to blame in cases like these. I've seen teachers ask students to leave who were being disruptive, so it is possible. Resposiblity is placed on everyone in that room, if another student is being distrubed they should tell the other student to cut it out. Any system cannot survive without some sort of feed back. Most universities forget this, and their systems suffer.

You do seem to be coming from a point of view that you actually have a choice about your education, which classes to take, whether to attend or not. That is clearly untrue in to day's universities (especially the technical fields like engineering). Everyone takes the same classes, with the same teachers, with required attendance. If the class sucks and the student is not engaged, there is little the student can do, professors aren't paid to listen, they're paid to bring in research dollars.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[acceleriter]

For freshman just out of college that may be true, but a lot of people in college now have something called a life. Heard of it? They're returning to college, or have other responiblities, they may be expecting a baby. Blanket statements just don't cut it. Although cell phone use should be discouraged since it tends to make all the students not pay attention to what is going around on campus, because they're talking on the cells instead of listening.

My guess would be that that is exactly why the person to whom you replied said "traditional college students." And those that aren't traditional college students, whatever responsibilities they might have, still don't have the right to (and should know better than to) act like boobs and have their cell phones ringing and pagers beeping during class. If their responsibilities are that grave and the devices can't be set to vibrate, perhaps they should wait to pursue a degree until they have time.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

No traditional college student is so important that they can't put there phone and pager on hold for 50 minutes.

You've touched on the real issue. The cell phone, despite its ubiquitous presence, is still an emblem of self-importance. People who are yakking on the phone are busy. They've got other things to do besides watch where they're going, or pay attention to what they're doing. There's "other people" around who are expected to look out for them. And those "other people" are supposed to notice how important and visible the cell-phone user is. Even if they're just blabbing about the season finale of Friends, or whatever.

It would be funny, however, to take all those people, especially the college students, and tell them they also have to answer the phone and pager in the middle of the night, or while they're pinching a loaf, or on vacation -- and they have to actually do work as instructed by the person on the other end. I bet they drop those "symbols" like a sack of lead.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just going to have to come to grips with the fact that you're self-centered and obnoxious and that other people think you're immature because of it. Why bother going on with your education if it's such a tremendous chore to you? You can rush right out into today's vibrant economy and get a fine job shoveling refuse. I'm sure you won't be bored with that. While you're at it, tack on a couple of children and you'll be on your way to complete bliss.

Or you could just get over it, shut off your damn phone, and write down everything the guy says. It's not his job to be interesting. He gets extra marks if he does.

Trust me, the couple of hours a day you spend in dull classes today will pale in comparison to the four-hour meeting from hell with a bunch of spinless morons you'll have to endure on a weekly or daily basis once you get into the real world. Fucking around in one of those will get you reprimanded if you're lucky -- fired if you're not. Try real hard and you could get a sense of perspective.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[BiggestPOS]

I understand its illegal, but people are doing it anyway. In fact, in a recent slashdot article, someone commented on the fact that their organization was doing this, albeit illegally. Whats worse than deliberately blocking it, is when it just doesn't work. We were at a new ritzy mall in north dallas, way ritzier than anyplace I could shop on my current income, getting chinese food. We dropped into the Mac store to drool over the Canon XL1 they had hooked up via firewire to a dual G4, and noticed every cell phone we had (6 people, 5 phones) lost signal IN THE STORE ONLY. A guy working there said "Yea, for reason this location does that, that shit didn't happen when the store was on the other side of the mall" Weird eh?

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[viking099]

Actually, I just graduated last Spring. And while I did have some small leeway in which courses I took which still counted for a degree (I think I had 2 or 3 slots like that), for the most part, my program was like most other upperclassman programs.
of course, Engineering is almost draconian about their classes; I've known some people have an easier time scheduling Masters level classes than other students have scheduling their engineering classes.
and I agree, the classroom environment is very much a give-and-take place, but the fact remains that there are numerous ways to not pay attention in class that are not disturbing to other students.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[generic-man]

FWIW, Carnegie Mellon cancelled all classes at 10:45 AM on the morning of September 11. Classes resumed the following morning.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[jazman_777]

If people would act with a little bit of responsibility and common sense...

Is that even possible in the US today? We're a barbarian nation.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[marvin tph]

every cell phone we had (6 people, 5 phones) lost signal IN THE STORE ONLY

This could also be due to a cement wall.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps instead of downloading pron, or posting on /., you could try opening that new and interesting piece of technology called a "textbook" and learn about the subject that you are supposed to. You act like you have some kind of right to be entertained by the professor. His job is to explain material to you, and to answer questions. If he is not doing his job, then complain about it to his boss, but don't distract everyone else in class by being a goon. Of course, if you simply don't care to learn the material, maybe you are in the wrong field of study, and should change majors. Stop bitching about going to a top-rate engineering school and having to get an education with more breadth than the average IRC chatter.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

babson and bentley don't use teaching assistants... and using a proxy does not work... VNS is my next option...

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[maxpublic]

Regardless, everyone who attends college is 18 or over, making them legal adults. If you think chatting or doing email in class is rude, displaying those private messages on the screen before the class warrants a five-fingered sandwich to that professor's mouth. That in and of itself dwarfs any amount of rudeness caused by students who tap away at keyboards.

And if a professor finds a student disruptive, he has the right (if he has the balls) to tell them to leave. Simple as that. Problem solved, no money required. Perhaps if professors started growing backbones and exerting a bit of authority, making a few examples, this wimpout solution wouldn't be required.

Max

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[elflord]

Not really an option, most introductory classes are required attendance, even if it's not worth your time and you don't pay attention.

Then the right thing to complain about is required attendance. However, it's just plain dumb to expect the school to provide resources such as computers for your entertainment. And it's good policy on part of the schools to avoid placing diversions under students noses.

Do you think students get annoyed by professors who just read out of the book, don't make the lectures even worthwhile to hear?

Sure, but most professors don't do this. If a professor is awful, and forces you to attend, then that in itself is the problem. Complaints about the lack of entertainment material are again irrelevant and pointless, because the university is not there to entertain you. The real problem in this instance is with the quality of teaching.

For freshman just out of college that may be true, but a lot of people in college now have something called a life

In the end, it's better to actually try to improve classes and the college, so that the tendancy to do these "distracting" things would be reduced or even eliminated.

You're playing a false dichotomy card here. Why not do both -- improve quality of teaching, and eliminate distractions from classrooms ? Both are worthwhile goals. I disagree with your view that an interesting class will prevent students goofing off. Waving an easy diversion under someones nose is a great way to distract them, even if they're interested and motivated.

Re:Cell Phones, Pagers.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe there are so many people here that are willing to shell out top dollar just to hear some guy read verbatim from the textbook! If that's what you want, buy the book and read it at home. Save yourself a few grand each year!

A instructor who can make the subject matter interesting is a far better teacher than one who doesn't. After a few weeks, you can tell which of them enjoy their job and which of them are just there for the university grant money. Teaching is secondary.

If you want to put up with shit teaching, fine, be my guest. Don't expect others to follow suit though.

Classes require Net use?

[NineNine]

Since when? What kind of classes require Net use? Just a few years ago, we used books and paper and we learned just fine.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[timothy]

I took a class at University of Texas (History of the Middle East) that required in-class Internet access (as in computer labs, not wireless laptops -- in my dad we didn't have feet etc etc). Online research, participation in the online forums, etc, were required.

Yeah, it's sort of an exception in that case. I can see it much more plausibly with, say, MIS classes, or classes on research.

timothy

Re:Classes require Net use?

[skotte]

true. i dont think many classes actually *require* net use per se, however many teachers look to it as another usefull teaching aid. ie: it's there, why not take advantage of it? and so, some lessons become fFairly dependent on these things, moving whole lesson plans and instructional material onto the web. some programming classes, i would imagine, refer fFrequently to online materials, as they are simply widley abundant, and likely to be more updated than a book printed a year ago.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[mr100percent]

Easy, I use it to find NYTimes articles, I use Everything2 for just about any classwork, and I find political science editorials.

I view 3-D images of electron shells, I read some T.S. Elliot, I use it to find the GDP for economics class.

The only thing I have trouble with is finding sheet music.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[sparcy]

I believe at the University of Dayton the new law building they built had internet connections at every desk and multiple locations outside of the classrooms. I also think they required you to have a laptop so you could connnect to the internet in class. The main reason being that it is much easier to carry a laptop and access legal rulings than to carry around paper tomes with this information.

While not all classes would need a net access I think finding it on the net would be faster and cheaper than buying all the relevant books.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[wheany]

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

Re:Classes require Net use?

[ichimunki]

Yeah, except that you don't need to do most of that *in* class do you?

Although, if science fiction is any indication, 25 years from now, you will need to constantly access some sort of network constantly to function in a place like college.

The question that really needs to be asked here is whether large, non-participatory classes are going to be of much use in 25 years, and if not, how will we replace them? I personally haven't found any non-participatory classes I've taken to be more useful than a decent book (and hell, why can't they just tape the thing and I'll watch it on VHS, DVD, or QuickTime?). With network access, school should become a meeting of tutors with students via email or other messaging (IRC, AIM, whatever), and scheduled appointments for more difficult questions. Using moderated forums and FAQs teaching redundancy goes down, and if more than a couple students ask the same question or have trouble with a specific topical area, the tutor sets up a quick meeting with the lot of them to sort it out.

I remember my junior high math classes were similar to this, it was called "packet math" and we rarely had full class lectures since everyone in the class worked on topical packets. You took a pretest. If you passed that you skipped the packet. If you didn't pass, you worked through the packet-- reading and solving sample problems. If you solved the sample problems correctly you took a post-test. If you passed that you went to the next packet. Otherwise you worked through the material again, this time with more supervision from the tutor/teacher.

Applying this model to higher education (say 10th grade and beyond), instead of tuition, your billing rates could be based on how much of a tutor/teacher/professors time you used up, in addition to straight fees for each topic/class. Schools would still want to offer certain topics/classes where groups (for live discussion, interactivity, or critiques) were necessary or as seminars. But to get past the required courses of a general nature, some students would be far more efficient under a test, work, test approach. And for those students who need more individual attention, it's there.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[l1gunman]

...and we LIKED it!

Re:Classes require Net use?

[LordKariya]

The net is an immensely valuable research tool, especially (but not exclusively) in computer-related classes. Perl.com is better than any programming textbook, no matter how huge it may be. If I can't find the answer to a question, whether it's tech or not, the first place I'll go is Google - the answer is out there, somewhere.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl.com is better than any programming textbook? It's better than CLR? Better than Elements of the Theory of Cmputation? What "programming" textbooks are they giving you at your 18 month MSCE trade school?

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Guns n' Roses Troll]

Your Dad didn't have feet?

Slow Down Cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

It's been 10 seconds since you hit 'reply'!

If you this error seems to be incorrect, please provide the following in your report to Source Forge:

Browser type
User ID/Nickname or AC
What steps caused this error
Whether or not you know your ISP to be using a proxy or some sort of service that gives you an IP that others are using simultaneously.
How many posts to this form you successfully submitted during the day* Please choose 'formkeys' for the category!
Thank you.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[LordKariya]

IE, If you're taking a class in PERL, then PERL.COM is Extremely Valuable. i thought it was obvious, MY BAD, I should never assume anything with AC trolls. Did u forget to log in ? oh, that's right...

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Anonymous Coward]

You go to a school that has a class in perl? Again I ask what 18 month MSCE certifying trade school do you go to?

Re:Classes require Net use?

[SCHecklerX]

Yeah, really,

And on many of my exams, I had to, by hand, write out all the equations and solve them for problems that you would normally use a computer for (Finite Element Data for a Wing Structure for example).

Nowadays, you could use a palm pilot with most of your tools pre-programmed. I wonder what engineering schools are like these days? When I went, all we had was a calculator and paper. Exams that had only *4* problems, taking 2-1/2 hours! Gotta love when you make a dumb little transposing mistake in your formulas then! Oh the joys of discovering you made a dumb mistake 3/4 of the way into solving one of those beasts! Man how I wish we had easy access to symbolic manipulators back then!

Re:Classes require Net use?

[ldspartan]

I'm currently a student at RPI, and my Physics I course has a post-quiz taken on the net at the end of each class. We use WebAssign for this task.

Not that I particularly like the idea. It's cute, but webassign is a poor implementation if I've ever seen one.

Plus, I rather feel that if I'm going to be doing work beyond multiple-choice BS, someone should have to look at it in order to grade it.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[part!cle]

we used books and paper and we /learned/ just fine.

hehe

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. At RPI, you are required to purchase an IBM Stinkpad. Then, in Calculus, Physics, and virtually all first-year courses (remember that RPI is primarily an engineering school), you are required to use WebAss to take quizzes (there went your partial credit), or to use some backasswards front-end to take a Gateway exam. You cannot get higher than a C without first acing a Gateway exam.

Craptops and the like are boondoggles here. They're used to market the school to rich potential freshmen who generally got on the 'Net when MTV.com went up. Last fall I actually had someone come up to me in the VCC and ask if the campus had AOL access.

Granted, I'm a bit biased in my opinion. I came to RPI before the craptop program hit the fan; I was lured in by the VCC (Voorhees Church of Computing) when it was full of SGIs. Now the campus seems mostly 0wn3d by Micros~1. Though the Suns that came in this year are *very* sexy.

--soze lakinger
the inanimate objects party
http://www.inflatablewhale.com/

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it really ruins everything he writes. Very distracting.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Dexx]

A program I just finished required us to build systems in the classroom as part of the learning process. Included in this is downloading patches from vendor's websites. While this could be covered by the prof putting all the info on a network share.. wait.. I forgot where I was going with this.

I used the 'net access mostly to make sure my freeciv was updated..

Re:Classes require Net use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a college professor, who teaches Linux, Windows, Networking, etc... yes, network access is needed in many cases. However, network access is not needed during a lecture period. If a student wishes to waste their classtime cruising for porn or the like, then fine. But, the student must not have the choice or ability to waste mine. The answer comes in two+ forms. First, the easy thing: unplug the uplink during lectures. Pretty simple. Second: most colleges have students sign some form of Acceptable Use Policy for computer equipment usage. While I have never had a problem after a warning, I have had to remind a student or two not to waste bandwidth. Interestingly enough, the worst problem that I have ever had was with the Starr report. We ended up hosting a mirror copy just to save time and bandwidth.

So basically, if the student is mature enough to handle the access, then let them... but only when it's not on my dime.

Re:Classes require Net use?

[headchimp]

Exactly, why can't we go back to using a blackboard and chalk. Then again, a blackboard would be considered racist and unhealthy from the chalk dust. They would be replaced with a dry erase board and markers. Hell, why even bother with college, You don't need it. I have a BS and an MS and still can't find a job so a college education is pretty worthless. Should have spent those years in the workforce...

Re:Classes require Net use?

[ldspartan]

I don't (personally) think that RPI's primary goal with the laptop program is to lure wealthy freshman here. Hell, wealthy freshman are likely to already own such cute toys themselves anyway.

I think the the institute's real goal is to cut maintenance costs on computer labs. Its a hell of a lot easier to outfit a room with ethernet drops and power outlets and just tell students to bring their laptops to class than to spec and maintain halfway-decent machines.

And yes, the Sun's are quite sexy :).

college is a service.

[McFly777]

At least when I attended college as long as you weren't being disruptive it was your choice to pay attention or not. After all, you were paying to attend the class, if you didn't want to get your money's worth that was your choice. The prof. wasn't expected to hold your hand, but rather s/he simply dispensed a grade at the end of the term. If you got a bad one, perhaps you should have been paying closer attention.

Re:college is a service.

[lollipop17]

That's exactly how it works where I attend- only very few of the rooms, to my knowledge- are connected to the net. I do remember the entry level astronomy course that I took awhile back having hookups only in the back row, so there was a guy who brought his laptop in and played solitaire during lecture, although I thought that was a terrible waste of resources.. Anyway, almost any net use in our classes consists of the professor having a website, and linking various things to it, perhaps hooking his laptop up to a projector but usually saying, go to the website and check the links at home.

Re:college is a service.

[ajakk]

However, what you are paying typically doesn't cover the cost of your education. If you are attending a state school, taxpayers are subsidizing your education. By not paying attention in class, you are wasting the gift that the state is giving you, and the professor (an employee of the state) should be allowed to do what he wants. Even if you are attending a private school, most tuition at private schools does not cover the cost of running the school. The private school uses money out of its trust to keep the school running. So as an employee of the corporation, the professor has the right to refuse to teach you.

Finally, you are not paying to attend the class. You are paying to be taught. A professor is (supposedly) hired because she knows how to teach you best. If you could teach yourself, then you wouldn't have paid for the education. Thus, the professor has the right to hold your hand if she thinks you will learn better.

Re:college is a service.

[skotte]

This brings up a very good point. depending upon the class and the size of the class, the teacher should do their thing regardless if only one person is in the whole room, or if there are 200 people in a lecture hall, all of them slashdotting. you paid fFor it, what you do with it is your business.

Re:college is a service.

[jerrytcow]

The problem is not whether someone pays attention. It's very distracting when the person next to you, or in the row in front of you is surfing. It's worse than sitting next to the guy who clicks his pen every 0.25 seconds, or the guy who shakes his left leg so fast that the surface of my coffee has ripples on it.

Re:college is a service.

[s20451]

At least when I attended college as long as you weren't being disruptive it was your choice to pay attention or not.

It depends on your definition of "disruptive". As a grad student I've instructed my share of classes, and I can definitely tell the difference between a class that is largely paying attention and one that is not. It's tough to teach a class that is disinterested; there's no give-and-take between the lecturer and the students. It's difficult to quantify, but there is a definite relationship between the instructor and students such that a more interactive class leads to a better teaching environment for everyone.

Further, although they're indispensible in labs, I dispute the usefulness of an internet-connected computer in a lecture. Even if it can be used to display instructional material, in my opinion it's a rather sterile way to teach (and learn). Of all the instructional aids I have seen, nothing beats the chalkboard. There's something about the pacing and flow of a chalkboard lecture that's impossible to capture using transparencies, PowerPoint, or the Internet -- probably because a lecturer using the chalkboard is proceeding at the same pace that the students are writing notes, so the students have time to absorb.

Besides, if you're going to be surfing the web anyway, why do it in class? Why not skip and do it from your dorm room or wherever?

Re:college is a service.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's EXACTLY why I like the chalkboard/whiteboard (prefer whiteboard, no messy chalk all over everything). I've been teaching in various capacities for two years now (and taking classes for five), and nothing beats the chalkboard.

Re:college is a service.

[Chatterton]

Yes, college is a service. But there is some respect you need to have to the teacher that try to learn you something. And one part of this respect is to ear what he have to say. Classroom is not a place where you chat, write your mail and see porn. Classroom is a place where you learn.

Re:college is a service.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this feeling that you can still 'pick up a few things' while being physically in class, even if you don't pay any sort of attention to the one-man-show going on.

Things like getting assignments or various other things the prof announces in class but not on the website (seminars, lab locations, etc). And listen every once in a while to figure out if the guy is talking about something interesting or not.

Now, I'm the first one to agree its painful for the prof and its bad attitude no matter what, but with the remote relations profs have with their students (at least one of my profs talked to me _THREE_ times last semester. An all time record for him!), do you really wonder why students don't give a damn?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if that was mainly in freshmen classes, where most people aren't interested in the first place.

Advanced students already know it all, (in computer science, maths and philosophy anyway) and the 'bad students' just don't care (and shouldn't be here in the first place). Those two extremes will be bored by definition. Give 'em the net or give 'em death. (And the good students always come because otherwise they have a bad conscience, and the bad students always come because typically, someone else wants them to succeed. Like dad, mom, or some other such idiot).

Re:college is a service.

[AvatarADV]

Except, of course, that you have to qualify that statement with a "supposedly". Be honest - the school doesn't give a flip whether you knew the material before going into the class or not. Nor do they care if the professor teaches YOU anything, because they're only responsible for teaching classes in the aggregate.

You can indeed test out of certain classes, but only the most common ones, and then only in situations where it's easy to quantify the knowledge into a standardized test. I tested out of Physics I, but there's no way around the Introduction to Public Speaking course, even if I've got a dozen trophies for that from back in high school. (Obligatory reality check - I don't have a dozen. ;p)

Therefore, I'll spend an hour and a half this afternoon in a class I won't learn anything from, except how to do a task I already know how to do, but not as well as I already know how to do it. Who says that college isn't a certification program?

Most college classes get around this problem by encouraging students who don't need instruction -not- to attend. Problem is, these policies also enable students who merely think they don't need instruction to split as well, and then they flunk the course. The opposite extreme is pretty bad as well, though, as enforcing attendance just means that you have bored students that have to be present, just like in high school.

I'll be frank - I am indebted to a large number of teachers from HS that were as happy to have me asleep and learning as awake and bored. I've had college professors tell me "look, don't even come to class, there's no point for you to hear these lectures, here's a lot of good books I would like to recommend instead, call me and we can talk about them". These are the best teachers I have had.

Problem is, I'm a freak who enjoys reading and learning, and if the schools were oriented towards people like me, most everybody else would flunk horribly. ^_^;;

Re:college is a service.

[MaxwellStreet]

Well... you paid for it, you can choose what you want to do with it... I'll agree.

But your having paid for it doesn't give you the right to degrade the experience for other people in class. My school had plenty of rules about disruptive students being able to be kicked at the prof's discretion... if typing, surfing (knowing that the student behind you is drawn to whatever you're looking at), IM'ing, etc. is - in the prof's judgement - disrupting his/her class - he should have the right to bounce you for the benefit of the other students (who paid the same as you did.)

Re:college is a service.

[skotte]

and i agree completely with this. just as i have paid fFor the right to be in the class, so has the girl behind me. i think it's completely fFair fFor a student to get kicked because they are disrupting class. no debates. i just think the definition of disruption is at question here. is "all communication on the internet" disruptive? probably not. and it's good to see the article has suggested as much as students have limited access. in a lab setting, access can be extremely useful. and in a giant lecture setting, doing additional research to acquire greater insight on what the teacher is rambling on about can be also very useful. similarly a chat on the subject at hand can also be helpfull (think of whispering to your neighbor, passing notes, or IM across the room) potentially useful things. honestly would have helped me a ton.

hey, maybe there should be a designated "Laptop" section of the class, at the back perhaps, where people can sit and type or whatever all they want. noone is looking over their shoulder getting ditracted, who isnt doing exactly the same thing. what do you think?

Re:college is a service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, it's UNinterested. Disinterested means that you don't take a side in the matter. For example a judge is supposed to be a disinterested observer. He is supposed to objectively look at the facts and weigh things like objections and cases.

disinterested \Dis*in"ter*est*ed\, a. [Cf. Disinteressed.] Not influenced by regard to personal interest or advantage; free from selfish motive; having no relation of
interest or feeling; not biased or prejudiced; as, a disinterested decision or judge.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Re:college is a service.

[vtechpilot]

Yes, college is a service, but 90% of the time it is not being paid for by the attendee. Often it is paid for by Parents (or other family), scholarships, and, as has been already mentioned, taxpayers, or some combination of these. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the students not to waste these gifts. I can say this because I did waste my gifts. Perhaps if someone smacked me around a bit and told me to pay attention 4 years ago, I'd have my degree now.

That being said, unless you are paying 100% of the cost of your education (the odds of which are so close to zero that it makes no difference), STFU.

Re:college is a service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that supposed to be fFucking cute when you write like that?

Re:college is a service.

[jazman_777]

Problem is, I'm a freak who enjoys reading and learning, and if the schools were oriented towards people like me, most everybody else would flunk horribly. ^_^;;

I am truly sorry you don't fit into the assembly line called "education". And your good teachers should be banished to Greenland for violating the tenets of "Educating the Masses for Mindless Docility".

Re:college is a service.

[Nerftoe]

I tested out of Physics I, but there's no way around the Introduction to Public Speaking course, even if I've got a dozen trophies for that from back in high school.

Actually, I was lucky. My high school offered college credits our senior year for a couple classes. One of the classes was public speaking. If you are in high school now, be sure to pay the extra bucks if you can take classes for college credit - those will be the cheapest credit hours you will be able to get!

Re:college is a service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh - nothing feeds my soul like another proper usage Nazi.

Re:college is a service.

[randomtangent]

The easy answer sounds like putting a switch on the teachers desk for internet. If the students have a good reason for being able to get online hit the switch. If your lecturing turn off internet to the computers.

This still leaves time for the students to "play" but if thats how they want to spend their money so be it. I know that I've checked my Email read this site and other things during a lectur, but if I hadn't had access to online I'd still been doing something else, reading ahead, doing another classes home work, playing with send on the novel network.

Re:college is a service.

[elflord]

At least when I attended college as long as you weren't being disruptive it was your choice to pay attention or not.

Sure it's your choice. But it's also the schools choice whether to provide students with entertaining diversions or not.

Re:college is a service.

[maxpublic]

A little correction is in order. First of all, if you're attending a state school you *do* pay for your education; it's called 'student loans' and you tend to rack up quite a bill at the end of four or five years, even if you're in-state. On top of that comes 'taxes' after you become a productive citizen, and these taxes over time will amount to *several times* what your college education actually cost (gotta pay for all that 'overhead', after all).

Doesn't matter if you move to a different state. You pay for that college system, the guy who moved from that state to yours foots your bill. The only way you get out of this is by becoming a citizen in another country. It has to be this way, else the state university system would collapse within the first generation from bankruptcy (Economics 101, people - think about where the money is coming from).

There is no 'gift' involved unless you get a scholarship of some sort.

And you pay for whatever the fuck you want to pay for. To be taught, to sleep in the back row, to piss away the day at a pool hall drinking brews instead of listening to an incredible dull exam in some required course. You're 18, you make that decision - not some yahoo on /.

And no, no professor has the *right* to hold your hand. Don't be a goddamned idiot. If you think otherwise, please point out the law that gives that professor the 'right'. Or how about the contract you signed upon becoming a student at that school (that's right, there is no contract).

Max

Re:college is a service.

[Kirkoff]

Besides, if you're going to be surfing the web anyway, why do it in class? Why not skip and do it from your dorm room or wherever?

Well, to speak from my prevous experiances (in High School computer science) it's much more enjoyable surfing the web WHILE ignoring the teacher.

Plus, sshing in to your box and using talk with friends in class is much more fun that passing notes!

Re:college is a service.

[Eneff]

The problem is that we, as students, never quite know when the teacher's going to mention something that's not already out of the book. Bah!

Now, I'm not complaining that people don't teach to the book, quite the opposite! It's that I find some lectures are quite redundant. I'd love to have those computers around for cases like that.

Why bother blocking?

[CS_Snapple]

In a public High School, I can understand if the school wants to block students from various sites, sending email, or doing any sorts of other stuff. Because High School is kind of like prison.. you don't get a lot of say in matters.

College, on the other hand, is something you choose to go to. You pay to go. If you'd rather be surfing the web or writing email during class, why should it matter to the professors as long as you aren't disrupting their class? If you fail because you weren't paying attention, that's your own problem and your own waste of money.

I went to a school where every student was required to have a laptop. Professors really didn't seem to care as long as you weren't clacking away on your keyboard really loudly, or surfing for porn, or whatnot.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Raunchola]

"If you'd rather be surfing the web or writing email during class, why should it matter to the professors as long as you aren't disrupting their class?"

If you feel that web surfing during class is sooo important, then why not skip class and stay in your dorm? That's why universities stick those little Ethernet jacks in dorm rooms. The rest of the class probably doesn't care to hear the keyboard clacking or the various annoying sounds of AIM (some idiots at my school still don't know how to turn off the speakers on the machines!).

Some people actually show up to class to learn something. If you have no interest in learning, please don't show up and bother everyone else who's there to learn.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Fat Casper]

God forbid someone want to look something up during class. Not everyone surfs to look for porn- there's a hell of a lot of information out there, and being able to do research in "real time," actually during a discussion or lecture can bring a lot of value to it.

Besides, my laptop's keyboard doesn't clack. Of course, if I were a prof, I'd confiscate for the rest of the class period anything that made so much as one beep. After a couple of days, those e-tards would either learn how to use their computers, or they would learn how to not use their computers.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Masem]

I consider myself a fast learner; I rarely learn anything in the lecture that wasn't in the day's prior reading or the like. Particularly with some of my undergraduate classmates, who would need concepts repeated over and over again. Yet I still want to attend the lectures in order to possibly learn something I might miss, or to get information on something that wasn't covered in the book. So what I would do was to do the homework that was assigned for that class for the next week, or for a different class, while still listening and taking notes.

While students like me are the minority, I think those that are understand that if we are going to do anything else during a lecture that we'll do it with minimal disruption in the class. I'd still favor blocking internet access and the like, only because what's on my computer screen can be seen by people behind and to the sides of me, and that can cause a disruption if it's the wrong type of images, and there are other ways of keeping oneself busy without disrupting others in a class.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not going to pay attention, why bother going to class? Stay in your room or go to the lab and look at porn, or send IMs, or whatever.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[hal9000(jr)]

I teach a class in a cluster and I don't much care if students pay attention or not as long as they are not disrupting the class. That is their choice.

And when they come whining about their low grades, I suggest they should pay attention to the material.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Chatterton]

I would like to add to Raunchola reply, that you need to show some respect to your teachers. And listen his lesson is showing some kind of respect to him. Clicking, chatting, surfing during his lesson is showing disregard to his work.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[sporty]

Bandwidth for one. Why would I want my lab of X amount of computers using up bandwidth on data that isn't used for stupid things. Cases in point, streaming video, audio, large-file downloads..

Once bandwidth is saturated, a sysadmin can say, "Well, the university is saturating the line. This is how its being used. Either restrict access to these required sites or up the bandwidth."

Re:Why bother blocking?

[CS_Snapple]

"If you feel that web surfing during class is sooo important, then why not skip class and stay in your dorm?"

I don't know about other universities, but where I went to school you could only miss 6 classes before you'd automatically fail the course. Not all teachers enforced that rule, but some did and it was better to not take chances.

"The rest of the class probably doesn't care to hear the keyboard clacking or the various annoying sounds of AIM (some idiots at my school still don't know how to turn off the speakers on the machines!)."

Fair enough, but I had specifically said that IF you aren't disrupting class, then what's the problem. If you're disrupting class in the manner you mentioned, then yeah, I agree with you completely. However, it's not real hard to disable sound. And most laptop keyboards are pretty quiet.

"Some people actually show up to class to learn something. If you have no interest in learning, please don't show up and bother everyone else who's there to learn."

A lot of times, in a one hour lecture there might be about 10 minutes of worthwhile material. If you don't go to class, you'll miss the material. As for bothering everyone else who's there to learn... as I said before, a computer can pretty easily be used without bothering anyone.

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people learn better when multitasking (especially when entertained)...to restrict students to a monotonous lecture isn't "helping them learn", its stifling. Hell, I skipped alot of my classes in college simply because they were early and I'd fall asleep in the middle of them simply because the material was so dry that I couldn't stay alert. What I wouldn't have given for a game of solitaire or an IM conversation or something to keep my mind active (not everyone gets their jollies off of learning new things)

Re:Why bother blocking?

[Kinson Ravenlock]

I agree. High school is hell(except for the girls).

Re:Why bother blocking?

[elflord]

Not everyone surfs to look for porn- there's a hell of a lot of information out there, and being able to do research in "real time," actually during a discussion or lecture can bring a lot of value to it.

Your point may have some merit for some classes, but it's certainly not true for all classes all the time. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition, the plan is to block for *some* classes.

link....

[alta]

don't bothe with the link, you can't link into APWire..... Did someone forget to preview the story? TIMOTHY!!!???

Re:link....

[damiangerous]

You have to go into it twice and take a cookie. The first time you'll get the AP Wire page, choose a paper at random. Then back out to Slashdot, and click the link back in. This time you'll get to the story.

Re:link....

[rm-r]

How intuitive now that you mention it. Would it have been too much to have mentioned this in the story?

MUD

[skotte]

this article reminds me of sitting in class, [spodding|mudding|mushing|mooing] (call it what you will). the teacher had no real way of knowing what i was doing. and a incoming data catcher would probably have a hard time knowing, as well. fFor that matter, the kids around me playing quake would also have been on a protocol not intercepted by a teacher's terminal. but i suppose a simple fFirewall would stifle all this action. ah well. so long as i can still slashdot.....

make sense

[CodeMonky]

One of the biggest problems with holding class in a computer lab is that students are tempted to surf the net when they should be paying attention to class, especially if the instructor is in the front of the class and can't see everyones screens. We were considering a hardware pcAnywhere type system where a central station could lock/control/display any of the other workstation(s). Unfoirtunately it costa ton of money so we just moved the teacher workstations to the back of the class so the professor could keep an eye on what the students where doing.

Text of the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Colleges Work to Block Net in Class

By LISA LIPMAN
Associated Press Writer

BOSTON (AP) - Two colleges on the cutting edge of Internet technology are now pioneering solutions to a rapidly growing problem: students who pay more attention to their computers
than to their professors.

Bentley and Babson colleges were among the first in the nation to wire their classrooms for the Internet. And now they're spending tens of thousands of dollars on software and hardware
that lets professors block some Internet access in classrooms with network connections.

``Faculty members were finding students surfing the Net, sending instant messages, even looking at porn in some of the freshman intro classes,'' said Phillip Knutel, Bentley's director of
academic technology.

As another deterrent, some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the
whole class to see.

The software doesn't censor which sites a student can visit on the Internet. Instead, a professor can choose whether classes have access to the entire Internet or just the school's
internal network. Professors can also block out e-mail and instant messaging.

Babson math professor Joe Aieta said his students have told him the temptation to use the Internet during class is too great when it is at their fingertips. That's why Aieta occasionally
limits their access.

``They think they can keep up with the classwork while sending and receiving messages,'' Aieta said. ``But they acknowledged that it didn't always work so well.''

Babson freshman Patrick Lehner, 19, said the network-blocking software doesn't bother him that much.

``Are students here happy or proud about it? Probably not,'' he said. ``But there's a good lesson to be learned from it. It might help rebuild people's habits so that they focus more (on class).''

Bentley, which in 1985 became one of the first U.S. colleges to require undergraduates to have computers, first implemented the blocking technology in classrooms in the last academic year. Babson had a primitive
version of the software installed three years ago.

Cabletron, a Rochester, N.H.-based company founded by Babson alumnus Craig Benson, developed the original Babson blocking program. Enterasys, a subsidiary of Cabletron, developed Bentley's program and
recently upgraded the one at Babson. Both schools were involved in the development.

Lois Brooks, director of the Academic Technology Specialist program at Stanford University, said she doesn't know of any other school that is doing what Babson and Bentley have done.

``I've heard people talk about this, but I haven't heard it go beyond the speculation stage,'' she said.

Some schools have been trying less sophisticated solutions to the problem.

The University of Virginia has installed switches in its business school classrooms that kill access to computer networks. But the switches aren't well-hidden, and students who know where they are can flip them back
on.

Other schools, such as UCLA, last year banned Internet connections in its required, core classes. And Columbia last year expanded its ``integrity code'' to include a student promise to ``use technology in the
classroom only as it is directly relevant to the material being discussed.''

So far, no tech-savvy student has been able to crack Bentley's or Babson's software, according to Knutel and Aieta.

Aieta plans to ask his students to try to crack the program in order to test its security, figuring that's what they'd be trying to do anyway.

``If you have denied access, and if the student thinks they can somehow get it back, they will try everything,'' Aieta said. ``They've never seen a button they didn't want to push.''

---

Re:Text of the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Well done for posting AC. Non-karma whores unite!!!

I'm lubed up and bent over so will somebody please fuck me in the ass.

Re:Text of the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn 't you just provide the link instead of posting the whole damn article?

You dumb fuck.

Why not use a closed network and vpn or vnc?

[spike666]

just a thought... why not use a closed network in the classroom that has no access outside, and then use either restricted VPN to tunnel only specific things outside, (which i guess would still allow a port 80 proxy... oops)

or a closed network and then have the students only have access to a VNC session which the profs could then session view, and display on the big screen to show what that student is doing. in addition to the "oh look, josh is net-sexing beth" types of demonstrations, the prof could also let a student run the demo showing how they did something.
sort of a new way of "brad, why dont you stand up and read that section?"

Ridiculous

[YaRness]

So what else are they going to do? Walk around the class to make sure nobody's got comics or porn behind those book covers? Read their notes to make sure they aren't doodling in class? Hire a mind reader and make sure they aren't daydreaming about the girl/boy sitting next to them?

How about just trusting that the students that are there to learn will be doing so.

And maybe try including material in the class that isn't read straight from the book so that these idiots wasting $10k+ a year for a phat pipe and a kegger every weekend will have to actually pay attention to pass the class.

found what to do...

[alta]

go pick yourself a site....
paste in the url...
if it still shows the select a site page, hit refresh, that's cached. It should show the real thing now.

DMCA?

[Tom7]

I realize you're kidding, but it doesn't help to be alarmist about the DMCA. It protects only access to a copyrighted work, not anything having to do with "hacking" a proxy server to get out of your school's network.

The DMCA is a bad, scary law and should be overturned, but we won't win that battle by making it out to be something it's not. Educate, rather than knee-jerk.

Re:DMCA?

[Brian See]

Let's be even more specific why the DMCA doesn't apply here. The provisions of the DMCA /. readers are most worked out about (Section 1201) are the anti-circumvention provisions. These provisions forbid you to circumvent technology that "effectively controls access" to a copyrighted work. It also prohibits trafficing in devices (including software) that circumvent these access controls.

I think we all agree that this is an overbroad, bad law. But hacking a proxy server has nothing to do with circumventing access controls. Controlling general access to the internet (or even specific access to all email and instant messaging) does not constitute the exercising of access control by a copyright owner.

Moreover -- and I suppose this might be disputed by some -- I don't think there's that much of a privacy violation here, either. Students using the school's network during class simply have no reasonable expectation of privacy -- especially if this policy were announced in class.

Re:DMCA?

[cvd6262]

[The DMCA] protects only access to a copyrighted work, not anything having to do with "hacking" a proxy server to get out of your school's network.

Correct. This is why it was not illegal to crack the 802.11 encryption.

Also, cracking DVD region coding is not covered under the DMCA. Region coding is not encryption, nor is it copy protection (it's a distribution control measure).

Re:DMCA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, cracking DVD region coding is not covered under the DMCA. Region coding is not encryption, nor is it copy protection (it's a distribution control measure).

Well the Judge in the 2600 case seems to disagree with you. So the poster is right. Just about anything can come under the DMCA jurisdiction.

Re:DMCA?

[Brian See]

No, region coding has been found (IMHO correctly) to be access control. The copyright owners want DVDs to only be accessed (playable) under certain circumstances. Distribution control measure == access control.

I think the simplistic way to look at it is that access control is something that the copyright owner does to protect its bundle rights given under copyright law.

Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[Samedi1971]

The idea that colleges with paying students would spend money trying to force their customers to pay attention is incredible. They paid for the class, so let them fail if they want. Better yet, students can probably be getting better information from the net than they get from your average professor anyway.

Bottom line: Let the adults paying to surf in your class surf. Or crack down on doodling in notebooks as well.

Sam

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[Anonymous Coward]

They paid for the class, so let them fail if they want.

So I assume you went to a private school where tuition paid 100% of the budget, no one was on scholarship or federal financial aid, and nobody's mommy or daddy paid their tuition?

Grow up. You are not a "customer" of the University you are a "student" the moment you stop being a student it's time for you to go. If you don't need to pay attention in class don't go. Most of my profs made a point of telling everyone that if you can get by without coming to class they would rather you stay at home, depending on where you go to school there may be 20-500 other people in that class who want to get an education.

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[CodeMonky]

The problem is the disruption it causes.
Me doodling on my notepad doesn't disturb the guy next to me. Me clacking away on my keyboard might disturb not only him but also the guy in the next row.

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[esper]

That sounds more like a reason to ban laptops in classrooms entirely rather than just cutting off net access. A student taking notes on his laptop generates more noise than one surfing the web or reading his email - the note-taker is entering substantial amounts of data (many keystrokes, more-or-less continuous typing), while the goof-off is just navigating (a single keystroke or click every now and then).

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[CodeMonky]

True. I guess its all a matter of what is needed in the class. If net access isn't needed than cut it off. If a student wants to use the net during class than don't come to class.

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[Occam's Nailfile]

Let the adults paying to surf in your class surf. Or crack down on doodling in notebooks as well.

I can't believe this got modded insightful. If your doodle pad made beeping, clicking noises I would argue that yes it should be prohibited from a class where other people are trying to pay attention.

Oh yeah, what other people?

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but for most people the keyboard isn't nearly as effective a tool as the pencil. Given that the average typing speed is probably between 20-40 wpm, I can imagine that the average three-finger hunt-and-peck typist would probably get more words on a page with a pencil than with a keyboard. Not only that, but you can draw diagrams and sketch complex figures much faster. A student in a class would have to have a vast array of programs and an encyclopedic knowledge of them to do with a laptop keyboard what an ordinary pen-and-paper can reproduce.

Unless they had a pen computing device, which to this day remain flaky and largley unusable, unless you want to forgo OCR, and save all of your class notes as gif's or jpegs and print them out when you get back to your dorm room. In which case, why bother with a complex device like a computer?

Re:Outlaw Doodling in Colleges!

[aozilla]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just have the professor ask any student bothering other students to leave? I don't see why any sort of technical solution has to come into play.

How dare they!

[Phaid]

Man, those professors are living in the past. They must think you're actually supposed to listen and even participate in the courses they teach. God, they're so backward.

Re:How dare they!

[Anonymous Coward]

participation is sooo bad at my school that profs actually give out extra-credit if you participate in class! Also, one technology that should be banned in class-rooms; cell phones!

Re:How dare they!

[Rogerborg]

• Man, those professors are living in the past. They must think you're actually supposed to listen and even participate in the courses they teach. God, they're so backward

Well, yes. By the time that I got my degree in 1995, all I was required to do was to ace the 20% of my CS degree that was actually skills based, then regurgitate enough of the pet projects of my lecturers to scrape a pass. Using The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy as an example for most problems also seemed to work well.

Computer class

[KosovoYankee]

Well, let's say you are takin a class in a computer science field (coding, architecture, etc). Computers suddenly become necessary. Unless you are learning how to design MS user interfaces, in which case crayons and construction paper are all you really need.

Re:Computer class

[ethereal]

Incorrect. We took classes on coding, architecture, etc., with frickin' overhead slides and frickin' note taking on paper with a writing utensil. Sure, the homework required a computer, but one wasn't needed in class.

I'm not saying that a computer wouldn't be helpful in such a class, but it is possible to learn without handy access to the 'net, and I can understand the argument that in some situations 'net access is more of a distraction than a help.

Don't get me started on the EE classes that required lab notebooks and carbon paper - positively Stone Age technology as we called it :) And this was just a few years ago...

Re:Computer class

[ColdGrits]

All very nice, and all very IRRELEVANT to the question, namely why would a class *require* NET access?

Reckon you might want to read before replying next time, eh?

Re:Computer class

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would any class require .NET access? I dunno - I can't see why anyone in the real world would want to use it either.

Re:Computer class

[Anonymous Coward]

A class in coding? I see, you must have attended one on those progressive schools where theory is just another six letter word. Who needs theory when they can teach you perl and get you a web coding job in 2 weeks!

Re:Computer class

[Velex]

No. Computer Science != Computers required. The only reason why I would want to use a computer is because I can type so much faster than I can write. What happened to flowcharting? What happened to psuedocode? What about diagramming binary trees and writing explications about sample code. None of those things require a computer. Isn't computer science the logics of computers, not the programming itself? Sure, programming plays a big part; it's nice to be able to compile a java program and watch it in action, but it's not necessary.

For a moment, let me compare the AP Computer Science AB exam to my CS-162 class at Grand Valley State University. For my AP exam, I only used a computer once, and that was to peruse the college board web site. Everything else I did on paper, and I think that I leared twice as much last summer about computer science than all of my coding experience of having TI-Basic as a second language (you remember those cool TI-99/4As, right). On the other hand, my CS-162 class probably should have been JAVA-101, because we have yet to produce any kind of flowchart or psuedocode, and we're already on the fifth week! The only thing we've worked on is a java-specific "bag of tricks" as my professor calls it. The problem here is that I already have a humongeous Java bag of tricks; I want to know more about binary search trees, and cover things that weren't on the AP exam like multi-threading and networking for example. Well, at least I can see why GVSU won't articulate my AP credits except as general CS credit; it's because their computer dependant CS curriculum is a bag of tricks.

Re:Computer class

[jazman_777]

All very nice, and all very IRRELEVANT to the question, namely why would a class *require* NET access?

I can't think of why you'd require it, but since it can be done, lots of people are doing it. We do because we _can_, not because we _should_.

Re:Computer class

[susano_otter]

No, what I'm worried about is when the classes require .NET access.

Re:Computer class

[Foosinho]

I have a BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering, and am one full-time year (3 quarters) away from having a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and just three classes in my entire curriculum had computers in the classroom.

You don't need computers to discuss theory.

You don't need internet access to write a tokenizer either.

Cheers,
Brian

Fix the problem, not the symptom

[dilger]

Look at the picture in the article. It's an AP photo, so it's probably not the same classroom, but it displays the real problem. Everybody has to face the teacher. It's just reproduction of the same tired low-involvement teaching methods that require little or no interactivity or effort.

A talking head is still a talking head, whether you've got a computer in front of you or not.

This is why lecture is the smallest component of my pedagogy (IMO group work, in-class assignments, big discussions, or just not having class are better alternatives).

cbd.

Re:Fix the problem, not the symptom

[Enonu]

What's even better is if they make Powerpoint slides, turn down the lights so you go to sleep, and talk to the screen instead of to the class.

Now it's a talking head in a dark room facing the wrong direction.

Re:Fix the problem, not the symptom

[akintayo]

Got news for you, the teacher already knows what he is teaching. In most cases he is not dependent on you in any way. Professors need to attract grant money, while TA's need good grades - ensuring the student learns is the responsibility of the student.

Re:Fix the problem, not the symptom

[yali]

IMO group work, in-class assignments, big discussions, or just not having class are better alternatives

Hey, so I'm teaching people right now!

Re:Fix the problem, not the symptom

[Nerftoe]

What's even better is if they make Powerpoint slides, turn down the lights so you go to sleep, and talk to the screen instead of to the class.

I always loved those classes. Big lecture halls with cozy seats, plenty of room to stretch out... If the prof gave out a quiz, you were ready to go, but if not: Zzzzz...

But damn, Accounting 202 can be a drag, especially if you are a CIS major. Accounting A100, and A201 wasn't enough? Bah.

Correct link - Colleges Work to Block Net in Class

[el_nino-2000]

From Yahoo.com: Colleges Work to Block Net in Class

Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[Raunchola]

What censorship? I don't see any censorship here. Before any of you go into a "FREE SPEACH!!!" mode, read the article...

"The software doesn't censor which sites a student can visit on the Internet. Instead, a professor can choose whether classes have access to the entire Internet or just the school's internal network."

I know this may sound like a foreign concept to some...but you're in class to learn. Wanna use the Internet? Do it in your dorm, and save the rest of the class from your incessant keyboard clacking.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[Anne_Nonymous]

Censorship = no
Invasion of privacy = yes

If these kids want to waste their time and money surfing during class, that's their problem. Why do they need to be mollycoddled by the school?

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[steveo777]

Yes, but if they really want to waste thier time, they shouldn't go to class. Odds are, if they get credit for attendence, and all they do is surf, then they probably aren't getting that credit.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[Sheetrock]

The thing that irritates me about this is that colleges feel that they need to restrict or remove the technology to solve this problem. In most of my classes, students were respectful enough of the speaker and each other to not subject everybody to keyboard clacking and mouse clicks. In the few where they didn't get the hint the professor would clue them in without making a scene in front of the class and the situation would be resolved in a professional and adult manner.

So many of the 'problems' we've got with technology are really problems with human interaction. Another example is all the jumping through hoops businesses do to restrict employee usage of the internet using expensive hardware and software rather than handling misuse of the internet as stated in company policy in a similar way to handling employee tardiness or any other situation in the employer-employee relationship that you can't fit a fancy software filter between. In school/college of all places teaching people to correct inappropriate behavior rather than trying to simulate an environment where it will never occur seems more productive to me in the long run, even if it is inconvenient when trying to run a class.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[garcia]

few comments here.

#1 -- you don't want students using the net in class - don't provide PCs in the lecture room.

#2 -- don't require attendence to class. The student is paying for class he wants to surf let him at home. Don't force him to goto class.

#3 -- Don't have enough room to not allow PCs in this classroom? Drop net access from that room for that class. Nothing more than a flip of a switch.

#4 -- Most of the time you are in class only b/c you have to be. Honestly 60% of the time spent in class is down time. Not learning time. Who cares what they are doing.

I don't particularly agree w/people using the Internet during class but I also do not agree w/the school providing PCs for the students in a lecture class.

If you don't want them to use it, shut off the machines. Nuff said.

As far as them invading your privacy by showing the IMs, go ahead, does the rest of the class really care if I am talking to FuckYou69 about getting drunk on Thursday night? I highly doubt it.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[cowens]

I don't know about you, but I paid money to go to classes when I was in college and so long as I wasn't doing anything that disrupted the other students then I feel they have no right to stop me. I paid for the privledge to be there, but that doesn't mean they should be able to force me to do things their way. The only reason I went to (some) classes at all was the possibility that something interesting/insightful/important would be said; however, the vast majority time I should not have even bothered. So instead I wrote programs long-hand on legal pads (I would have killed for a laptop). Should the professor have stopped me?

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[cactopus]

The professor used to lock all the workstations in math labs using xlock.

We just discovered Stop-A and reboot.

Once the Suns came back up it was free Internet surfing for the rest of the class time.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[garcia]

not what I am talking about. Shut the entire set of machines down. Flip the switch behind the desk .

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[segfaultcoredump]

#4 -- Most of the time you are in class only b/c you have to be. Honestly 60% of the time spent in class is down time. Not learning time. Who cares what they are doing.

Dude, what type of community college are you going to? I'm sorry, but there was very little downtime in the college classes that I attended. If you were not paying attention to half of the lecture, you were in trouble. It was as simple as that. It was full speed ahead, hope you can keep up with the rest of us.

Then again, the freshman intro classes were designed to make sure that the first year's didn't have time to go to frat parties (and it also helped the departments weed out the less capable).

So, my suggestion to you is this: if you spend 60% of your time in class bored and not learning anything, you should find a new college to go to. After all, you're paying for it, you may as well get your money's worth.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[Rogerborg]

• Dude, what type of community college are you going to?

It can vary a lot. I went to one lecture in the 2nd half of my final year. It was a pre-exam revision lecture for a course that I quickly realised that I hadn't done, but that was OK because I fell asleep anyway as I'd been up all night hacking Xfire.

And yet I still got a solid degree from a great school, because I knew my shit. While I was "goofing off" from class, I was learning actual programming skills, rather than the abstract pet projects of the professors. I scammed enough notes off of my classmates (or off of their screens - lock those X terms, guys) to figure out what I was expected to say in the exams, and I dutifully said it and was graded on that basis, not on what I actually knew.

And now that I think about it, sometimes the only chance I got to use computer resources was when a class was held in a lab. I had the choice of two-finger typing in a stupid toy program, or I could demonstrate to myself why PPK authentication is a waste of time for open source programs. I chose the latter route, and learned a lot more.

So let's not just write off all non-class related work as a waste of time. I've wrangled lab classes, and I'd far rather walk around, see what the students are doing, encourage the smart kids (including the ones going faster than I can keep up with) and just kick the real wasters out. I don't want some crippleware nanny program doing it for me. In fact, my first assignment would be to get the class to find a way around it.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[garcia]

actually I am about to graduate so I know exactly how college works. No, I didn't attend MIT or anything but it most certainly was not a community college.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is *clearly* not distruption, or all keyboarding would be banned, not just internet access.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[Sabalon]

Not all professors using a room may feel the same about computer usage. So in between classes should the PC's be moved in and out? Or if the classroom just has ports for a student to plug a notebook in, then that is not even an option.

As for point 3, that is what it is talking about - a flip of a switch, just not a physical one.

I don't think there are tons of schools that have surplus space and can both have rooms just for classes that need puters AND schedule all the classes without there being some overlap.

As for item 4 - sounds like you went to a shitty school.

Re:Spoken like a true lamer "d00d"

[aozilla]

I know this may sound like a foreign concept to some...but you're in class to learn.

Maybe that's supposed to be the point, but I went to class to get a degree, not to learn. Maybe 25% of my classes I benefitted from actually attending. Maybe another 25% I went to merely because attendence was required. Then the other 50% I never went to at all.

Depending on what school you're going to, using the internet during class time might be the best way to learn.

Hey that link....

[tomknight]

Is someone blocking my net access?

;-)

Tom.

Re:Hey that link....

[jbridge21]

So you go to Slashdot University then? (You can get to /., but not to other sites...)

I actually agree with this one

[Uttles]

I hate to lose any of my freedoms on the net, and I think it's wrong for Uni's to limit internet access in your dorm room on your personal computer, but for once I agree with this restriction. The internet in the classroom is there for a specific purpose and people shouldn't be chatting away with their friends or surfing the porno sites when the prof. is trying to teach. That results in those same people asking all the stupid questions at the end of class keeping everyone there for an additional 10 minutes. If someone gives you internet access in your dorm room or at home, it should be unrestricted access, but if you can use the internet in class, they should restrict it to only what you're supposed to be doing.

Re:I actually agree with this one

[Rogerborg]

• once I agree with this restriction

Do you agree with using a gutless technical solution rather than obliging the wasters to be personally responsible for their actions? What's that teaching them? That if you can figure out how to work around the system, that's OK?

Ask them to stop, tell them to stop, kick them out. I've wrangled lab classes, and believe me, it works just fine.

Re:I actually agree with this one

[Sabalon]

I agree with that, but from the flip side, the professor should be able to turn the access off and go about teaching, not spend all of the time policing the class, which then hurts the class for the other students.

Also, it is a bit different between lab classes and lecture classes...usually the lab classes are students working on something or another with the instructor there to provide help or guidance.

Re:I actually agree with this one

[Sabalon]

I hate to lose any of my freedoms on the net, and I think it's wrong for Uni's to limit internet access in your dorm room on your personal computer

While I wouldn't like it either and would not want to do it if I was told to at work, you are fogetting that the bandwidth, infrastructure, etc... is the university's, not yours. It is in place to assist with your academic goals, not your conquest of mp3 collecting or iso trading.

You're not paying for the access in your room the same way you are for it at home. Sure, you may have technology fees, but that goes for a whole lot more - servers, wiring classrooms, bandwidth, support, etc...

Then again, the college I work at has a $40 technology fee which goes for the above and more, and we have a $95 athletic fee...for a school that thinkgs itself on the bleeding edge of technology in the classroom.

Go figure.

Re:I actually agree with this one

[Rogerborg]

• the professor should be able to turn the access off and go about teaching, not spend all of the time policing the class, which then hurts the class for the other students

OK, point taken. Sorry to be so aggressive, I do appreciate how annoying it is to be blanked when you're trying to get an important point across. Also, I've only done work-for-hire teaching assistant work in practical labs, so I basically just kicked the wasters out and didn't have to give a damn about their grades. I can see that it would be different if they were actually "my" class, and I was accountable for their grades.

Use protected software

[Anonymous Coward]

Students should, then, use software that does not allow displaying their e-mails and instant messages. Use PGP for email and SILC for chatting. Duh!

Sounds like High School

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like something they'd do at a very high-tech high school. I don't know what things are like at Bentley, but generally I was under the presumption that Universities treated you as adults. If you want to goof off privately in class, they should let you. They get paid either way.

Displaying a students e-mails and messages on a large screen for the whole class to see is degrading, insulting, and pointless. Particularly since the students affected are the tech-savvy ones anyway. Is that the message they want to send potential students? "Come to our University and be embarrassed in class!"

Sheesh.

Re:Sounds like High School

[Anonymous Coward]

Particularly since the students affected are the tech-savvy ones anyway.

The tech-savvy students won't be affected, becuase they will know how to bypass all this nonsense. A simple encryption scheme (hey even rot-13 should work in such a case!) will easily bypass displaying a students e-mail. Then again, who here doesn't SSH into thier server to get thier mail anyway?

Submitter simply wrong

[JimRay]

I have to seriously object to the knee-jerk reaction that the story's submitter seems to be suffering from. This isn't censorship in the classroom. It's not as if these schools are imposing some draconian system of keeping information out of the hands of their students--they just want them to pay attention in class.

The system in place is one that I've actually used as a teaching assistant at UNC. We have, as do many universities, a huge problem with students simply not paying attention in class. The classes I taught were multimedia development, so every student was sitting in front of a computer. You could gurantee that everytime the lights went down for instruction, the email terminals came up. I never actually had a professor use the screen capture, but the fact that it exists doesn't bother me at all.

The reality is, these kinds of measures are not censorous. Institutions of higher learning have been and will continue to be places where freedom on the Internet will be vitally important. When this freedom begins to be limited at schools, we're in serious trouble.

Re:Submitter simply wrong

[Rogerborg]

• The system in place is one that I've actually used as a teaching assistant at UNC. [...] everytime the lights went down for instruction, the email terminals came up

Did you mind them reading email? If not, what's your point? If you did, why didn't you ask them to stop, then tell them to stop, then just kick them out?

This isn't armchair coaching, I've wrangled Computer Science lab classes as a TA, and I quickly found that I had to choose to either ignore the wasters, or to kick them out and focus on the good students. I chose the latter course, but the former's OK as well, as long as you're not hypocritical enough to then welcome a cyber nanny that saves you actually interacting with the students.

The thing that would worry me about this system (in any kind of Computer Science class) is if my students either couldn't crack it, or didn't want to, or (worst of all) didn't dare to.

To head off a potential rebuttal, no, I don't advocate students cracking systems in general, or their college system. I advocate them cracking anything that's put deliberately in their way purely to obstruct and restrict them, especially if it gives the message that using blanket suppression is better than obliging people to take personal responsiblility for their actions.

At the very least, I'd expect them to want to crack it, and then figure out how to do it and let me know. I'd expect them to want to crack it because it's there. It scares me that people here are saying that students should just accept this system without question, because it's for their own good. That way, how do you distinguish the timid from the lazy from the talented? You lower them all to the same level. In a computer science class, the one thing that I don't want to hear is silent keyboards.

Re:Submitter simply wrong

[JimRay]

I think we agree in spirit. I truly did mind students wasting my time by not paying attention. It's really just rude. I'd rather them not attend class than disrupt by IM-ing or checking email. And yes, that is a distraction, especially if multiplied by a factor greater than 1.

I'm not sure I agree that you're going to distinguish the timid from the talented with something like a firewall or screen capture program. The endless stream of script kiddies proliferating on the net proves that just because you can '0wn' something doesn't mean you're any good. And these kinds of systems aren't necessarily that difficult to break. Furthermore, what kind of CS skill are really required for this kind of work? it seems more like an administration task. Some of the brightest CS folks I know don't know a thing about administration, and vice versa. I'd personally rather my students focus on meaningful problem solving than how to score warez and mp3's while in class.

Re:Submitter simply wrong

[Rogerborg]

OK, you got me. What I'm actually thinking is that if I've lost their attention, I'd rather have them doing something constructive, rather than just doodling on bits of paper. ;)

Sorry if I gave any offence, I do appreciate how frustrating it is when you're trying to get things across and you're facing a room of blank faces (or worse, people playing XPilot).

class time is for class work

[AtomZombie]

There is nothing wrong with a teacher wanting to restrict the use of the internet in the classroom to the task at hand. Students should not be reading their email or instant-messaging on class time. This is not a violation of rights more than it is akin to the teacher asking students not to pass notes in class. It is when these restrictions carry outside the classroom that one must worry about rights violations.

Re:class time is for class work

[Rogerborg]

• There is nothing wrong with a teacher wanting to restrict the use of the internet in the classroom to the task at hand

Absolutely. So why don't they?

1. Please use the facilities provided for the task at hand.
2. Stop doing that.
3. strikes, buddy. Get out.

Has the concept of personal responsibility gone so far out of fashion?

Re:class time is for class work

[Homewrecker]

Has the concept of personal responsibility gone so far out of fashion?

Look around! You dumped a cup of hot coffee on yourself like an idiot? Fricking McDonald's... sue them! You molested someone's kid? Surely it's the fault of whomever reared you. Wrapped your car around a tree while drunk? Sue the bartender!

To summarize, yes, responsibility is passe and it's destroying whatever is left of this world.

Try gorilla wireless, like those L0pht kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your Frat and Sor. groups together, build a few relay stations, and avoid all that "regulation" by the university.

Have free, unregulated wireless hookups to your own servers, so that they cannot filter,track your browsing. 8)

I guess they want you to pay more attention in school, heck in my Stats class i was the one of the few with a 386 monocrome notebook, professor asked me if i used it for stats, i said as i was playing Risk, nope, just use it play Risk, mostly.

Anyway quit bitching, either fight your university or build your own stuff.

Cheers,

Re:Try gorilla wireless, like those L0pht kids

[skotte]

great idea. best one i've seen yet. i'm so into wireless .. it may have some security issues to work out, but given the current situation (where you basically want anyone and everyone to have open access) what the heck. this is perfect. now just hide those relay stations in your tunnel-ratting underground corridors....

Huh?

[Shotgun]

Let me see:

I pay beaucoup bucks so that some old guy can stand and lecture me. If I fail to regurgitate the old guys spew, then I have to pay him to lecture me again (assuming that I want to earn that passport to a decent corporate job known as a degree at some point in the future). So instead of paying attention to the old guys spew, I choose to cruise /.

Who gives a fuck. Let the idiot cruise. They'll be out of school soon enough, and you'll have your money. If some kid is smart enough to cruise and memorize the spew, let 'em. Quit trying to be everyone's momma and let adults be adults.

For those who consider this a rant, please note my perspective. I finished my degree at the ripe old age of 32. You have a completely different perspective on college after working a few years. Professors go from being overbearing jerks to service providers. Straight out of high school kids cheered when teacher didn't show. I was pissed and would go to the dean. I payed for that class time, and if I wasn't going to get it, I expected a refund. Other students would cheer when teach gave an extension on homework due date. I was pissed, 'cause I had mine done and I didn't want a bunch of lazy dipshit who couldn't get a couple pages of homework done in a week getting the same degree as me. Yes, I wanted them to drop out so that the market wouldn't be flooded with CS degrees that shouldn't exist.

This falls into the same category. Let those without a modicum of self control do what they deserve to do, dig ditches or flip burgers, but damn the nanny state.

Re:Huh?

[bluesninja]

Amen!

However, I think that professors deserve little bit more respect from their students. Students surfing the net and emailing while you're trying to teach is distracting and obnoxious.

But then, I majored in philosophy, so net-surfing wasn't a big problem in our classrooms :)

bluesninja

Re:Huh?

[NMerriam]

This is absolutely right.

Another example: in high school, we had to ASK befor we could go to the bathroom. Why? Because they didn't want you disappearing.

In college you just get up and go without disturbing anyone. If you want to disappear for the rest of class, feel free -- and if you fail, its your fault.

OTOH, if you can make straight As by reading the book and never going to class except to take the final, that's no problem, either.

Its the difference between being an adult and being a child. If someone wants to surf when they should be learning, as long as they aren't disturbing those around them, knock yourself out...

Re:Huh?

[chemical55]

Here is the above posters life story:

Frank Grimes, a correspondence school graduate with a degree in nuclear physics, is a pathetic loner recently hired at the Springfield power plant. His no-nonsense attitude brutally conflicts with Homer's extraordinarily lazy style, and he instantly deems them "enemies."
Homer, in an attempt to win over the seething and friendless "enemy," gives him the pet name "Grimey" and invites him over for dinner. Upon seeing Homer's wife, children, house and car, Grimey declares his extreme jealously for Homer, a man who has everything, including a 10-year-old son who (in a left-field sub story line) has his own factory.

But the next day when Grimey attempts to humiliate Homer in front of his co-workers, and Homer is instead revered, Grimey accidentally kills himself while acting out in a bitter rage.

At Grimey's funeral, Homer once again steals the show when, as Grimey's casket is being lowered into the ground, Homer is fast asleep and snoring loudly. The entire funeral turns and laughs at Homer during Grimey's last (and first) moments of public recognition. The credits appear and viewers are left stunned at the sheer darkness of the laughter at the poor guy's funeral.

Re:Huh?

[delcielo]

Is anything in life that simple. I too finished my degree at an advanced age. As such, I came to appreciate a few other things about universities. It turns out that instructors and staff are proud of the work they do, and feel that performance in their class, and the level of learning they impart reflects on them. So if they let the class surf, and everybody flunks, it's not just a problem for the students; but for them. It also is a problem for the school. If they have a reputation for letting the students blow off work and spend their time surfing instead, they will suffer lowering enrollment and perhaps even problems with accreditation.

So it's not just all about you. Yes, you paid for a service, the learning, and you should get it. That doesn't necessarily mean you should also get porn delivered straight to your desk when you want it.

Re:Huh?

[bonius_rex]

Yeah, I've been out of academia for a while, too.
But if you really would rather surf /. than listen to old guy spew, why go to lecture at all? Stay in your dorm and surf. Some people need lecture to learn, some don't. Don't make life suck for those who do.

Of course, the whole idea of going to college(physically) is pretty much obsolete, with things like University of Phoenix and whatnot. Now, websurfing *is* college.

Re:Huh?

[Dragoness Eclectic]

I once got thrown out of a Beginning Philosophy lecture because the professor got pissed off that I was reading a book in the back of the classroom and not paying attention to him. He later apologised, but not before I learned something important that I should have known already:

It's just plain rude to ignore people when they are talking to you!

If you don't want pay attention to the lecturer, then don't attend the class. Reading e-mail, sending IMs, surfing, reading books, etc. when someone is talking to you is rude.

There are few laws that forbid you from being rude or obnoxious, but if you are, don't complain when you get treated as if you were rude and obnoxious.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely true. Are you sure you went to a
university and not a zoo by mistake? After the
first year, most of the people around me actually
started taking issues like deadlines seriously.

The difference is that weren't any machines in
lecture halls at my Uni. If you want to surf,
you go to a computer lab, not a lecture. Perhaps
these new-style Unis don't have enough space for
both labs _and_ lecture halls, so they combine them, and that temptation is always there...

Re:Huh?

[mydigitalself]

i agree entirely with what you are saying. however...

i'm not sure about american universities, i'm from south africa and a large amount of our university bills are subsidised by the government - who essentially own the universities. now the tables are turned. THEY have invested money in YOU! and ducking out of class, surfing the net, blah blah means that they feel the same anger you felt about having your money wasted (on a less personal level obviously!).

so i think you have to take into perspective that the universities are also trying to protect their own investment - which they are very much entitled to do.

secondly...
when i was at university, i had a LAN connection in my room. now you can imagine a res full of students ripping down mp3's, mpeg movies, warez, porn and so on to their hearts content. what does this do? 1. bandwidth costs money; 2. bandwidth is a scarce resource.

so as valid as your points are about parenting, i feel that there are also fiscal reasons for the univisities to implement such a policy.

Re:Huh?

[Mr. McGibby]

If someone wants to surf when they should be learning, as long as they aren't disturbing those around them, knock yourself out...

Problem is that they *are* disturbing the rest of the class. I teach a lab section for a beginning CS course and find that half the class surfs the internet when they get done with whatever we're doing instead of doing what happens in most classes like this, helping other students and thereby teaching themselves.

If you don't want to come to class to learn then don't come! It's rude!

Re:Huh?

[akintayo]

Most american universities are subsidised by the government, either through research grants to professors or more direct assistance. This combined with education related tax breaks means that the US government and taxpayers have a substantial investment in the education of most college students.

In short, these idiots are wasting my money

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you really would rather surf /. than listen to old guy spew, why go to lecture at all?

Some idiot professors have mandatory attendence. Perhaps you went to a good school without such professors, but most of us who were forced to go to state schools to save money have experienced this.

Re:Huh?

[SkewlD00d]

Btw, my comments in the post aren't particularly insightful; I just tried to make a funny slippery-slope assimilation fallacy to the DMCA. I agree; I'm the paying customer. I'll do what the hell I want, so long as it is not disruptive. This kindergarten mentality sux.

Yet: I have seen plenty of annoying freshmen that make it hard for everyone to learn. You'd think they'd learn by now, but I guess their high schools were all playtime. I guess it boils down to:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: u gotta give some to get some.

SkewlD00d
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Going to grad skewl 'cause B.S. degrees are a $.10 / dozen.

What an idiot comment in the submission

[ceswiedler]

I bet I can get around any of this, all I need is a proxy server running on campus on port 80. LOL! But breaking it would probably violate the DMCA. Oh no, proxy servers are now all illegal!

I doubt very strongly that the answer to getting around the censorship is a proxy server. And censoring access to the internet has absolutely nothing to do with the DMCA, since the Internet as a whole is not copyrighted.

Basically, the submitter has no real clue, and was trying to increase his chances of getting his submission accepted by linking it to a popular geek issue, the DMCA.

Re:What an idiot comment in the submission

[grue23]

Basically, the submitter has no real clue, and was trying to increase his chances of getting his submission accepted by linking it to a popular geek issue, the DMCA.

I bet the submitter has a real clue. He took something innane and harmless, attached censorship and DMCA to it and lo and behold, /. posted it. , IMO, it's pretty damn funny that it got posted. The number of comments agreeing that this is some kind of horrible censorship is even funnier.

They're worried about cheating

[speed_bump]

I have a friend who works at a large and reputable business school. They are quite concerned about wireless networking and the potential for cheating. The department has asked them to shut down the wireless access points during class hours to avoid that problem. They have tried to do this by a combination of perl code and cron jobs. I pointed out to them that most cards can associate with each other in ad-hoc mode. Needless to say, they didn't like that :-)

The truly entertaining part is that they provide each of their MBA students with a wireless PDA and similar gadgetry. Some of the folks pointed out that this is the business school so the likelihood of these students knowing how to work around these limitations is limited. I pointed out that there is, in fact, a computer science department and engineering school on this campus. While MBAs are not so good at technology, they excel at networking and getting other people to do their work.

The real issue is how we will deal with this in the future as technology progresses. We see the beginnings in the current arguments about giving kids calculators during tests. I imagine this will follow on into issues along the lines of "what's wrong with being able to do a web search during an exam." At some point it will be up to professors and other educators to develop problems which can't be found via a web search. Inconvenient for them, but it will be a fact of life before long.

Of course, you could just ban technology (PDAs, laptops, etc) during exams ...

Re:They're worried about cheating

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue is how we will deal with this in the future as technology progresses.

Very easily. Have a final exam where the student can't cheat. How to make it impossible to cheat depends on the particular subject. It might be as simple as not allowing any electronic devices, or it might be as tough as having an oral exam. Once you've created an uncheatable final, force students to pass that final to pass the course.

Re:They're worried about cheating

[5KVGhost]

I've always thought that this attitude is pretty silly. Yes, it's important for a student to know certain basic information and understand certain core concepts. But in Real Life there are very few of us who do our jobs without ever using references or tools. The answer should be to make classroom time and exams _more_ like the real world environment, and not turn it into some artificial knowledge vacuum just because the instructors are happier that way.

A test that doesn't allow you to use your notes or check easily available references in class isn't testing knowledge or understanding, just memory. And as a fairly smart guy with a poor memory I've always resented that. Unfortunately some instructors don't understand how to do anything else.

Giant mirrors at he back wall

[TheMidget]

o we just moved the teacher workstations to the back of the class so the professor could keep an eye on what the students where doing.

It feels kinda awkward if the professor has to teach standing behind the class. Will students have to twist their necks to watch him?

A more workable solution is to put large mirrors on the back wall, so he can use them to watch what's going on while still standing in front of the class. It's ugly as hell, but it works...

Re:Giant mirrors at he back wall

[CodeMonky]

Heh heh. Most of the classes held in the labs here involve a projector showing the instructors workstation on the screen in the front of the class. However big mirrors would be neat.

The other way around

[smaughster]

The following link points to a hilarious mpg with this situation, expect with the teacher having his content shown to the rest of the world. Quite funny :-)

Wireless temporary lan.

[steveo777]

A buddy of mine ordered some transmitter/reciever modules for about 20 bucks each. He hooked them up to on of the ports on his Dell and after a bit of coding we had a wireless chat network in our Assembly code class. It was either that, or sleep.

No good proxies

[mr100percent]

Proxies won't work everywhere, not when filtering software is installed on the routers and all ports except FTP, SSH, and HTTP are blocked. Our school uses iGear(yech)

Then again, there's always safeweb. the firewall resticts the site, but using HTTPS circumvents it.

I'd reccomend VNC, telnet with Lynx, or TCP/IP over HTTP.

Re:No good proxies

[GeorgeH]

Please, it's much easier than that. Bring up a PPP link through SSH and set up a VPN between your laptop in class and your desktop computer in your dorm.

Then just route all non-school addresses to your PPP link and you're done.

You're paying them & their tool is grades

[gelfling]

This is utter crap. They can't MAKE you pay attention. Their weapon is grades for which you pay money. If you don't or don't want to pay attention your grades MAY suffer. Or they MAY not. At any rate that's your problem. If they want a closed network then they should have a closed network. Otherwise they should work at building courses that don't bore people to tears.

Re:You're paying them & their tool is grades

[Estimator]

I would agree but for two things:
1. There is not enough differentiation in the grades any more. The grades are not being used to punish those who don't pay attention.

2. You are in a public area. You do not have the right to do anything you choose even though you have paid. Would you try and start up your laptop if you were in a cinema? Quite rightly, 99% of the cinema would be very angry with you if you did.

Of course you assume...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that the teachers will bother to learn about all of this. They have enoguh trouble learning the subjects they're supposed to be teaching.

Losing Battle

[Anonymous Coward]

When they finally do get the hardwired access shut down, with wireless Web enabled phones and PDA's you're not going to be able to keep up.

Sure you'll move it from their workstation on their desk to the Palm on their knee, but it's the same information (only smaller.)

I really think education (as well as copyright protection) should be designed to expand technology, not try to stop it. Teachers should be encouraging students to get at information anyway they can. It's like reading man-pages. It's not cheating...that's they way you do things.

In my day

[Anonymous Coward]

In the college classroom we could do what we wanted as long as we didn't disturb anyone else. As long as we paid for the seat and passed the test, we were good. The feeling of the professors was "You paid $2500 for this class. Take advantage of it if you want. You can always take it again."

SSH is your friend

[Ummon]

If your checking your mail in the clear in a classroom environment, you're just asking for trouble. I'd like to see a professor try to eavesdrop on a SSH session.

Re:SSH is your friend

[monkeydo]

Wow, you and SkewlD00d are on the same page, "all I need is a proxy server running on campus on port 80. LOL

Typical slashdot attitude, you just assume you can break this system even though you've never seen it. How hard is it to just block SSH on the network? Do you think any good network administrator cares what port you use anymore? You think I can't tell that it's web traffic just because it isn't on port 80? LOL.

The fact of the matter is that if these schools wanted to make it impossible for you to browse the web they certainly could, but they just want to make it difficult enough. If the instructor shuts off net access and you hack your way around it, now your looking at expulsion instead of jsut being kicked out of class. LOL.

I must say though, as a network admin, the idea of a "Big Red Internet Shutoff" button on my desk sounds like a good idea.

Re:a little help then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try nappygator, or opennap. Use Bearshare, gnutella.

It's about time

[dmccarty]

Of course, a lot of classes do (and will) require Internet access -- the article is more about steps taken to control exactly when and to what degree students can reach it.

Well I, for one, think that it's about time. Now that we've all stopped crying hysterically about how grade schools need unfettered, full access to the Internet (for God knows what), a school has noticed that it might be beneficial to students to only allow them to access certain sites.

What?! I can't access Hotmail and IM my buddies in physics class? Oh no! I've been censored! [sarcasm off] Maybe if we put the focus on learning again today's high school and college graduates could get a little education while they're at school.

And Timothy, serves you right for posting a topic from "SkewlD00d" and posting a bogus link. Your anti-censorship head is crammed so far up your anti-censorhip, uh, shoulder, that you can't see the cases where it might actually be useful.

Re:It's about time

[dmccarty]

BTW, here's an actual link to the AP article.

Re:mirror

[skotte]

*sigh*
of course, the last line got cut off...

"If you have denied access, and if the student thinks they can somehow get it back, they will try everything," Aieta said. "They've never seen a button they didn't want to push."

preparing you for the real world ...

[beanerspace]

... when you leave college, many of you will take on jobs in places that have firewalls, restricted domains and confidentiality agreements.

Is this censorship ? Well, yes and no. It means if I want to do something that the firewall prevents, then I have to wait till I get home and do it on my time, on my machine on my nickle.

What a Great Lesson to Teach!

[4of12]

"some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see.

Hmmm...like this lesson will be: We don't respect your privacy.

Would those promulgating these lessons be as ready to open up their own private lives to public examination?

More importantly, their current class of students will be in charge of running everything about 25 years from now.

Is this manner of running roughshod over individual privacy how they would want those students to run the country in the future?

Re:What a Great Lesson to Teach!

[Dragoness Eclectic]

Well, no.

This is more on the lines of the teacher confiscating notes being passed between students in class and reading them aloud for the whole class. Or requiring two giggling students in the back of the class to share the joke that they found so funny with the rest of the class.

The point is to embarass the hell out of the students doing crap they shouldn't be doing in class by holding them up to public ridicule. Obviously, you never went to elementary or high school, or it was so long ago you've forgotten you were ever a child.

Re:What a Great Lesson to Teach!

[4of12]

Obviously, you never went to elementary or high school,

I don't believe public ridicule and embarrassment are any more appropriate now than when I was young.

As near as I can tell from the article, we're talking about college students here.

If they're not going to behave responsibly, they'll get what's coming to them without these heavy-handed tactics.

If they want to pay tuition for the right to surf porn in math class, let them.

If they want to send instant messages instead of pay attention to the lesson, then let them.

They won't last long if they don't exercise responsibility. Frankly, elementary and high schools should require enough dedication and diligence that this should not be a problem in any college worthy of the name.

And that's my main point: the students should learn to exercise their own responsibility and to take consequences for their own choices. If you don't trust them to do that and think measures like this are in order, then I wish you good luck in finding a totalitarian state in which to live, one where the authorities are more enlightened than most of the people in this world.

Can be distracting to those of us TRYING to learn

[sid_vicious]

The prevailing argument for not restricting access seems to be "I've paid the money - if I don't want to learn, I should be able to distract myself in any way I see fit."

Having been in a classroom that was wired and unrestricted (I took a UI class at college where all 30 students had a PC hooked up to the Internet), I can say that it is VERY distracting when other people are clicking and clacking and surfing the web while the professor is talking. It's certainly your right not to learn if you don't want to - heck, you're just improving my grade - but keep it in the dorm room where you don't bother those of us trying to learn.

802.11b is for BREAKOUT.

[marxmarv]

... even though you shouldn't be screwing around in class anyway. HTH, HAND. Mod up whoever was talking about college as a service provider.

I'm also greatly amused by the technological equivalent to "Bring your note to the front of the class and share it with everyone". I still don't want to see that on a computer I own.

-jhp

Re:802.11b is for BREAKOUT.

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't own the comp, you gotta buy theirs, and its in the service agreement... they have the admin password for the w2k laptops....

Look before your flame

[dmccarty]

Before all you flamers start flaming away about the evils of censorship without even reading the source:

From the article
The software doesn't censor which sites a student can visit on the Internet. Instead, a professor can choose whether classes have access to the entire Internet or just the school's internal network. Professors can also block out e-mail and instant messaging.

In college?!?!

[ZanshinWedge]

We're talking about adults, paying for their education here. If they need a nanny, kick them out and send them home. If a college can't trust students to manage their time on their own then they are doing them no favors.

bajesus

[negativenine]

My college could care a good god damn about what people are doing in class. You guys must have some screwy proffessors. Since 60% of the class is gone after the first 3 weeks what's left in there is usualy there cause they're paying $500 a class to be there.

Re:bajesus

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah except attendance is mandatory... can't stay in the dorm for that shitty it100 class w/the idiot professor

Sheet Music?

[Dragoness Eclectic]

Sheet music? Have you tried The Mutopia Project?

Jesus, they're adults

[FatRatBastard]

Two colleges on the cutting edge of Internet technology are now pioneering solutions to a rapidly growing problem: students who pay more attention to their computers than to their professors.


Hold on, this isn't elem. or high school. This is college. The students are adults. If they want to piss away thier education by NOT paying attention to their professors that's their problem. As long as thier not disturbing class (or using the technology to cheat) who gives a crap if they pay attention or not. They'll reap the benifits of their lack of attention.

I used to teach math in college. If you were a student who was interested, came to class, put forth an effort I'd bend over backwards to help you learn [I love teaching]. BUT, if you never came to class, didn't give a shit and did badly on homework/tests I had no problems failing you. Like I said, these are college students. They are adults.

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Just block all the .edu stuff. And you will be fine

Re: let me correct you

[Husaria]

College is...
a fraud.
I am paying for a grade to be given to me.
The professor is expected to teach me, now, the professor might suck ass. Now, you say, why don't you just study more.
The point is, even if you crammed 24/7 on that subject matter, the professor can still be a prick and give you test material that doesnt even relate to the course.
I've had a calc 1 teacher, the rundown on his grades:
of a class of 60:
A - 0
B - 2
C - 10
D- 20
F - 28
Now, if almost HALF the class failed, thats a problem.
I've had friends in a calc course, (differen teacher), gave out test material so hard, that in a class of 60, 40 failed.
Now I have the right to a fair course that I paid for. My salary is going for this guy's food. I expect to be taught well and not some kind of bullshit which i've had to deal with.

If students want to surf the net, let them.

[LordZardoz]

Universtiy tuition and other related costs will typically add up to about$5000. A computer and decent connection will cost about $1000. This indicates a basic lack of inteligence, but being an idiot is not yet illegal. And as long as the instructor is still being paid, then why care about this?

END COMMUNICATION

Re:If students want to surf the net, let them.

[Anonymous Coward]

bentley costs 34K$ a year plus the ibm a22m your required to get... (yeah i go there... been there done that) not 5k + 1k

It's a group

[Anonymous Coward]

A professor is talking a group, not a collection of individuals. (Otherwise, why not just have everyone watch a video of the lecture?) Look at it this way: when you don't pay attention, you're not only hurting yourself, you're hurting all the other students you're ignoring.

The big (usually fun) challenge for a teacher is to generate a lively intellectual exchange, where everyone is thinking hard about the subject at hand.

And the truth is that it's hard to compete with e-mail. Making lectures interesting is easy--making them more interesting than that message from your girlfriend... well... in some states that might be illegal.

a good idea. sorry. not censorship

[fleck_99_99]

Apparently, most people posting in the "Yeah, why should they censor/Big Brother/Don't they respect their privacy" vein are missing a couple of points.

1: What privacy? You're in a public room, and you should assume that anybody could look over your shoulder the next minute. I think popping up a screen-cap on the big screen is a great way to handle this.

2: Have you ever taken a lecture course with computers available? I have, and it's incredibly distracting to hear "tap-taptap" and have peoples' screens flashing during what should be lecture time. No bullshit about boring or useless lectures; there's a solid amount of respect-for-prof and respect-for-students that any "adult" should have in classes. Rude all the way through.

3: What possible good reason is there to check email, or IM, or surf the web during class? Rhetorical question; there isn't one. Not a necessary evil.

All said, I applaud any school that has a policy like this. While the 'Net may be a solid educational tool, there's no need to let 'Net access wreck someone else's educational experience.

(Now if only they could come up with an off switch for the "zipping up bags and putting on coats 5 minutes before the end of class" problem...)

DMCA? What about ECPA?!

[coyote-san]

Shouldn't someone point out to this university that intercepting and displaying email you are not a party to is still a federal offense (ECPA - Electronic Communications Privacy Act)?

Your boss can do it because, technically, you're acting as an agent for the company and all email sent to/from your work computer should be done on behalf of the company.

Your ISP and university can block spam, strip executable attachments, etc., because the filtering can be done because 1) it serves an important public need and 2) it can be done in a mechnical manner that does not require human intervention.

But students are not "agents" of a university, they are customers. Universities often impose rules that skirt (or outright break) the law, especially for students living in the university-provided housing, but I'm not sure that they can make any blanket assertion of the right to intercept all email sent through their system. E.g., many non-traditional students will attend class with personal or company-provided laptops which may attempt to send previously queued, but unsent, confidential material that will be transmitted once a network connection can be re-established. If the university doesn't want to allow such communications, they can block outgoing SMTP ports. While it's technically possible to configure a system to only send mail when connected to some networks, it's non-trivial and rarely done in practice.

I don't recall if ECPA covers "instant messages" explicitly, but seems more likely than not to be considered protected than not since they are not broadcast.

(IANAL, but familiarity with the ECPA should be considered required knowledge for anyone with system administration duties.)

If they want a controlled learning environment...

[sparkane]

...why don't they just use a tool like Teleport and download the sites they want to use to a common server, and have their network use that server? Seems an easier thing to do than trying to tame the Bengal Tiger that is the Internet..

(I don't do this kind of thing for a living, so there's probably about 10 good reasons why not, but thought I'd toss it out there and see if anyone knew one.)

My Money, my decision

[xenolon]

I'm in class RIGHT NOW. I voluntarily switched my machine over to the projector for the whole class to read. Even the professor thinks the very idea of blocking net use ridiculous. Good students can handle the "distraction" in a positive fashion. The students who can't will fall by the wayside. My money pays for this blistering fast connection, I should be able to use it whenever/where ever I want choose to.

Um, big deal?

[Wakko Warner]

If you go to class to surf the web, why the fuck are you even in class?

- A.P.

Re:Um, big deal?

[Rogerborg]

• If you go to class to surf the web, why the fuck are you even in class?

Hot chicks. Dumb fucking question.

Re:Um, big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is less chance of being disturbed there.

Uh... not quite.

[Christopher Bibbs]

This seems to be the equivilent of banning cell phone use or note passing in class. Neither censorship nor an invasion of privacy.

Instructors should have the right to demand certain disruptive behaviors be banned. This is just another step in making net access more like other communication mediums in the US.

Kinda off topic, but if you want a view of real merging of net communication and normal life, check out the anime "Lain". The pervasiveness of net access in the series is really cool and slightly distrubing.

Re:Uh... not quite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda off topic, but if you want a view of real merging of net communication and normal life, check out the anime "Lain".

Sorry dude, but using the eternally stupid anime as a representation of anything real negates any validity the remainder of your comment may contain.

Re:Uh... not quite.

[TGK]

I love this one quote "some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see."

Four words for professors who use that....
PGP Plug-in for ICQ
Either that or VNC.... wonder how that would show up on their screen?

Re:Uh... not quite.

[Molt]

If it's like most remote viewing things it'll show up exactly as it does on your screen.. these things rely on driver-level code to intercept graphics calls.

personal experience

[skotte]

I've been in classes myself where i knew the lesson, and had no reason to really listen. my options: nap, doodle, read, or surf. i maintain reading and surfing are equivalent.

Ingrates!

[gosand]

Why on earth would you need net access in class? I could see how it might enhance some classes, but for the most part, you don't need it. I am not THAT old, (going to be 32), but real internet access didn't even exist when I was in college. Unless you count FTP sites. :-) And it sure wasn't necessary in the classroom.

Come on. My fiancee is teaching at a university, and I get to hear all the horror stories about how lazy students are today. I get to see it in their homework - they can't even follow simple directions and they just don't seem to care! If anything, they need LESS distractions in the classrooms. Cell phones and pagers are a big enough problem.

Haven't people realized how friggin superficial their "problems" are, and how everyone is always bitching about how their "rights" are being infringed? Wahhh, you can't surf the net during class. Maybe if your mommy and daddy weren't paying for everything for you, and you had to pay your own damn way through school, you might care a little more about actually getting an education!!

Michael

Fight the monopoly at poundingsand.com

PPP over SSH

[Greyfox]

if they were listening in class instead of surfing the web, they might KNOW this!

It's been a while since I've looked at CS programs, is that sort of thing still too hands on for them? They never went into such topics back when I was in school, but back when I was in school, a network was the people you knew.

Re:PPP over SSH

[brianvan]

In my CIS program, anything hands-on at all was outside of the scope of discussion for all of my classes. We were never taught anything relating to any programs... hell, on the first day of school freshman year, it was assumed that we knew what text editor we were using in Unix for C++ programming. Granted, something like this would slow down an "Intro to Comp Sci" class greatly, but there were no references, or even advice for references, given by anybody.

Your best bet to learn anything was to go to the nearest Borders - about a half hour drive away, and no Barnes and Noble anywhere even close - and pick up the best book you saw. Or, you could gamble even further, and choose one off of Amazon.com to be delivered. Our professors, when asked for advice about picking out books to learn ANY subject, generally just said "Well, get any book you can find, it should be good enough."

My favorite was my Databases class... and thank god I knew SQL already. The syntax in the book was just plain WRONG and would not work in Oracle even though that's what the book was written with... the syntax was like pseudocode, except it was supposed to really work! Then the professor gave us the first assignment and told us the class before it was due, "Well, you should be able to figure out stuff within Oracle to reconcile commands with what's the book... just use the help command and you can get help on anything." This would have worked had the school renewed the help license... however, it was deemed unnecessary, and the help file was blank. The professor was politely informed of this by the entire class on the due date of the assignment. His response? "Really? Interesting. I'll have to look into that." The helpfile was never restored, and I spent more than half the time on all my projects searching vigorously for SQL help and examples on corporate sites and other universities' web pages. I remember the first project took me 9 hours of looking up commands and 1/2 hour of actual work.

I would say that my school is bad like that, and it is a special case, but I've heard similar horror stories elsewhere.

Chewing gum and talking

[tmark]

I used to teach at a major university. If students are not paying attention to what's happening at the front of the class, I would much prefer they leave and go elsewhere. This is not so much because I care about what they are doing to themselves, but that I care about what they are doing to others who *are* interested: Students reading a paper or sleeping are distracting to the instructor and (worse) they are distracting to other students. If students were surfing the Net they would be even more disruptive. Should instructors and the class need to worry about someone hitting a webpage that plays music in his class ? Should the university worry about possible lawsuits stemming from students viewing pornography (inadvertently or otherwise) and offending others?

Teachers commonly prohibit behaviour like chewing gum and talking in class and can throw students out for doing so precisely because this behaviour can disturb the class. So why in these cases are civil liberties people not running around crying about abridgements of freedom of speech ? Because even they understand such activity is only detrimental to everyone involved.

A little sanity and a little less arm-waving, please.

Re:Chewing gum and talking

[Rogerborg]

• If students are not paying attention to what's happening at the front of the class, I would much prefer they leave and go elsewhere

Absolutely. I've wranged lab classes and completely agree. Kick the wasters out and give the time and resources to the people who give a fuck.

But what's the connection with this situation? You can throw people out right now for screwing around. Putting in technical blocks (rather than holding them responsible for their actions) just gives them something fun to hack.

Re:Chewing gum and talking

[sid_vicious]

Students reading a paper or sleeping are distracting to the instructor and (worse) they are distracting to other students.

You might appreciate this story then. When I was a freshman, I took Astronomy 100 as an elective. My professor had a "doppler ball" that emitted a high-pitched tone and was tethered to a string. It was used to demonstrate the doppler effect when it was swung around or thrown. Since it was a 9:00 am freshman lecture of about 400 people, we had plenty of sleepers and newspaper readers.

The professor made a habit of firing up the doppler ball first thing in lecture and nailing the sleepers and newspaper-readers with it. Fun for those of us paying attention, a good lesson to those who weren't.

Re:Chewing gum and talking

[RobMahan]

I cant believe this blatant troll is modded up as insightful. Chewing gum distracts people and disturbs the class ? Really? Does swallowing or breathing likewise "disrupt"?? This is why so many people have so little patience with education - petty rules like no eating which serve no real purpose whatsoever other than boosting the egos of underpaid, undereducated teachers.

Re:Can be distracting to those of us TRYING to lea

[Rogerborg]

• I can say that it is VERY distracting when other people are clicking and clacking and surfing the web while the professor is talking

Think of it as training for corporate life, only your "co-workers" are younger and prettier.

College????

[Anonymous Coward]

When I think of college, Bentley sure does NOT come to mind...

the article mentions freshman classes

[nicedream]

``Faculty members were finding students surfing the Net, sending instant messages, even looking at porn in some of the freshman intro classes,'' said Phillip Knutel, Bentley's director of academic technology.

I think it's funny that they mention freshman intro classes. I think most /.ers who have been through a University CS program have suffered through those introductory lets-seperate-the-men-from-the-boys classes. You know, those ones that teach you how to use IE, Word and Powerpoint. It no wonder a student would want something to divert their attention from dumb mandatory courses like these.

I know my school had a class like that, which consisted of the above, plus some basic PC hardware knowledge and then finishing up with HTML. And I did exactly what this article mentioned. Sat in the back row reading /. and other more-intersting-than-the-class web sites.

Like many posts here have said, this is stupid because these students are adults, and honestly they don't have to be in class at all. If I wouldn't have wanted to even show up to class, I could have stayed home, so why me for showing up to a class that I should have been allowed to test out of anyways?

I did make sure to type as little as possible (clicking w/ the mouse when I could) and generally just keeping it on the DL so as not to disturb anyone. And I got the A easily so what's the problem?

Re:the article mentions freshman classes

[Windjammer]

If that was the case, why not approach the professor and get the class waived. I know at my University, they allow for more advanced students to see about challenging the class--you ask the prof, they give you the final and your grade is based off it. Or just get the credits waived--eg instead of the intro class you waive the requirement but not the credit, and down the road you take an elective class in its stead (or not if you have enough credits)

Re:the article mentions freshman classes

[Anonymous Coward]

well, several things interfere w/this.. one at bentley they take attendance in IT100... you miss one you fail 2. you cannot test out... your stuck in there... 3. they have student "it trained" instructers patrolling the rooms... i was on /. and one came around and told me i had to learn lotus notes or id fail...

a bentley student

fundamental confusion

[bshort404]

See, the thing is: a classroom isn't a democracy.

And good thing too.

-B

Re: let me correct you

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I have the right to a fair course that I paid for. My salary is going for this guy's food. I expect to be taught well and not some kind of bullshit which i've had to deal with.

No, what you are looking for are good grades, not learning. Go back, learn and try again.

Technical answers to social problems

[andy@petdance.com]

Once again, bureaucracy takes the simple, obvious, ham-fisted approach by making a technical "solution" to what is a social problem. It's commonplace in business, so it's not surprising to see it spread to education.

It's short-sighted to think that once the net access is cut that students will pay attention. The net use is a symptom, not a disease. People will always find a way to goof off if they want. No net? Just doodle.

It's not much different than the poor IS guy who has to go on a seek 'n' destroy mission on all N-hundred company PCs for C:\WINDOWS\SOL.EXE because Upper Management decided that people were spending too much time playing solitaire. The IS guy's time is wasted, and the benefit to the company is negligible, since lazy workers find other things to waste company time with.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[Dephex Twin]

"It's short-sighted to think that once the net access is cut that students will pay attention. The net use is a symptom, not a disease. People will always find a way to goof off if they want. No net? Just doodle."

Who cares if they pay attention or not. If they can't use the computer and resort to doodling, at least it doesn't make any noise, and I can't see what they are doodling (like I would on a monitor). I've been in a class like this, and it is very frustrating.

People don't want to pay attention? That's their choice, and I don't think anybody's trying to "end goofing off". Those who actually show up to class to learn don't want those people messing it up for them.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in a class like this, and it is very frustrating.

Why didn't you ask them to stop? Perhaps you could have learned one of the more important lessons of your life.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[Homewrecker]

No net? Just doodle.

Doodling, for most people, is pretty quiet -- much moreso than hammering away at a keyboard or mouse while some of us are trying to pay attention. That's the problem here, not the actual misuse of time. Personally, I couldn't care less if the jackass behind me is jerking off in class (wait... yes, I would care) as long as he's quiet about it.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[Dephex Twin]

It's frustrating whether you are asking people to stop or not. I never said "it's frustrating to passively allow this to happen". My idea of learning is not babysitting those around me.

Just like having a personal conversation or listening to music is understood to be just plain rude in a classroom (unless you're SUPPOSED to for the particular class), I hope that chatting on AIM and reading your email in class is also looked down upon.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[andy@petdance.com]

Doodling, for most people, is pretty quiet -- much moreso than hammering away at a keyboard or mouse while some of us are trying to pay attention.

So it's still a social issue, not a technical one.

What if the guy who was bored was practicing his tuba? Should you just say "Hey, please stop with the tuba. I'm trying to pay attention here"? Or failing that, ask the prof to do something about it? Or is it better that the school adopt a "no tubas in the classroom" policy, where they check to make sure that you're not bringing in your tuba?

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[Homewrecker]

Maybe that's not such a bad analogy, despite first impressions. If there was no need for a tuba in the classroom, I would prefer a "No Tubas" policy. There is, with fewer exceptions than not, no need for unrestricted web access in all classrooms. No Tuba, no internet. Works for me because people are generally too selfish to have any concern for anyone else unless it's mandated.

It's a sign of the times, buddy. If mandated politeness wasn't necessary, it wouldn't exist.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[andy@petdance.com]

It's a sign of the times, buddy. If mandated politeness wasn't necessary, it wouldn't exist.

Is accepting asshole behavior also a sign of the times? If you don't fight back against it, it'll only get worse.

I'd make it clear that you're not going to tolerate having someone waste your time and money. If someone talks in a movie theater, I take action to stop the behavior, so why not do the same thing in school?

I'd rather fight than throw my hands up and say "Oh well, life sucks", but maybe that's just me.

Re:Technical answers to social problems

[Homewrecker]

I'd rather fight than throw my hands up and say "Oh well, life sucks", but maybe that's just me.

The thing is that unbridled assholedom is so rampant that I'd spend my entire freaking life shusshing pricks at the movies or some big fat tub who won't sit down at a football game. I just want to enjoy whatever the hell I'm doing without having to play crossing guard all the time and, thus, such "no tubas" rules don't bother me.

People don't give a shit about anyone else unless they have to and, as a result, we really have no right to bitch.

Bentley and Babson colleges (Big and Brother?)

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Bentley and Babson colleges"

Is is synchronicity here? Big Brother ... Bentley Babson? Maybe Big Brother's real name id Bentley Babson!

But let's get serious for a moment here. The students *PAY* to go to college, even if via grants, loans, and scholarships. Part of their tuition pays for the netowrk infrastructure ... period. So why does the college have any say how the student uses it, given that they can already do load balancing independent of stream content? By logical extension, shouldn't we be able to put cameras in students dorm rooms to make sure they are studying approved tests rather than smoking bongs and getting laid? And if they are getting laid, shouldn't we be able to pipe the video stream into classrooms for educational purposes? After all, it's all in the best interest of the student, right?

Fascinating

[gelfling]

That having an opinion gets marked as a troll. Whichever of you cowards who marked this down should contact me personally.

All hail the new fascism!

Troll

[chinton]

Sorry, this submission has Troll written all over it: Find some article that looks like Big Brother is trying to keep us away from the 'Net, throw in a (meaningless) reference to the evil that is the DMCA and censorship and BOOM you get a posting and a nice Karma boost. I'm suprised the poster didn't somehow insinuate that Microsoft or Satan^H^H^H^H^HBill Gates was behind this.

I see nothing wrong with this policy. The schools in question are not preventing the students from accessing the 'Net -- they are saying that you have to do it somewhere other than in the classroom. Big Brother? Please.

could be a security issue as well

[mitheral]

I work for a school that teaches (among other things) AutoCAD and assorted other CAD programs. Our major problem is students will exchange email and IM during exams for which they obviously require computer access. We've created a special ID that can only run certian executables and instructors require the user to login as that user during exams. I know it wouldn't stop most people here; however it seems to keep the honest people honest.

Re:mirror

[skotte]

oh, redundant, huh, you stupid fFucker? i'm trying to help, shitdick. of fFucking course it wasnt redundant when i posted this, shit fFor brains. what, you think i sought out to post swill that other people have already posted, ass-fFace? huh? you think i have nothing better to do than copy verbatim the excrement other people have posted? rabid badger-humping tit! fFilthy moron sphincter! you may assume that this was a very useful post when i put it up. you may also assume you have the intelligence of a meatloaf after being fFucked by jason biggs! you ignorant slug-eating pile of dead wildebeasts! maggot infested ass-of-a-cow! it's because of shitheads like you that i have a negative karma, you pimply worm!

waste of time

[BryceH]

this is stupid, so someone is paying $x to go sit in a class and they choose to surf the web. why exactly is it the universitys responsibility to babysit them ? if they fail then tough shit... thats the way higher education works, if we dumb college down or hold peoples hands through college then college is just an extension of high school. there should be distractions (like there arent in the real world?), and there should be nobody holding your hand and protecting you from yourself (how fast i would be fired if i had to have somone hold my hand through everything), people that cant cut it should just fail if they fsck off in class or not. period. this is college, your after a degree. a degree is supposed to mean somthing, this trend of protecting students from themself has to go, its a waste of time.. just weed out the loosers.

College sucks.

[supabeast!]

Stupid crap like this is why I dropped out of college. Colleges seem to have this idea that I should give them a huge amount of money, and they will tell me what to do. Somehow that seemed a little backwards to me, given that in just about every other situation where I give someone money (Not including taxes.), I get what I want, when I want it, in return.

Re:College sucks.

[bluesninja]

This is the reason blind consumerism is ruining higher education.

Just because you paid your money doesn't mean that you don't owe respect to the people around you, and the teachers who are trying (in vain, apparently) to instruct you.

Thanks for dropping out.

/bluesninja

Personal Faraday Cage

[Anonymous Coward]

>The real issue is how we will deal with this in >the future as technology progresses. We see the >beginnings in the current arguments about giving >kids calculators during tests. I imagine this >will follow on into issues along the lines >of "what's wrong with being able to do a web >search during an exam." At some point it will be >up to professors and other educators to develop >problems which can't be found via a web search. >Inconvenient for them, but it will be a fact of >life before long.

Well, they could surround each desk with a fine-mesh wire screen, to block RF at the usual
frequencies.

Might be simpler to have a jammer.

Duquesne Blocks A Lot More Net Access

[Lethyos]

The college I'm attending, Duquesne University, has a more draconian policy aside from disallowing net access in class. Here are a few of the features of one of the nation's "most top 10 wired universities".

* Multiuser operating systems are banned. No form of *nix can be run on our network. Reason: "Linux can be used as a hacking tool."

* No server of any kind including HTTP, Telnet, ssh, etc. can be used.

* Students are permitted to HAVE one computer per resident in dorms. If more than one computer is FOUND in a dorm, the owners access is revoked.

* Students must have a CTS certified NIC. (In otherwords, it MUST be a 3Com.)

* Students may not possess or distribute files with a ".mp3" extention. This is copyright infringement. (Napster's ports are also banned, btw.)

In actual practice, the policy is a lot worse than this. The people at our "Computer and Technology Services" are so absolutely clueless that they aren't quite sure when a policy is "broken", so they err on the side of paranoia. For example, I have known other students here using Linux, nmap'ing their own ports to check security and gotten nailed for using what CTS called an "illegal hacking tool".

These total idiots basically ban anything they don't understand and leave students reeling in the wake of it. Technology gifted students can't bring more than one PC (if you have a laptop for example, you can have it on the wireless LAN that's SLOWLY becoming available, IF you give up your PC's connection) and they cannot enjoy hosting services to the rest of the world (running internet daemons gets you called down for a warning - further violations result in suspension of access and a visit to our judiciary committee).

If your college only blocks net access in classes, consider yourself lucky. Hopefully their network policy hasn't banned free speech while I wasn't looking.

Re:Duquesne Blocks A Lot More Net Access

[Graymalkin]

Except for point one which is entirely ludicrous I can understand your school's position with computers. IT IS A SMALL PRIVATE CATHOLIC COLLEGE. Is that so hard for you to grasp? They don't get beaucoup cash from the state for networking equipment and internet access. There's no reason for you to be running servers on your school's network, that is not some right you incur merely for paying tuition. You also don't need a shitload of computers in your dorms. What use is having three systems all lying around plugged in. Oh yeah, back to your second point, you can't run servers which is one of the few reasons you'd need multiple systems in your room. I suppose you didn't read the article last month about the computer department hell week. Students coming in with shit network cards that end up taking portions of the entire network down or just plain causing grief to the already overworked IT staff. Complaining about trading MP3s goes back to my first point, a private school doesn't have the resources to let you max out their fucking T1 all day long.

Re:Duquesne Blocks A Lot More Net Access

[Lethyos]

I can understand your school's position with computers. IT IS A SMALL PRIVATE CATHOLIC COLLEGE.

We're not "small", but we are private, and what does Catholic have to do with anything?

They don't get beaucoup cash from the state for networking equipment and internet access.

Heh. I pay $28K/year to go here, which is the average tuition. From that tuition, network access is implied, whether I want it to be or not. I'm paying a bundle for it, I expect to be permitted to use it to the fullest. I want to run Internet services. Period. I know what I am doing, and I'm not going to "crash our network" by running Apache, ssh, mysqld, exim, nfs, samba, and ftp. They should have an open policy about it, since most students don't even know what a inet daemon is. Then, if someone is causing trouble, they just close that person's port, notify them, then give the student a chance to correct the problem. This is the third year I've been running a myriad of services from my dorm - all under their noses (a host.deny of their domain is all that's necessary! :) I have yet to cause any difficulties.

You also don't need a shitload of computers in your dorms.

You're not a computer geek, are you? Computer geeks/hackers/whatever tend to have multiple systems for different purposes, even if it's not for serving. You may have one box that you use full-time Linux, another for gaming, and maybe even a few older PC's or SPARC boxen. In my personal arrangment, I have a firewall, my server, my PC, my laptop, a SPARCserver5, plus an old 486 for demos. Why? Well, the firewall protects my network. Server hosts my web sites, email, ssh, and so on. My PC has Linux and Windows on it (the latter for gaming). My laptop, well, because you can't lug a midtower + 19" monitor to class. The SPARC is for learning - knew significantly less about Sun hardware before it bought it. And lastly, the 486 because I still love those old time asm graphics demos. You're silly to think that computers gurus don't have a need for more than one PC. Take away my server, and I still have a lot of boxen that I use on a frequent basis.

I suppose you didn't read the article last month about the computer department hell week. Students coming in with shit network cards that end up taking portions of the entire network down or just plain causing grief to the already overworked IT staff.

That doesn't meant that I shouldn't have to pay $100 for a 3Crap when I can buy a Linksys or Netgear that works just as well (if not better - I've had 3Com's die on me, but never a Linksys) at BestBuy for $15.00 with a $5.00 rebate. And as for our poor, overworked IT staff... don't even get me started. The employees down at our IT department (not to be confused with our audio/video CTS - those guys rock; they know what they doing) are rejects from the idiot's IT club. I'm talking about large portions of their staff not knowing anything about computers. I interacted with a guy who set up my new MAC address for "authentication" had no idea what he was doing. I waited as he searched for a proceedure to change it. One of the first steps was "click the Start Menu", the next was "click Netscape Navigator", to which he exclaimed "Ah! There's Netscape". This guy had an office. If they are overworked, it's because the majority of their department has no idea what they are doing. Especially one of the persons in charge, Karen. I won't even get into how I know she's an idiot (then they would know who's griping! :)

Complaining about trading MP3s goes back to my first point, a private school doesn't have the resources to let you max out their fucking T1 all day long.

Okay then, for bragging about being one of the nation's top ten most wired universities, you think they only have a T1? W're connected with an OC3 and we own IP addresses all the way from 165.190.10.20 up to somewhere around 169.190.230.(something). We've got HUGE funding for our IT department and Net access. Sadly, these people that don't understand anything are soaking all that up and ripping off the tuition payers.

spank me

[datatrash]

The most interesting part of the article might be that the kiddies want the toys taken away from them.

"Babson math professor Joe Aieta said his students have told him the temptation to use the Internet during class is too great when it is at their fingertips. That's why Aieta occasionally limits their access."

I don't really know what it represents to be honest. On the one hand it could just be (overly generally) a sign that they aren't looking for complete freedom, that especially the youths need some kind of strictures so that they can stay in a learning environment. On the other hand it may be a sign that they don't believe they can trust themselves to make decisions for the good of their future when they have a chance to talk about the azz on the guy or gal sitting in the second seat, first row. I don't know, is that frightening? I think it is frightening if it is a representation that these kids need to have an authority that limits their rights, because otherwise they don't feel they can perform in a social setting the way they are meant (ie paying for) to.

Is that supposed to be 1985 or 1995?

[Rackemup]

Bentley, which in 1985 became one of the first U.S. colleges to require undergraduates to have computers, first implemented the blocking technology in classrooms in the last academic year. Babson had a primitive version of the software installed three years ago.

Is that supposed to read 1995 instead of 1985? I can't imagine why any college would have required all students to own a computer way back when net access in the classroom was only a dream.

Net access in the classroom is a good idea if the class actually requires net access. Most of my classes had no need of it unless I was doing research for a paper or something.

This seems like a case of "here's an incredibly useful tool that you'll have constant access to but don't use it when your senile prof starts droning on about his new research paper instead of covering useful information".

I admit that the tempation to goof off in class by reading /. or Penny Arcade while the prof was talking was very strong.... but perhaps a little in-class lesson on proper usage at the start of the year would cut down on the misuse. It's better than cutting off Net access altogether right?

Re:Is that supposed to be 1985 or 1995?

[IPFreely]

I can't imagine why any college would have required all students to own a computer way back when net access in the classroom was only a dream.

Yes, I imagine you don't have that much imagination.

Harvy Mudd (Claremont, CA) required undergraduates to have, or purchase from the school, PCs in 1983 (or earlier, anyone know when it started?) Thats 8, not 9. This has been going on for a long time.
Computers are useful for more than just Net Access. Word processing springs to mind, as well as programming, modeling and simulation, or even drawing and games. The internet may be all you can think of but it wasn't part of their scope. They found things to do without it all the same.

Re:Is that supposed to be 1985 or 1995?

[StikyPad]

Most colleges required students to have computers by the mid 90s, and a great many required them in the early 90s. The internet was created by universities (and the government), so internet in the classroom was hardly a pipe dream. On the contrary, it began in the classroom.

A quick check of Bentley's Web Site shows it to be a business college. Can't imagine why a business college would think it necessary for it's graduates to have a firm grasp on the skills necessary to operate a computer. Although I must concede this is entirely possible without requiring each student to own his own computer, the requirement is no more inconceivable back then than it is today.

Re:Is that supposed to be 1985 or 1995?

[Rackemup]

I went to university from 95-99 and very few of my classes there would ever need a computer to be actually IN the classroom... even most of my CS classes were just lectures.

BUT, when i took a course at community college we all had computers sitting on the desk. These were recent editions though, that kind of expense back in 85 would never have been approved.

Back in 85 I was in elementary school using TURTLE on a monochrome computer. None of my teachers would have been able to do much more with a computer sitting on everyone's desk.

Re:Is that supposed to be 1985 or 1995?

[StikyPad]

I went to university from 95-99 and very few of my classes there would ever need a computer to be actually IN the classroom... even most of my CS classes were just lectures.

I don't think they said they were required to have them in the classroom, but just that they were required to have them.

Back in 85 I was in elementary school using TURTLE on a monochrome computer. None of my teachers would have been able to do much more with a computer sitting on everyone's desk.

That's probably because you were in elementary school. Just because you didn't learn anything beyond LOGO doesn't mean there weren't other uses for a computer aside from drawing spirograph patterns on the screen. Colleges are supposed to prepare their students for the world as it will be when they graduate. It's their responsibility to ensure that the students have the knowledge necessary to excel (or at least survive) in whichever feild they choose. Students who started in '85 would have graduated in '90, and certainly by 1990 knowledge of how to operate a computer was a critical skill. If not critical then at least advantageous.

Re:Is that supposed to be 1985 or 1995?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, colleges are supposed to prepare their students to learn. The world will open its doors to someone who can learn. Maybe you're thinking of a trade school.

What the schools are really trying to do

[John Murdoch]

Hi!

IANAL-BIAAP (I Am Not A Lawyer But I Am A Professor). The AP article and the sources the writer quotes at Babson are being, um, polite.

All of you have probably heard of "research services" on the web where students can download papers. This, as you might imagine, scares the wits out of professors--is this brilliant, trenchant insight into the financial impact of the introduction of telegraphy into the American West in the 1870s the product of your dilligent research and extraordinary writing skills? Or am I reading a paper you grabbed off the night this morning for twenty bucks? (Yes--fraternities had and have libraries of course material, but that's much easier to detect.)

What Babson is trying to deal with is a variant of the same problem: if I ask a question in class, I don't want students looking up the answer on Google. If I give a quiz in class, I particularly don't want students using Instant Messaging clients to share answers. (I haven't seen this happen in my class--but I'm on the Technology Committee of the local school district, and a half-dozen high school kids were caught doing precisely this.)

This isn't a free speech issue: this is a matter of preventing people from cheating.

John Murdoch
Adjunct Lecturer, DeSales University

Re:What the schools are really trying to do

[cowens]

My wife is an English professor and she loves the online essay providers. She loves the way she can simply load the RTF file she requests from her students into EVE and watch the computer tell her which students she needs to drum out of college (she averages around five or six a semester). She also uses google to search for phrases that don't sound like the students work. Take a look at the Essay Verifacation Engine (EVE) at http://www.canexus.com/eve/index.shtml.

As for using google to answer questions, well if your questions are so simple or fact based that google returns a good answer in a reasonable amount of time then your question was bad. Good questions require thought and processing.

Quizes and tests are a different matter altogether; computers should be on the floor with the book(s) unless it is an open book test.

The thing to remember about cheaters is that they are lazy (and I am not talking about laziness as a virtue here). They tend to fuck up and get caught.

The only people who fear technology are those who don't understand it.

Re:What the schools are really trying to do

[Velex]

Ok, first let me establish that I'm not an old fogey man: I'm an eighteen year old girl. But I really have a problem with computers in the classroom. I can't seem to find any significant advantage to using computers over paper and pencil. In fact, I'm kind of pissed that I have to use a computer so much in my first year computer science class! (It should be pure logic, but it's java 101 -- I'm paying to learn science, not java.) When I was studying for the AP Computer Science (AB exam mind you, which I passed), I think I only used a computer once to download the source of the fish classes just to say "that's nice," and delete it from my computer. When I took the AP test, I didn't have a computer -- I had to write all my code by hand.

My point is that there is absolutely no use for computers in the classroom. You're right to be upset that students are abusing their computers, but, then again, they shouldn't even have the computers in the classroom. And another point is that if you're worried about computer usage outside of class, there's nothing you can do to stop students from collabrating. There this other girl CS major who lives down the hall who almost routienly gets answers off of me; if students share information, that's something you have to live with. Word of mouth worked just as good for me as AIM.

Re:What the schools are really trying to do

[kindbud]

What's a graduate gonna do at his job when he runs into a problem he doesn't know the answer to? Hop in IRC, send a IM to someone who might be able to help, search on Google, post to Usenet...

Why is this considered cheating? I don't get it. This is exactly how real people go about solving real problems in the real world.

Re:What the schools are really trying to do

[bluesninja]

The chain of IMs and Usenet posts has to end somewhere, hopefully with someone who correctly answers the question. The point of gaining an education is to become THAT person, not the person asking the questions. And that takes practice at solving problems, not practice at asking questions.

That's why it's considered cheating.

/bluesninja

Re:What the schools are really trying to do

[DavidTC]

So...you want to block all network traffic whatsoever?

Or are we just blocking stupid people from cheating?

Re:What the schools are really trying to do

[John Murdoch]

So...you want to block all network traffic whatsoever? Or are we just blocking stupid people from cheating?

Actually, I just made a comment on SlashDot explaining what the Babson software project really addresses. In my classes (e-commerce concentration classes for our MBA program) I routinely do have students use the Internet during class. E.g. compare/contrast different websites for the customer experience; compare/contrast different news sites for ease of access to information; walk through use of different Internet-based research tools; and so forth. Internet connectivity in the classroom can be a good thing.

On the other hand, some people have discovered that you can use the Internet to cheat. In my original post I mentioned a half-dozen kids who were caught (at the local high school, not at DeSales) using AIM to swap answers in a quiz. The word here is "cheating"--but one set of parents got extremely upset at the notion that little Jimmy was accused of cheating. He was using the Internet! Passing the answers on a printed sheet of paper, why that would be cheating--but doing it with an AIM client, why that's technology!

Unbelievably, the school caved. Warned the kids, changed the school cheating policy, and said, "tut tut, don't let us catch you doing that again." The kids no doubt learned a lesson: nothing is wrong until you get caught.

no, no, no! I've seen this before!

[canning]

So far, no tech-savvy student has been able to crack Bentley's or Babson's software, according to Knutel and Aieta. Aieta plans to ask his students to try to crack the program in order to test its security, figuring that's what they'd be trying to do anyway.

Yeah, who's gonna take that bait. I break the security and then get expelled for screwing with School property.

teacher control

[swimfastom]

At my college, we run windows 2000 computers in the labs/classrooms with everyone logged in using Novell. The teacher is able to put your screen up on the projection screen by knowing your login ID or computer location. They can also make every computer in the lab display what is on the professors computer (visual studio for example), or alternatively, the prof can display a little text message or picture on your screen, not allowing you to have access. (such as "sorry :-(") This helps keep students from using AIM and browsing during class.

My school blocked PING

[Copperhead]

You heard me right... West Chester University has blocked any ping packets going through our Internet router. Yes, it does suck... many of us in the computer science department have complained long and loud to no avail...

BTW, can anyone give me some suggestions of academic reasons I can submit the network gestapo to have ping reactivated?

Tom Albrecht III

Re:My school blocked PING

[DavidTC]

Well, routers that don't pass ping are broken, and in violation of various TCP/IP RFCs.

I'm too lazy to look them up, but it's a good start.

Re:My school blocked PING

[Invisible Agent]

Ha ha - you're outraged about your school blocking ping packets, but you have to ask others to suggest "academic" reasons for why you should be able to?

Has it occurred to you that if you can't think of an academic reason for your school to allow ping packets through that there is none? If you want unrestricted net access, there are plenty of ways to get it.

Right with you

[Srin Tuar]

You are absolutely right- very lucid post.

If we would drop this nanny state-bullshit as early as freshman year highschool, I'm willing to bet that our countries educational performance would skyrocket.

People tend to act like adults once they are treated like adults. They have to feel that the consequences of their actions affect them.

Sadly, even through college we coddle and patronize students, insulting them. This inhibits learning and proper maturation. (Ask foreigners if they think american teens are mature or not)

And I also agree that ~60%-80% of all CS degrees have no merit.

Re:Right with you

[SamBeckett]

And I also agree that ~60%-80% of all CS degrees have no merit

It's more like 98%. I asked one woman who had just graduated from a private University in the middle of Illinois what languages she knew...

"Visual C++"

Why stress over it?

[SpamMan372]

Why should professors worry so much about this kinda stuff? In the past do you remember college professors getting pissed over doodling or daydreaming? In high school, its different, everyone has to be there, and its almost the teachers job to mold every student into something. But in college, its different, their should be mutual respect from the student and the teacher.

Maybe the professors are pissed that some students can still do this (surf, IM) and still pass the class, which is up to them to deicide how to form their classes. But hands down, the college already has your money, what the hell should they care what you do? Our advisor said it best "We HAVE your money now...thats the easy part...you STAYING here is the hard part"

lo-tech solution

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to the honor system? Honor still counts for something in academia, or at least it's supposed to. There are still plenty of schools where you're simply on your honor to do your own work, not cheat, play fair, and respect others. It may not be a perfect system, but it helps build important values in the students that attend those schools, and those values indeed become one of the most important features of those schools.

Surfing the web in class isn't inherently wrong, but disrupting class or even just not paying attention in class is disrespectful to the professor and the other students. Same goes for excessive use of pagers, cell phones left turned on, etc. If these things present a problem, then technology isn't the answer. The answer lies in showing students why these things present a problem, having an open discussion, and ultimately just asking students not to engage in these sorts of disruptive behaviors. Professors, too, ought to simply say "Look folks, if you've got something better to do than pay attention to me, that's fine. Go do it somewhere else."

Simple, cheap, and effective if done properly.

Re: let me correct you

[MaxwellStreet]

Not necessarily true.

If close to half the class did not learn what they needed to in order to successfully complete the class, then there is a problem - that much I'll agree with.

But a blanket condemnation of the professor doesn't account for the lazy students who never showed up, the students who were unmotivated or intellectually unable or unprepared . . .

I saw a lot of this, especially in low-level calculus classes. Freshmen who had a little calculus in high-school, so they decided after the first class or two not to show up until the first exam. Needless to say, a nasty surprise awaited them there.

There are college deans that deal with professors that teach and test poorly, and grades can always be appealed.

But just saying that everyone failed because the teacher sucked is as unfair as simply calling all the students stupid.

If the rules are - no net access in the classroom, and you're required to be there... well... tough . You'll have to sit for a boring hour without your precious distractions.

When you get out into the real world, you'll find most business meetings to be just as much a waste of time. And yes, you'll sit through them. And no, diddling on the net isn't an option there either.

This all boils down to ...

[Aceticon]

Should classes teach you how to solve real life problems using real life tools, or should they be an exercise in memorization of facts and information?

Having NET access in classrooms is the equivalent of having a huge library in each classroom (and much more, but let's concentrate on information gathering).

Do you need a huge library in each classroom?

Nope. If the type of teaching practiced in that class boils down to making students memorize how much is 7x7 or the name of all rivers in [insert country here] or the name of all presidents/prime-ministers/emperors in [insert country here] since the dawn of times then having a teacher write it down in the black/white board and making you write it down and recite it until you puke is enough - no need for NET access.

Re:This all boils down to ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, let's learn how to use perl and stop learning about analyzing algorithms and O notation.

Re:This all boils down to ...

[Aceticon]

I guess i didn't properly exposed my idea! Let's try again:

The NET is a tool that can be used to solve some real-life problems and students should learn how to use it for that.

The vast majority of problems doesn't require the use of the NET.

Many problems are best resolved using the NET.

Many problems are best resolved using other tools.

The importance of teaching how to use a tool depends on how likely it is that the student will use that tool in the future, and how usefull it will be for him/her to use it by comparisson to other available tools.

For example:

• Paper and pencil accounting is now a little used tool for most accountants.
• Currently it's much faster and easier to do it using software.
• The principles of accounting are still valid. Writting down big columns of numbers in a piece of paper and adding them up by hand is not very usefull anymore.
• Should the teaching of accounting concentrate more on "Tips and Tricks for Excel" or in "Tips and Tricks to manually add more than 100 figures"?

To close this up:

This sub-thread started as "Does any class *require* NET access in the classroom?".

• Yes - if you want to teach students how to use this tool.
• No - if you don't want to teach students how to use this tool (and this includes not teaching some technical subjects that actually require NET access)

Re:This all boils down to ...

[NineNine]

First off, the NET is not necessarily a large library of information. It's a large amount of garbage, rehashed news, porn, and a tiny bit of real information. Just because you read something on the Net doesn't mean you're learning, necessarily.

Secondly, if you're taking a class, there's no way that you're going to be able to absorb more than the content of a couple of textbooks for the duration of a typical college course. I mean, if you're taking statistics 101, do you really need access, to say, all of the journals ever published on statistics, or all of the theories and principles ever created in physics? Absolutely not. Should you even have that? Probably not. You need to concentrate on the course material, which in 99% of the cases can be more than thoroughly covered in a few books. I mean, do you honestly think that most people, attending a class that meets 3 hours a week for a few months are going to be able to absorb all of the information, in say 2 giant textbooks, and then need MORE information on top of that? That's not even close to realistic.

Re:This all boils down to ...

[Dephex Twin]

"Should the teaching of accounting concentrate more on 'Tips and Tricks for Excel' or in 'Tips and Tricks to manually add more than 100 figures'?"

It should concentrate on theories of accounting. I would go to college to become an expert at accouting, not to become an expert at Excel.

Learn how accouting works, apply it to Excel or anywhere else. Why limit yourself?

Re:This all boils down to ...

[Aceticon]

I totally agree with you.

Theories of Accounting is probably The Most Important Thing to learn for accounting.

Between 'Tips and Tricks for Excel' and 'Tips and Tricks to manually add more than 100 figures', i would expect that nowadays, the first is more important than the later.

Obviously one of the few folks who wants to learn

[oneiros27]

Back in 1994, I had a class which was held in a computer lab. We weren't even allowed to touch the computers in class. The only reason we were in the lab was for the tests, and even then, there weren't enough computers to go around. [We did all of the computer work during the lab sessions, for which we were broken into two groups].

Typically, I sat there, logged into a mud, and did a little chatting [damned old IBM keyboards suck for being quiet in class]. When I took 'C as a second language' in 1996, I admit I switched over to mudding as soon as I finished the assignments, and the fact that I was typing my notes in class masked the fact that I was mudding in the background.

When I took a graphics art class (same semester), hoping to learn a few interesting tricks with photoshop, it turned out to be the 'we're going to make webpages class', and at the time, I was sitting in as the 'webmaster' for the university, so I blew off most of that.

However, I always did my best to multitask during these incidents -- I may have had a second window open, and half payed attention to it, but I also paid attention to the teacher. [When the teacher left us on our own, that's a whole 'nother story].

Last year, I took a class [C++], which turned out to be an intro to programming class, but I stayed in the class [I'm not paying cash for it, just my time, as I work for a university], and even though 60-70% of the class was review for me, I paid attention to it, and most of the class, if they showed up, still paid attention to the teacher. [Might have been because most of 'em were freshmen or sophomores].

This semester, however, I'm taking a series of certificate courses [Oracle DBA], and the students in the class are some of the most obnoxious bastards I've seen in my life. These dumbasses installed AIM on their machines to cheat on an open book test. [And it wasn't all multiple choice...the teacher grew suspicious when all of their queries were the same, and their numbers in the tuning class has NO variance between 'em]

I admit, I still do the two brained thing, and listen to the teacher in one ear while reading up on the news, and sometimes nudge a friend stilling next to me with interesting articles I find on obscurestore.com. I've learned, through the years, to be subtle about it. I type softly, and use tab to move about. If I need the mouse, I click slowly, so it's muffled.

There are a few folks, whoever, who seem to never pay attention to class. They bitched when the network went down [that segment was infected with CodeRed, and was shutdown at the router], as they couldn't sit there and AIM/read e-mail/post on Diablo2 webboards/etc. It's gotten to the point where I've debated unpugging their keyboards before they come in [always late, always noisily], and smacking one of 'em who has taken no less than 15 cell phone calls since I've been there.

Not only are people wasting their own time by using the Internet in class, but it's disrespectful to the teacher, and it's distracting to the other students. I'd be more than happy for us to have no outside connections, as you do when taking class at the Oracle training centers. [Hell, when the teacher's up there presenting, they even take over your computer, so you can't do shit]

It also gave me a nice little way out when my boss decided to call me to tell me there was a problem, and I could reply 'well, I have no connection, you're either on your own, or you have to reschedule me for this class and shell out another $2k'.

Teachers need to be able to control their classes, and just like they can decide if they're going to allow food and drink [hell, I even had one prick of a teacher who wouldn't let you take notes in his class], teachers should be able to restrict people from using the computers when they're not supposed to.

In related news....

[dillon_rinker]

Taking their cue from kindergarten (a German word; note that Germany was home to the Nazis) classes, many colleges are now requiring students to "raise their hand" before speaking during class. Civil libertarians are outraged. "This procedure will have a chilling affect, a chilling...affect...on discourse in the very institutions that were founded to encourage it," an ACLU spokeswoman stated. When asked whether the ACLU would file suit, she refused to comment. "This is a violation of my first amendment rights!" complained a stupent at a major university. "I should be able to discuss last night's episode of 'Friends' any time I want to! Fascists!"

Re:In related news....

[Anonymous Coward]

Also note that Germany was home to the bratwurst. Coincidence? I think not!

Geez

[CaptainSuperBoy]

As someone who once was a fellow "lazy dipshit," shouldn't you have a little more understanding for people who don't take college seriously enough? You mentioned you finished your degree at 32, so I'm assuming that you started when you were younger and at some point you left. If I'm wrong, please excuse me.

I left college last year, and so far it has been one of the best decisions I have made. When I was there, I saw plenty of students who didn't care, who got by doing the bare minimum. At the same time, there are plenty of students who really put their hearts and souls into their educations. But for those others, I think they're simply not ready for college. I know I wasn't.

I understand students who just aren't enthusiastic about college. Maybe they shouldn't be there, or maybe they need to go back when they are more mature. But to suggest that they all dig ditches or flip burgers? Come on. You can't exclude the K-12 educational system from at least some of the blame - By the time students get to college, many of them have become completely cynical and disrespectful of institutional learning. Couple that with the feeling that they are being forced to go to college, or the feeling that they won't get a decent job unless they go, and you'll get a bunch of bare-minimum C- students.

I say go ahead and try. A student's opinion

[Dast]

You might stop the stupid people.

But if you have access to the school's internal network--you can ssh to one of your probably several university shell accounts--you can get out. And for the most part, there isn't anything they can do to stop that. Do your pr0n surfing, etc from another machine. I doubt the prof has a button to turn off all of the traffic going out of the campus.

They say the prof can capture e-mail and/or IM and display it. I have to imagine that isn't a very robust system. Maybe just consists of packet sniffing? That probably won't be useful if you have ssh'ed into another machine and send your mail/IM from there.

So maybe they could shut down ssh on school machines. Well, if you live in a dorm, set up ssh on a different port on a machine there and ssh into that. You could have all kinds of fun with that.

The list of ways to get around this kind of thing goes on and on, and IMHO you will probably learn more about networking than you might from a monotone prof. You get out of class what you put into it. If students don't care enough to pay attention, I say let them fail, and if they can pass anyway, let them pass.

As a Computer Literacy Teacher...

[huckda]

I teach comp lit at the High School level...
many kids each day want to be doing ANYTHING
but studying the required material for the day...
Sooo...they try web browsing, e-mailing, chatting, and yes...even Mine Sweeper...

The easiest way to deter them from doing this is to have a hefty part of their grade considered 'daily work/participation' and to state upfront that if they are going off on their own tangent instead of doing the assigned work in class...well they lose ALL of those points for the day...and when they see 20% of their grade slip away and all of a sudden have a C or D when they could have had an A or B...they wise up and take the RESPONSIBILITY into their own hands...

It is better to make a THINKER and a CHOICE maker out of a student than a regurgitating robotic mind...

here's an idea

[skotte]

hey, maybe there should be a designated "Laptop" section of the class, at the back perhaps, where people can sit and type or whatever all they want. noone is looking over their shoulder getting distracted, who isnt doing exactly the same thing. what do you think? (yes, sure, there are noise restraints. people whooping it up and such with their AIM buddies are just much of an audible distraction as if they were right in fFront of the class. but at least in back you cant see them, eh, so it's not distracting to look over their shoulder)

Right on

[rhombic]

Of course, let's return the Uni to the days when you actually went to class to learn. Get rid of grade inflation, get rid of people getting degrees for four years of partying. After that, if people still want to browse in class, let 'em.

Colleges don't want you to fail out

[bnavarro]

I see a lot of people here saying that it's your money, so it's your perogative if you do well in college or not by paying attention in class or whatever.

But it's not. There are two other factors here:

1) Many times it's your PARENTS that are paying, not you. If you start to fail out, mom & dad may yank your ass back home, depriving the college of the remainder or your tuition.

2) As more students fail out or graduate with lousy GPAs, the more the college's ranking drops, and less students are likely to want to attend your college in the future, because low ranking == bad teaching in an applicant's mindset. Therefore, the college has to charge less and less for tuition, and accept poorer and poorer ranking HS students.

So it's in a college's best interest to make sure that you pay attention in class, and to do their level best to make sure you don't drop out.

Re:Colleges don't want you to fail out

[DunbarTheInept]

As more students fail out or graduate with lousy GPAs, the more the college's ranking drops,

Is that really the way it works? If so then the measuring technique is backward. Given the same set of students, with the same abilities, a college that gives them a higher GPA is an *easier* college than one that gives them a lower one.

Clackity Clack?

[BreakWindows]

Everyone keeps mentioning this deafening keyboard clicking that keeps them from being able to learn anything. Most "web surfers" I've seen in classrooms click a link...read for a few minutes...click a link...read for a few minutes...type "yahoo.com" and read their email for a few minutes.

Is that any more or less distracting than a roomfull of flipping notebook/textbook pages every minute?

It seems there are knee-jerk reactions in both sides of this argument. Everyone is either "No net censorship! Damn the DMCA(?) !" or "These sonic-booming keyboards with the ultra-loud clicky keys are preventing my education!"

Maybe if you can't handle reading with keyboard/mouse noise in the background, you have deeper issues? How do you ever plan on working at a real job with a room full of keyboards all going at once?

Isn't it obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

Errm... how about pulling the UTP cable connecting the classroom to the campus backbone? Or pulling the plug on the local hub?

It's their money, let them waste it!

[Merk]

In the US especially, people pay for their own education. If they want to spend time emailing in class, let them!

In my first year in University I started out going to all my classes, including intro to computer science. After the first class I realized that I knew most of what they were teaching already. I considered not going to class, but I thought it would be good to be there in case they went over something I didn't know. If I had had a computer with me I could have done some emailing, worked on the assignments for the class, etc. while waiting for the prof to hit something I didn't know. But we didn't have computers in the lecture hall, so instead I just sat there and tried to fight off sleep.

Unless the students who are emailing, IMing, searching for pr0n, etc. are bothering other students, let them do what they want! If they're being disruptive, kick them out.

In high school it might make sense to do something like this. Most kids don't have a choice about whether they go to class or not, and most are having their education paid for by taxpayers. It makes sense to do what it takes to get them to pay attention. But in University?

the usual reason this is done...

[jpellino]

...is that IM is an irresistable force - this is the modern equivalent of students who carve the desks, plus imagine you were trying to teach with a tv in the corner with mtv on... i don't care who you are or what you're presenting, you're toast. in a Mac lab, you can at least run ANAT and lock all the screens with a message ("pay attention")... i have successfully taught web-centric courses, in a lab, with engaged students, with a whiteboard also, and then came along IM technology and streaming video and it basically sucks the eyeballs out of any class. undergrad, that is - the grads have a little more balance. add to that dual T1s that slowed to a 56K effective speed thanks to napster downloads, and you're ready to get out the paintball gun. we don't let students bury their nose in the NYTimes, listen to CDs, eat a five course meal in class, why shoud this distraction be any different? our wires, our rules. don't like it? stay home and surf, or take an online course. or get a life.

restricted access

[RoLlEr_CoAsTeR]

they need to make it a signed requirement that people who have cell phones turn them off during class. the library is also a really annoying place for cell phones to go off. i always put mine on vibrate mode or turn it off when i'm in here.

PDAs are probably a problem too, though they aren't as prevalent as cell phones or computers because they still haven't become as useful (well, to me, at least.)

ECPA a real issue here!

[isaac]

Thank you for pointing this out! Bentley, if they really do have such software that can display private emails/IMs sent in class on the professor's screen, or to the entire class, they are just asking for a major lawsuit the first time some smartass professor uses this to embarrass a student who knows his or her rights.

Maybe by then I'll be out of law school; that's a case I wouldn't mind taking pro bono...

-Isaac

unnecessary

[RoLlEr_CoAsTeR]

I don't think it's necessary for a class to have in-class net access either. Of course, on a completely side note, there are a million reasons why the class could require net access for other stuff, and not in-class work/lecture.

just thought i'd say a big "Amen" to that

A Public University in North Carolina

[LWolenczak]

I attend a fairly large Public University in North Carolina. They have a squid transparent cache in place, but it's prone to crashing. It went down once at 5:30 on a friday, and It was not back up till I called the Network Programer at his house to get it back online, on sunday.

They don't block much, as far as I can tell, GRE is blocked (found that out when the squid cache crashed), but ESP is permitted . Oh, we also use DHCP *scream of horror*, but you HAVE to register your mac addr (or barrow a mac addr) to get an address.

And above that, all the outside links to NCREN (North Carolina Reseach and Educational Network) are pegged at 100% usage all the time. Its really annoying that it takes 1-3 seconds to open up a new mail message in outlook from my work email server, and 10-20 seconds to even start outlook (it takes about 30 seconds on a 56k modem with a pptp tunnel).

Re:A Public University in North Carolina

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure hope they teach you spelling at your university.

Reality check

[Raunchola]

"I paid for the privledge to be there, but that doesn't mean they should be able to force me to do things their way."

I don't know about you, but last I checked, using a computer during a class wasn't a constitutional right. You may have paid for the privelidge to go to college, but that's all you paid for. You didn't earn the "right" to set your own rules in the classroom when you sent in your tuition payment.

Don't start with the libertarian-esque whining when the professor tells you to stop checking your mail during class. If you don't like how the professor does things, drop the class. It's not like anybody's forcing you to show up.

Re:Reality check

[cowens]

You are right (about leaving the class), and I do tend to vote with my feet. When places of business (and colleges are a business) do things I don't like I don't go back. I am not saying there should be a law suit or that people's fundamental rights are being abridged. I am saying that the policy is stupid and that if a college I was going to tried to pull this crap I would walk out. Life is too short to put up with stupid policies.

Seriously

[sulli]

Why go to all that trouble (and incur all that expense!) to go to college if you just want to use the net all day? I may be an old fogey on this one but I just don't understand the concept of IMing through lectures instead of, for example, paying attention.

This is utterly stupid!

[sheldon]

I'm no longer a college student, but in the tech world you still have ongoing training for Oracle, Microsoft, some obscure Tivoli tool, whatever. We spend about the same for one week of training as most college students spend for an entire semester.(i.e. around $2-3k)

Because they are technical training courses, they have computers.

But you know what?

They aren't connected to the internet.

Why?

Because it's distracting. Everybody knows that, accepts it and learns to deal with it.

Most people also turn off their cell phones and pagers in the classroom as well.

I can't believe this is even a news story.

Re:This is utterly stupid!

[sunking2]

No, the major reason they aren't connected to the internet is because they don't want a breach of security. Lets see, do you want someone who is not an employee and is only in your facility for a week to have free reign on your intranet?

Especially in cases such as Sun where for the majority of the class you may have root privileges. Granted, for the most part the lab machines are wiped clean and reinstalled between sessions, but still, its mainly security.

The fact that people may actually pay attention a little more is a nice little added bonus.

I want a big switch to turn the Internet off

[Dr Dick]

Unlimited internet access in the class romm
is not always a good thing. All you end up
with is a class room full of students playing
the latest flash games, checking on pop stars
websites etc.

What I'd really like is a big switch so at
the teachers control the internet conection
could be turned on or off.

Private Schools, Right?

[stonewolf]

I bet these are both private schools. Generally private schools are a little harder to get into than public schools (though no always!) and are very expensive. Because they make most of their money from tuition and alumni donations they will do almost anything to keep from flunking a student. Including holding little Johnny's hand in class so he will look at the boring professor instead of the naked girls in his laptop.

Public schools are a lot cheaper and usually easier to get into. The result is that they are actively TRYING to flunk people out. Their main worry about little Johnny's in class porn problem is that they don't want to be sued for sexual harrasment by sweet Sue who just happens to see a gyno shot while looking over Johnny's shoulder while trying to take notes. They also don't want Johnny to use the net during a test. IMing your buddy who aced the test for answers or sending the test questions to his idiot buddies might help people pass when they should be flunked out.

Stonewolf

yet another reason

[Anonymous Coward]

To send encrypted email.

Higher education in a Southern land

[Mattygfunk]

Deakin University in Australia has all instant messaging / video conferencing blocked on student accounts on all computers at all times. When you add that on to blocking student CGI scripts on Deakin's server I believe that students learning is being compromised.

As far as blocking everything outside the intranet goes, you would you want to have incredible faith in your lecturers to explain the content in a way that everyone can understand it without outside help.

Why block (even part) of a learning tool in a university?

This is just one example of...

[Navius Eurisko]

schools jumping on the technology bandwagon, buying computer equipment etc, without having any notion of what to do with computers once they get them. The focus of many schools is obtaining technology that is supposed to aid the student's learning process while neglecting to train the teachers these computers will go to how to use them.

I can personally atest that I have seen brand new PCs and Macs sit idle in schools I did volunteer work in because the teacher either didn't know how make use of the computer or the computer didn't augment the material in any meaningful way.
The only use I have seen computers in these situations get any meaningful use are through those students who have interest in computers and take the initiative to explore them outside of class.

Don't get me wrong, I believe there should be computers in schools, but there should be a greater emphasis on integrating teachers and relevant course material with computers. Buying dozens of computers just to spend grant money and appear bleeding edge serves no one.

a solution, I think

[ragnar]

We are beginning to drift on the topic a bit, but I feel compelled to say a few things.

I remember taking my CS tests just a few years ago. In the programming classes I was required to write code on paper. It would be graded on its accuracy and ability to compile. I understand the need to demonstrate logic of a program, however losing points for forgetting a semicolon or other syntax issues is just plain stupid. That is what a compiler is for. Besides, I never write code on paper, I type it. The two may look similar, but our learning patters don't translate that well. This is one stupid thing about how intelligence is measure in the CS field.

It is high time we asked ourselves what would be wrong with searching for answers on Google. Really, what is wrong with it? Why do we continue to place such value on having factoids stored in our heads. Sure, we need a certain modicum of facts and info up there, but the brain is a pretty unreliable storage medium when you get right down to it. It is a much better skill to know *how* to find information than to know it "off the top of your head".

The counter argument of course would be that someone could plaguarize. Well, this is obviously wrong and should continue to be discouraged. What we need to do instead is come up with a new way of critiquing things. For example, who really needs another essay about Moby Dick? Seriously, the topic is covered ad nasusium and will unlikely get any deeper. If you are presented with a topic to research and write about, it behooves you to see who has already researched it. If you determine that the world has enough intelligent essays or research on a topic, don't reinvent the wheel. Cite the sources and instead show that the issue is well handled and ask to move onto better things.

We are told the reason is to develop the individual's analytic skills. Is writing another mediocre analysis of "Catcher in the Rye" the way to do this? Hell, no! A better demonstration of analytic skills would be to expect the person to either come up with something insightful, or acknowledge the body of insight already out there. This would really turn academia on its head, I think.

Re:a solution, I think

[haruharaharu]

who really needs another essay about Moby Dick?

You do. The point of educational assignments is to get you to think, not to finish the assignment.

Re:a solution, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that you can have an assignment that gets you to think that is not as tripe and banal as yet another Moby Dick essay.

It really seems like overkill...

[iabervon]

Why not just put the classroom machines on a LAN with the teacher's machine as the only gateway to the rest of the network? They presumably have the machines in order to do either local work or work that depends on a class server somewhere, so they don't actually need more internet access than that. If they're actually searching the net for information relevent to the course, they're still not paying attention to the class; they should do that when everyone hasn't arranged to get together.

It wouldn't even look like censorship if they didn't do it in a silly way, giving everyone a full net connection and then clamping down on it. It's not censorship when they just fail to have net access at all in the classrooms...

so now asking to take it offline is unacceptable

[gelfling]

should I just type dots?

ok

dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dit dit dot

happy now?

Misinformed

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't sniff your connection, they take control of your display. so using SSH doesn't matter, learn the facts before you speak.
Posts like this are why slashdot is mostly slashcrap.
But in your defense, the article is poorly worded to give the writing the edge that causing fear of the unknown gives.

It's not a democracy, it's a business.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the customer is always right.

Trying to block professor rating sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my CS teachers said they were doing this in order to block professor ratings sites like RateMyProfessors.com

Re: let me correct you

[jazman_777]

But a blanket condemnation of the professor doesn't account for the lazy students who never showed up, the students who were unmotivated or intellectually unable or unprepared . . .

Yes, but think of the money Research Empire U. made from these students while they were slowly working toward flunking/dropping out. It's for a good cause!

money and chat

[Anonymous Coward]

For pete's sake.

The number of times I've seen ethernet hookups and computers get installed in some educational closet where they don't need to be just makes my brain go numb. If you didn't install a computer with 'net access in every stall in the bathroom maybe students wouldn't be using them, hmmm?

Now they want to limit use of the computers which I as a taxpaying American citizen have paid to have installed against my will? And they want me to pay for the tech to do so?

You dipshits!

Additionally - I can imagine a fairly good and productive discussion going on over IM regarding the teacher's lecture. From "Did anyone get that last equation?" to "Naw - I think the prof. is full of shit. Percy didn't change at all over the course of the story."

Students Deserve the Web

[dbCooper0]

In the fall of '99 I was approached by a franchised but local "grant mill" community college to teach a course that M$ requires passing a test on for MCSE certification. "Networking Essentials, Second Edition" (sorry no URL - seems to have a broken .asp) is a self-study with CD kinda thing, but these greedy bozos decided to form a 10-week course around it.

Besides the annoyance of the meat of the course being backed by 10-year old misprinted concepts, this "college" had the audacity to put 20 students in a classroom with only 16 computers, which ran '95a (*gak*) and NetWare client32! (NetEss was based on the NT4 track)

If they had not finally installed another 8 boxen with access to the outer world, these poor saps who paid ~$900 for the course and ~$125 for the nearly worthless book/CD would not have learned half as much. Part of that was disabling the censor software on these 8 machines...which I supported wholeheartedly. Took the brightest one about 5 minutes including a reboot.

I was given a hands-off order for the NetWare servers and clients - along with the promise of replaceable HDs which never came. Needless to say the installation of NT, NICs, and TCP/IP configuration were mostly lecture based - I was able to teach cabling specs and Ethernet laws, and even managed to get a broadcast storm going ;-). Homework assignments were all done on the web at the students' homes, using their own ISP gateway

In contrast, both in tuition and quality, the accelerated courses at Productivity Point where I got my certification encouraged web use. Access was fast, we brought zip drives in, and had a ball while learning the "real world". Of course, that certification cost me about $6k, but was well worth it...

In summary, even though the M$ coursework was based on retired technology, the web was the primary focus - at the students' request, and on hire I was told that the students were the "customers" - who was I to argue with letting them learn something pertinent?

Re:I say go ahead and try. A student's opinion

[basking2]

Well, if they are not in a CS/EE class, then the risk is minimal and they won't waste the money on the one student who knows how to work the system.

If they want to lock down you, it's more expensive, but still pretty easy todo. Block all ports and allow only http stuff through and filter that. There you are. You're only option is to use some wireless technology to get to an unaffected port (be it via campus or your own system that backbones to your DSL/Cable at home) BUT WAIT, it's really easy to jam digital data communications. 1 watt is WELL out of what your laptops effective radiated power is and will easily drown you out and so, if people want to exercise a solid controling influence, they can.

As for learning about networking, yeah, you'll learn a lot. :-) My best learning experiences where when I broke my dad's machine at home and had to fix it before he go back from work... hehe. :-)

OT: Yeah yeah!

[GeekOfSpades]

the guy who shakes his left leg so fast that the surface of my coffee has ripples on it

What is it with these people? I've always been curious, and have asked friend that do it why, and they don't even notice it. Any ideas?

Re:OT: Yeah yeah!

[DunbarTheInept]

I'm one of those people. I don't know why I do it, but I think it has to do with avoiding sensory deprivation. I can't stand being in a silent room either. I can't stand having to sit with either no sensations, or the same exact steady sensations contintuing in a monotonous way. And, no it's not consious. In fact quite the opposite. It takes me consious effort NOT to do it. In fact it's more distracting for my attention for me to sit still than it is for me to bounce my leg, because for me sitting still is an activity that requires continuous consious effort.

Re:OT: Yeah yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

When I find myself fiddlin' I takes me Ritalin. - Bart Simpson (and you too, if you know what's good for you... run to the campus doctor now. Think of the cheap stims... mmm... Run!)

Re:OT: Yeah yeah!

[astr0boy]

i do it because i have tourette's syndrome. it sucks, i don't realise i'm doing it and people get mad at me. (this is with medication)

Re:OT: Yeah yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa wait. Hold up. The campus doctor will give me ritalin? Tell me more...

umm...

[evilpaul13]

How will that happen with a PGP encrypted email exactly? It wouldn't be much of a hack to encrypt your IM proggie messages either..

stego

[rakerman]

That's why you send your dirty notes using stego, in JPGs showing the college campus with a banner that says "I heart school spirit". Geez, don't these people watch movies?

Are they going to carry this into work life?

[Felinoid]

Employers are expecting Collage graduates to be able to handle worklife.
This includes being able to stick to work and not be distracted while having access to the Internet as is nessisary for the job.

To be able to receave e-mail AT ALL TIMES (as is the nature of e-mail) and read when appropreate.

The capturing of e-mail.. for a moment.. this is sad.. e-mail will be sent when ever the sender feels like it. The receaver is a student and happends to be in class. He isn't reading but it is being sent. The profesor gets to intercept it like notes past in grade school.

This is sad anyway.. they need to learn better.
And then there are those of us who can handle doing school work and something else..
(I wrote code or drew pictures when there was nothing else to do)

Collages shouldn't turn out students who can't resist the temptation to play when work needs to be done. They aren't work ready.

Thats part of the value of a deploma over a certificate (and I'm a certified Linux sysadm) the experence.
I have the skill but that dosen't mean I'll get the job done. Thats what a collage deploma says.. This guy will get the job done.. if he knows what he is doing. He won't play with the computer all day long and call it work.
This is a person you can trust to some degree...

Not if they graduate from a collage that blocks net access while in class.

This keeps going and I won't need to graduate from collage to get work...

Unfettered net access hampers teaching

[ericzundel]

We're talking about kids here. There is nothing
to be gained by preserving the rights of
Immature adults to goof off in class.

Remember passing notes in class when you were a kid? Allowing unfettered messages/email is like that on steriods.

I taught middle school students (7th grade) for
a few weeks in 1995, when the public net
was young. All they had was email access to
me and each other. After 1 day, several kids had mailed about hundred messages to each other, including sexually explicit messages to every
girl in the class.
And these were supposededly "good kids." The
only option I had at the time was
to pull the plug on the net and it was a computer
class! What is being proposed to me sounds like
a better sol'n than that, don't you think?

Wireless in Class

[grgcombs]

At University of Texas at Dallas many of the classrooms and locations around campus have wireless access points (802.11b). But I think I'm the only person who actually uses them. I don't even see other students in class or elsewhere with laptops! greg

ssh tunnel, squid, etc...

[Jules]

If you have cable modem or DSL service (even with a dynamic IP), try ssh with the -L option

• ssh -L 3128:localhost:3128 you@your.home.unix.server

Then set your browser's proxy to localhost on 3182 or whatever you've set squid up to listen on. No more snooping by the professor, or employers if you're grep'ing monster.com.

You can also add in -C for compression and so forth. 'man ssh' for more info.

Call it counter-embarrassment

[Spock the Baptist]

"some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see."

Some student with PhotoShop will quickly put an end to this sort of thing.

Some sicko porn JPEG, a JPEG of the profs head, a bit of morphing = counter-embarrassment.

Reading emails and AIM, eh?

[SumDeusExMachina]

That's funny, I'm writing something for a machine on my school's network that does just
that for "network security" purposes with the approval
of the network admins. Not to mention the possible "computer science"
skills aquired through working with libpcap.

Damn, it's good to be a BOFH.

hmmm...

[Ender Ryan]

Aren't college students supposed to be adults? Why is it that college students are treated like children? I know, I know, most of them do act like children, but treating them like children just reinforces that.

I say let them fail. Fail enough classes because they're not paying attention and maybe they'll start to take things more seriously.

Re:DMCA? What about ECPA?!

[madajb]

Shouldn't someone point out to this university that intercepting and displaying email you are not a party to is still a federal offense (ECPA - Electronic Communications Privacy Act)?

Good point, but I'd be willing to bet that in order to get an account on the university system, you have to sign a little form:
By using this system, you consent to monitoring and/or interception by the University and/or it's agents for any purpose whatsoever..blah blah..lawyer-speak...blah blah... By signing this document you give up any and all rights..etc etc..

At least, I would hope a university is intelligent enough to require this.

-ajb

You are using the college's equipment

[Billly Gates]

I think most colleges are censoring or partialy censoring internet access due to potential sexual harrasment lawsuits and not due to keep grades up. Also the cost of bandwith is expensive and if its not required then you need to block it out.

I agree colleges have a right to decide how there computers are used. My community college bans internet access expect in the library or its own cafe for the reasons stated above. After all, they paid for them. They can do whatever they like with them. However they can't and shouldn't be able to not ban your own dorms internet access. Then its not their machines but yours that uses the internet from there. What you do on your computer is your bussiness but colleges and bussinesses also have this right in regards to their own computers. Having to pay higher tuition due to a few bad lawsuits is a bad idea.

Privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on guys, this is nothing revolutionary.

It has roots in passing notes and teachers reading them in front of the whole class.

Besides, what's college anyway but learning how to jump through hoops setup by someone else.

Its a game, designed to make you learn to play by others rules. Is it really an invasion of privacy or more just a another hoop you jump through to get graduated.

I think you'll all agree its the latter.

Damn.

[NotoriousQ]

One of my favorite activities, is to go into class and then contradict everything the teacher says, with stuff from credible sources on the internet. Let the teacher control the network, and I would not be able to give the truth, contradicting to one coming from the teacher of, say, militant feminism, or something like that.

And I am not even in the class.

Re:Damn.

[Graymalkin]

Am I the only one with raised eyebrows over the term "credible sources on the internet"?

how about CHEATING

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember several years ago, when Chapman University (was Chapman College) had a cheating flap. Students were bring HP calculators to history class stored with key words, names, and dates. I remember asking why it never occurred to a professor or proctor to wonder WHY someone would use a calculator in a HISTORY class.

How hard would a history test be if your wireless Palm was connected to, say, Encyclopedia Brittanica's web site?

Re:I say go ahead and try. A student's opinion

[Dast]

Then you go to tunneling ip over http. (:

Related Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Some security software is such a joke. We have "Deep Freeze" installed on every Windows machine at my school This program prohibits you from using the hard drive (or rather resets it on reboot). So how to defeat it? Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs->Deep Freeze->Remove. *sigh* what a joke. This comment is anonymous for good reasons ;)

Re: let me correct you

[jrockway]

Grades don't really matter. Do you think that when you're 40 somebody's going to refuse you a programming job because you got a C in English? Do you think that when you die St. Peter's going to pull out your transcript and say "Hmm... looks like you failed English 284... and your SAT scores? 800 and 750? STRAIGHT TO HELL WITH YOU!!". No. Your grades don't affect your life. What you do with your life affects it. (BTW, I know someone who got straight A's, a 36 ACT, 1600 SAT and got refused from Harvard!)

poor memory

[ananke]

I have to agree with you. For some reason [I haven't been to a doctor yet], my memory is progressively getting worse. Heck, I'm still in my twenties, I don't do drugs/etc, I just can't remember as well as I used to. My biggest problem with most of the educational institutions is that they test you on the exact facts, exact formulas, and so on. I was lucky enough to go to a private high school, where subjects such as history were pushed for logic rather than memorization. Anyway, I was also lucky to go to a college with block system. Basically, one class was equal to 18 academic days [3.5 weeks or so], by the end of those 18 days you took your final. Very, very extensive learning process. However, it allowed me to finish college even with my memory degrading. I guess my point here is that I hate to see smart kids fail, because their memory is being tested rather than other things they've learned from class [logic behind a problem, general ways to solve it, etc, etc].

emails and instant messaging

[Anonymous Coward]

"some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see."

Worry about the emails? How about encrypting 'em. ;) How about instant messaging? Well, licq supports SSL connections.

What about labs?

[cantanker]

Hasn't every CS student had labs with 'net access and found themselves a little to absorbed in some slashdot thread?

Gotta go, my tutor is scowling at me...

isn't this violation?

[Anonymous Coward]

"some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see."

of privacy, possibly DMCA?

could you sue a school for something private they made public?

can they really use the excuse that it was against the rules anyway, so we're going to do it?

to be that sounds like having the right to beat someone to death because they stole something of yours, it was against the rules, so I can do what I like

Very Simple Solution

[Sir Don]

There seem to be two camps here - the first is that you should do your searching away from the classroom to avoid affecting the teacher and other students - if you want to surf, stay home or at the dorm. The other camp is that you should be able to do what you want to do, since it is effectively "your time" because you've paid to be there. There is a single policy that causes the problem here: mandatory attendance in order to receive a grade for classes that are essentially book taught. If you remove the mandatory attendance rules, you allow the student the choice of whether or not to attend. If you require attendance, you remove this choice. Keep testing requirements high. Even test based on classroom discussion...but accept that some students may NEVER come to class, and yet may still be able to perform well on tests. Good for them! Some students may never come to class, and may fail these tests. So be it. For those classes requiring Internet technologies to be effective (actually quite few), create a local network containing the information required for the class. If the teacher wants free thinking and searching on a topic, then assign it as outside work or open ports long enough to do the task, then shut everything off again. For classas like Phys-ed, there is really no problem anyway except for the fact that it is hard to run the track with a powerbook strapped to your waist. The student would be free to choose his involvement level in the class. Non traditional students capable of self study could actually take some of those classes not offered at night but required to fill a degree plan. Teachers and students alike would no longer have to listen to stupid "Uh-Oh's" form IM clients et al. All by removing this policy that is truly a grade school throwback.

WHAT?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Catching someone's email and reading it (not even talking about viewing it on the big screen) is VERY illegal in about everyplace on this planet. I am completely stunned, letter privacy laws are very strong at least in here where I live and you would get jailed for that sort of a thing. If a teacher ever does that sort of a thing to me (even filters my mails), I will sue them and I will WIN.

Credible...likely.

[NotoriousQ]

Well, she contradicted every statement on this page...Critiques
..True these are opposing ideas, but my side has back ups too.

Anf if you can't trust someone in Stanford U who backs up his opinion with reasons (unlike the professor who just spitted out opinions, and backed them up with more opinions) who can you trust?

All this said and done, I would like to make a comment that I really do not oppose their views, I am just tired of the snotty types, who believe they are fighters for rights..freedom, whatever, while in reality, they do not know jack about what they are trying to achieve.

This goes for other flamewars as well. Personally I am tired of anti-microsoft people who can't run their linux systems without KDE/other graphical management installed, and then claim that NT is bloated with unnecessary crap. For that I am willing to be devil's advocate. Oh well, I am moving off topic..

Anyway just to get back to my opinion -- ethernet in class makes for good discussion topics.

10's of thousands on software? just use Linux!

[meridian]

I used to manage the firewalls for a number of well off private schools some time ago. All the firewalls ran on linux, as did the proxy, dns and mail servers. We were quite able to block chatting through ipchains and squid access rules, log all porn site accesses and get the teachers to have a quite word to the student involved, and if necessary (on repeat offences) terminate their net access. This software did not cost tens of thousands of dollars, and their yearly maintenance for these machines (as well as support to help troubleshoot all their windows servers misbehaving although that wasnt part of the contract) was only a fraction of the price being paid by these schools for software.

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ironic that our society wishes to Censor College student's Internet access in class, considering them still to be "kids", while we are sending "kids" of the same age range to Afghanistan to fight and die!

Re:I say go ahead and try. A student's opinion

[basking2]

You can't tunnel of ip unless you can tunnel to the host you want and note that this is potentially filtered.

Off-topic flameage

[Anonymous Coward]

Before any of you go into a "FREE SPEACH!!!" mode

AARGH!! S-P-E-E-C-H! There is no such word as "speach"! How the fuck can people here figure out complex data and computational systems, but still don't have a clue about other complex systems they have been exposed to for an even longer period of time like natural human languages? Christ!

|33+

[Anonymous Coward]

we have a l33t h4x0r sk3wl k1dd13
phear.

Re: let me correct you

[Husaria]

Yes, but it does matter for grad schools and admittance into programs
Here at UB, you have to have a 2.5 in math and cs to get admitted into the program and maintain that average to graduate.