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Pinnacle, Online Grades, Skipping School and More
Ishkibble writes "The Matrin County School
Board has a new way of post a student's
grades online for a parent to check. Pinnacle is the name of the
program, a simple java applet. Not only does Pinnacle log student's grades, but
also attendance and conduct. The way grades are accessed are by inputting the
first 6 digits of your social security number and the first 5 letters of your
last name. With a logon system as simple as this, one has to question the
security and privacy of the students. This has been making my life a living
hell for the past 2 months, every night my parents go on and check to see if i have any homework and won't let me do anything till it's done"
Crack it once and turn them in on a FERPA violation.... (FERPA == Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, http://www.ed.gov/offices/OM/fpco/ferpa/)
I work in a Community College and everything we do with student online statistics and information has to follow FERPA security guidelines.
I think we'd all enjoy a nice cold beverage. -David Letterman
This thing is crying out to be hacked.
True story: when I was in High School, an automated phone service was instigated, in which if you skipped class a computer would automatically call home and inform on you. Well, I had better things to do than go to class Every Single Day, and I sure didn't want to wait around in the evening just to be the one that picked up the phone.
So, once I got the call, I taped it; then, using an acquired phone list of the students, randomly, and at a late hour, called and played this message back. Parents were furious that the school was calling them so late; students were pissed that they were getting calls when they had attended; the credibility of the system was shot to shit. So whenever someone actually skipped, they would just report that it must've been the Mad Phone Prankster and that the call wasn't legitimate. A $30K computer system shut down with $1 worth of Memorex.
Yeah Dawgs! Garfield Class of '88.
--
$tar -xvf
So all you need is part of a social security number and a name to see what others are doing? I can see coaches doing this to check up on their student-athletes or siblings to rat each other out. Can't wait until someone hacks that system.
Whiney sibling: "Mom, Billy has homework."
Billy: "No I don't, liar!"
Whiney sibling: "Oh yeah, that's not what the webpage says!"
RRRRRight. The point of homework is to make sure that you understand the material. Now, granted, there are teachers who will excessive/nonsensical/boring homework which will achieve the exact opposite. But for some of my classes, I'm glad I have some homework so I got something to test on before the real test. This might become more of an issue in college though where there is considerably less time and opportunity to cover everything in class.
As to the not getting paid thing, if a teacher puts efforts into giving good homework, he or she will probably also assign grades to how well you did on it. Those grades are what you get paid with in school.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
I am a high-school teacher, and our district is moving in this direction. The electronic gradebook is already in place, and next year parents will be able to see their child's alleged progress at any point during the school year.
Why "alleged"? Because my gradebook, like many teachers' gradebooks, is a work in progress. I might be behind in my grading, so the grade displayed might not be accurate. I might decide to drop a grade, but just haven't done so yet. There are a thousand and one things that need to be adjusted that parents simply can't see.
I intend to fight this by withholding the entry of any grades until the final week of the grading period. This way, parents (and teachers) who check on students' grades will find a 0 for the grade. They'll need to talk to me to find out the student's progress. During that discussion, we can talk about other things that might be affecting the student's grade that wouldn't show up in a simple on-line gradesheet (things like attitude, behavior, motivation, etc.).
I would urge the poster of this story to encourage their teachers (the understanding ones) to do the same.
It is in the child's best interest to be watched like a hawk watching a mouse. A parent should be able to step in a teach the child a lesson that could be very dangerous to learn through trial and error. A child should learn many things by trial and error but some things are just too dangerous to learn that way.
School is one of those dangerous lessons. Without a proper education you can seriously mess up your future. Mess that up through trial and error and you may not get the chance again.
Trust is a central issue in this. This is no different than a more thorough/convenient parent-teacher conference. Some people will abuse it and their kids will revolt. I would bet though it would just be the straw that broke the camel's back type of situation. Trust has to be built up. In this case, if the parents routinely check up on you and your story always is the same as what they get from the school, then the trust will be in your honesty. From there you need to build up the trust in your studies. Put a few hours a day into studying if you need to and they will start to trust your study habits.
I think the super lax security at this school prompts the program to be shut down immediately! It needs proper password protection through secure protocols. The passwords need to change every semester or school year. The parents that don't take an active interest in their child's school work won't bother to find the new password and those students will quickly fall back into the old routine. The problem here is the uninformed parents that don't know crap about security and that the privacy of their child's information is open to almost every other person around. My college days showed me that social security numbers have nothing to do with security.
FWIW, I'm 27, married, with a 15 month old son.
Slightly more difficult.
Hack DNS to direct all requests to WWW.SMBC.ORG to your own web server, parse out any requests for your id and redirect the rest to the original server.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.