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Webcams Watching The Classrooms?
embarcadero writes "Webcams will be tuned to watch over 500 classrooms in the Biloxi, Mississippi school district this year, according to a story in USA Today. The goal is to make classrooms safer, but there's a lot of speculation about how the recorded info could be used for or against teachers in disputes or teaching reviews. I can just see Mrs. Waters pointing towards the camera, 'If I don't catch you cheating on this spelling test, that camera will! Don't even think about it.'"
But privacy advocates, teachers' groups and others worry about putting classes under an all-day microscope. Some say cameras could be misused and interfere with teaching, and others fear that districts using them could become complacent about security.
.02
Cameras will do anything BUT interfere with teaching. There are two possible scenarios: a) teachers begin to ignore the cameras and carry on as always or hopefully b) they will realize that the cameras are 100% coverage of their daily teaching and can be used for/against them during review time. They would hopefully improve their teaching and in-class behavior. This could only lead to a better teaching experience IMHO.
How many people have been in class and had a teacher watched by an administration member only to watch a COMPLETELY different teacher come through? Exactly.
I guess districts could possibly become complacent. Do businesses that monitor their cameras become complacent? No, I am pretty sure that they use them effectively for their purpose. I guess ANYTHING is better than a sticker that reads "all visitors must report to the main office."
Just my worthless
No more smoking while the teacher is out!
The package said "Windows XP or better. Pentium Class Processor or better"... So I got a Mac with OS X
If I were one of those kids in the school district I would take a small peice of tape and put it over the lens when noone was around. I've never liked that Mrs. Waters anyway..
Paedophiles will love it.
Watch kids all day. Hay maybe the cops could use it and track IPs?
The teachers watch the kids...the principals watch the teachers...the superintendant watches the prinicpals...and the eye in the sky watches them all.
-B
...and I ain't talking about CBS!
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
So, has anyone developed a MicroEMP device?
Of course, public schools... with federal funding... complicates everything. But I don't see how it's particularly bad.
Maybe we should see it the same way we do at work - your employer has a right to read your email and put cameras on the ceiling for "security purposes". Their dime, their building, their rules.
A camera system like this was implemented in a school where I was working. There was one in each classroom and several in the hallways. The difference is that they weren't web enabled, they were cctv. Parents/administrators had to go into a lounge area and view the transmission from there. There was talk of making them web enabled, but the school board didn't think it was a good idea due to privacy concerns.
Someone emailed me the other day and apparently I can view "High School Girls" in the changing rooms and showers having fun and splashing out. I tried to subscribe but my credit card was refused, which seems weird as it worked when I bought some Viagra off of a Nigerian prince.
Any other slashdotters managed to view these high school webcams?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
We had cameras on our school buses that recorded to a VCR. Nobody cared, there was still fights on the bus, people would spit or otherwise vandalize the camera. Same thing will happen to these webcams. I will be suprized if they are not stolen and sold on ebay within the first month of classes.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Click here to see live high school co-eds 'sharpening their pencils', cheating on their 'spelling tests', 'studying biology', and dividing their apendages!
Banaaaana!
Masked Vandalism ahoy!
Doesn't this seem like a bit of an invasion of privacy?
Also, this would seem to be sort of stumbling block for new teachers. New teachers are probably already nervous enough without knowing there is a camera watching them.
these are web-enabled with a password. Police can view them "in case of an emergency."
I assume that means that there isn't a general website where people can view the feeds.
Just take a lil strip of tape and cover up the webcam before tests. Trust me, people will do it. Hell, if I lived there I would do it.
Since the US mandates that children remain in school untill the age of 18, could this not be viewed as a move towards the monitoring of all citizens under 18 between the hours of 8am and 3pm? Just a thought
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
That's a lot of spitball targets.
Sure, it will make teachers do more, but is that the intent, or is it to keep the students in line?
I don't think that cameras are a big worry. If anything they only make the kids behave better and prevent slacking off from teachers. However, I think that just cameras are fine, adding microphones is going one step too far.
Of course anything can be abused, though, so that's a moot point.
Most of the kids were bad, and so I tried turning the camera on them and told them I would show the tape to their parents. They complained to the principal, who made me stop, and he did not renew my teaching contract.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I know where this could surley have a benefit (not that I fully understand or agree with the implications of ``in class recording''). At my school, which is in England, a teacher is not allowed to be left alone with a pupil (male or female) for obvious reasons. This has gone to the extent such that certain offices have windows in odd places just to make sure it is easy to ``see in''.
The advantages of having a video camera in situations such as these are obviously very great. There is no longer the requirement for more than one teacher (or pupil) to be present. I know these one-on-one sessions certainly helped with my electronics a couple of years ago before they introduced these new rules. Hopefully they'll be able to benefit future students too!
I have a feeling that everyone's going to be up in arms about privacy but I'm actually ok with this. As long as the teachers are on the clock, their employer owns their time and are within their rights to know what they are doing.
I'm not sure but I believe that schools qualify as public property so the kids aren't being invaded.
I'm all about transparency in stuff that taxpayers pay for and maybe this will actually improve the quality of teaching. No more filmstrips 4 days a week if their bosses can see.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Just think of all those times you ended up in the office for something you didn't do, just because the teacher doesn't like you.. Yes it can be used to invade privacy, but then again the way kids bring and use guns in school today, it might be useful about catching kids with guns before they use them...
such is life...
My CS class already does this. And yes, its a highschool...public school.
http://www.atech.org/faculty/snyder/
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Schools have been given, under U.S. law, the right to act in place of parents while children are in attendance. Sometimes they take it too far. The one group of citizens in the U.S. that has the least rights and is oppressed and discriminated against the most are children. When I was in high school I had a friend tell once she was asked to take a breathalizer at a gas station while refilling her car by a police officer. When she asked what she had done wrong the officer replied that it was night time, she was under age, and she was chewing gum. He said that was enough of a reason for him to force her to take a breathalizer.
Anyways, back on-topic. If your boss threatened to point cameras at you in your workplace and fire employees who he observed slacking wouldn't you be concerned? If your employer did so at least you would have the option of leaving due to privacy concerns, schoolchildren do not have this option.
I would also like to know how secure this system is. The article claims that the video can be viewed from any computer on the internet with proper authentication. There are serious security implications here, and schools have had notoriously lax security policies in the past.
Visualize the world of wine
At the new engineering building where I go to school they already have cameras at the back of the class. They are controlled from a podium at the front of the room and can pan in all directions as well as zoom fairly well. They dont record anything (at least not that I know of) but they are used for catching people cheating. At least thats the idea, of course none of the profs have any clue as to how to use them as most of them cant figure out how the light switches work.
This is exactly what I stand for. You don't trust me, I'm gone. Simple as that. And even in this economy I have done that.
Well, here's one more reason to consider homeschooling my kids. Or at least consider sending them to a private school where such devices can't (or are less likely to be) be eventually required by law.
I already have real reservations about confining my kids for six or more hours a day to a classroom filled only with people their own age, to suffer (mostly) uninspired teaching in regimented fashion, in exchange for dubious literacy. Now I have to worry about them being trained from their earliest years to accept a surveillance society, too.
I can't escape the feeling they could do vastly more productive and useful things with that time on their own. Spider Robinson wrote an excellent piece about this in today's Globe and Mail.
How long until these cams are used to help identify future terrorists? I'd be willing to bet they are (or will be) recording everyone's biometric info with these cams.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
They tried this at my college, especially in the computer science labs since so much stuff was stolen.
Here's what happened - my roomie stole the actual camera and used it to monitor the hallway for police/RA's when we were drinking.
Obviously not a huge problem in high school (the use) but I'm sure some will get stolen.
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Having taught in difficult situations in the past, I'm all for cameras in the classroom. While a Peace Corps volunteer in 1999-2000 teaching in an agricultural school in Poland (Zespol Szkol Rolniczne w Czernichowie) I was frequently yelled at by the principal for kicking particular students out of class. If only they could have seen the difference the removal of one disruptive student can make in a classroom...
Some may argue that a teacher should be able to handle all students, but with 160 students to keep track of, one can't be both teacher and psychologist to all of them.
I think the presence of cameras will restrain those likely to cause disturbances in class, and will be a tremendous aid in dealing with those who don't belong in a traditional classroom setting. Of course this is from personal experience only. I have no idea what the academic literature says about the idea.
* Not to say that the three kids (from different classes) I frequently kicked out weren't bright - they just made it impossible to get through a lesson with the rest of the students. In some situations pragmatism needs to trump "no child left behind" - if it's a choice between one student not learning a lesson or 20+ not learning...
Get together a group of geeks who have a broad range of skills in electronic engineering and computer science. Give them each a few copies of Playboy, Hustler and the like as a sort of 'payment' for their duties. Then sit back as they concoct some sort of bypass device that can be hooked up to the camera. This device will play back a constant loop of say, maybe 10 seconds of footage. You might need Keanu Reeves to come into the classroom and look nonchalant to add to the effect. Now, whatever you do in the classroom, the grunts in the monitoring room will just see a class full of kids with their heads in the books, and a teacher that looks supsiciously like papier mache
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
This kind of monitoring should get children used to being watched from birth. I have an acquaintance who had her whole house wired with video after she had a child. She said she just didn't feel safe being on the computer unless she had a window in the corner of her screen where she could watch her kid. Someday, people will look back at our priggishness and laugh, wondering what we were thinking, much like we laugh at the priggishness of the Victorian era.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Watching classes through a camera would be about as exciting as watching the House of Commons channel. That's one of the first things I delete from my channel "hotlist".
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
"If I don't catch you cheating on this spelling test, that camera will! Don't even think about it."
I had a high school science teacher at one point who believed that someone had hidden a camera inside the wall clock. (You know, the one no one even bothers to put batteries in?)
I had forgotten about it until I read this posting because 1) it was so long ago and 2) all the other crap she pulled.
At one point, she evacuated the classroom because she believed demons had inhabited the TV set. Demons. A science teacher. Some clever student had snuck in with a remote control. She unplugged tho TV after it mysteriously started turning on. The students, naturally more interested in freaking the teacher than learning dimensional analysis, plugged it back in.
Being a scientist, she knew that demons were a more plausible theory to explain the behavior of her television than bored, meddling students.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Of course, if you get caught, you can always moan about that terrible pain in all the diodes in your left side...
I don't see how monitoring classrooms with cameras will help anything, because who's going to watch the cameras while school is in session? It's got to be pretty boring; And besides, how are the schools going to hire people to do the monitoring, with the extremely low levels of funding they get?
I could agree to the practicality of cameras monitoring while tests are being taken though, especially SOLs and other standardized tests.
My company works in schools supporting networks and anything technology related. We installed a system similar to this with 35 cameras in a school. The cameras had to specifically be located such that they would never be able to see into a classroom. The contract the Teachers Union has specifically forbids footage from security cameras being used in any fashion to monitor teachers or at job reviews. At most schools I have worked in, the teachers hate the administration and the administration hates them right back. I'd expect the teachers unions to fight tooth and nail against this.
Perhaps if at a young age, kids realize that there are cameras watching them all the time, we won't need to spend $$$ placing cameras all over our world to catch disobedient adults...
er...
wait... there already are cameras all over the world...
nevermind.
Sometimes that's OK, but usually that teacher is worse. Bland, unengaging, etc in fear that they might do something controversial. I think best-case is they just get used to it, a la "The Real World."
I've seen the other side though, and with the damned lawsuit-happy parents, the school would find itself perpetually in court.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What about the implications of people changing due to a Big Brother presence? Are we willing to make the classroom, which in some ways it is one of the most important structures in society a Panopticon? How can we pretend to respect computer privacy in society, but at the same time do this to what should be the cusp of free speech?
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Crap, no more leaving the class for a smoke!
I tried to use one myself to make the kids behave. But the principal said not to. I think the teachers would be in favor of the idea.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
It will start hitting the fan when the most shrill of parents evaluate teachers based on political criteria rather than on whether little Johnny or little Joanie is being taught to think critically and rationally and to evaluate evidence unemotionally.
Personally, I think every parent that supports video camera monitoring in schools should receive the consequences.
Forty years from now, thinking it not at all unusual, their children will install similar cameras in the nursing homes, on the sidewalks, in the stores, at the shooting range, in the bars, aimed at cars, aimed at private homes, etc.
When we live in that surveiled society, we will know that we trained the young people to think that ripping all semblance of privacy from our lives is an entirely reasonable protection from terrorism.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
In 12 grade Physics class in high school, we teacher was from the military and was also a professor at a few universities. He was rumored to have a camera setup watching us but would never say yes or no on the answer because of obvious reasons (if yes he could get in trouble, if no we would not worry about it) At the end of the school year he showed us a picture of an empty room with a substitute teacher being the only person in the room. The picture seems to be coming from the top back of the room. That pretty much cleared the speculation, though some still believed he just did that as a scare tatict so we wouldn't cheat. Needless to say, we were pretty good with the subs all year...
If this is used wisely, cameras could be used to entirely replace the paperwork and hoopla that teachers these days have to deal with. Most teachers (especially in the BEH - Behaviorally/Emotionally Handicapped - field) have to deal with tons of bureaucratic BS; this could theoretically help. Instead of making Mrs. Waters file a report every time a fly enters the room, you just archive the videos of parent-teacher conferences, etc, and pull them out when disputes arise. Yes, there are technical issues with this. Yes, it still makes more sense than asking hard-working, underpaid teachers to spend up to several hours (unpaid) each day, filling out nonsense forms.
My $.02.
Web Design & Software Development
isn't this the same slashdot that complains about how schools are already like prisons, and its the rule of the "popular kids" and how kids are getting singled out and treated unfairly, etc etc.
wouldn't something like this potentially HELP that problem ? no kid is going to punch someone in the nose in clear view of a camera.. no teacher is going to incorrectly single out a child when the people that matter are watching.
i would have loved it if there were cameras watching all the crap that went on at school, instead of the "selective vision" that lots of the administrators seemed to have had..
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
If you can't get your kids to behave without a camera threat you shouldn't be teaching.
Forget the familiar mantra about decreasing classroom sizes by raising property taxes to pay for hiring more teachers. Better to instead hire more couch-potato security guards to watch your kids on television five days a week. Even better if these security guards get classified as "educators" so that they can add to the NEA union ranks.
When they were getting certified the teacher pushes a button at his desk and secret cameras show a close of them cheating their asses off. Heart attack...........ahhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhh.....Stay back....I am trained in CPR......
No, seriously. Forget for a moment about "big brother" fears. This sort of thing would be GREAT for the kids who were beat up for being nerdy (like me), fat, etc. You could just say to the teacher, "If you don't do something about (PERSON X) and (PERSON Y) picking on me, I'll just tell the Principal to review the tapes." Maybe that would help get some results.
A lot of kids (myself included) come away from the public school system with a REALLY negative attitude, since kids are basically allowed to beat the snot out of each other and no one does anything. The resulting perception is that authority figures are cold, ineffectual, and utterly apathetic. This might help alleviate that problem.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
That's right. I think things I would never say...
one hundred twenty
is just enough characters
to write a haiku
Most parents will approve of this for safety reasons. And a previous poster pointed out that the teacher is under some pressure to perform here too.
There are VERY legitimate privacy problems here, but students almost always lose on privacy issues in schools when the subject is brought to court. The paradox here, is that they HAVE to be there, unless their parents can afford to send them to a private school. They have no choice. The state, under force of arms, can force them into the classroom for their own good, the reasoning goes. And yet the facilities and staff are paid for with public dollars. Frankly, you have a better case banning cameras on public streets than you do in schools.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"Oh! Oh! I know! Lets make grade school even more like a prison for our youth!"
"Bob, thats brilliant! I'm putting you in for a raise."
As if our education system wasn't screwed up enough.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
next time we see one of those teacher/student sex romps in the classrom it could have be real video?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I'm seeing lots of jokes about checking out kids over the webcams. But it's not nearly as funny when it actually happens.
In this case, the lack of even minimal concern for privacy and security was truly staggering. If I was a parent, I would be suing their asses off too.
remember that one?
The teacher points out a new surveillance camera designed to monitor the kids' bad behavior. The kids point out it could also monitor the teacher's bad teaching, and the teacher runs over to cover it with his jacket.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
In my high school, about twenty security cameras have gradually been implemented in places where it's likely a student might have something stolen -- outside lockers, in the library, in the parking lots. There are still major hallways uncovered (the kids who make out in the halls probably don't mind being taped, anyway). Tapes are 48 hours long and there isn't much of a retention policy because of storage issues.
But the issue that saves these from being destructive is that the monitor with the digital feed from the cameras is available to any interested student; it's in the office in a highly visible place. If we really didn't like the cameras being there (as, I suspect, these kids may not appreciate having cameras -everywhere-, although that seems an exaggeration), then the students would complain. Students who complain to parents who complain to school board members, or students who complain to student governments (to be honest, those aren't really effective until college) can have a significant impact on public policy.
The broad term for this kind of open access and full disclosure of monitoring is "transparency". Transparency, and the system of taxpayers who encourage accountability, will destroy this system if it is misused and will support it if it helps. Cool.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
"Unlike traditional, closed-circuit video cameras, Webcams can display images on virtually any Internet-connected computer. A principal or superintendent can view pictures from home or even on the road." If this catches on, we all know these systems will be hacked. The education system will not have the people to keep it secure. I wouldn't be surprised to find they are using wireless cameras in some places that are difficult to wire (like the gym.) This may open up a new kind of War Driving. Stalkers hanging out near a Highschool, and watching the kids from their laptop. Why the move to webcams? I think closed circuit TV is better suited for this kind of monitoring. You are still on camera, but without all the potential abuse due to security issues.
...There are MANY teachers who are able to control the classroom without cameras. MOst of them remain teaching for many years. And those who cannot do so, get out of teaching.
Just one leetle problem--the ones who ARE able to control without a camera are what you call "people persons." THey have HIGH social skills. But they are not knowledge oriented at all. In fact most of these teachers are not interested in reading for pleasure or interested in science or math whatsoever. They know little of history or politics. They are interested in other people. But they are not interested in ideas. Often, they have to take teacher certification tests more than once in order to pass.
Now, the other kind of teacher leaves teaching in a few years, typically. They could really use the cameras. They are in love with knowledge, and ideas. But they are not really sociable.
Now you are starting to understand what is going on in the schools.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
150 cameras per school, storing what? 1 week of footage presumably in quality good enough to identify people in a classroom. We're gonna need a bigger VCR!
As a part-time high school sub teacher, I can honestly say most of the troublesome kids in high school today could give a rats ass weither or not there's a teacher, principle, lunchlady, ect., let alone a camera.
If you ask me the Board of Education is doing nothing but wasting money that could be used elswhere in the school on cameras that will do nothing but make good targets for vandels.
HaHaHaHaHa
If the school isn't providing a safe learning environment, then you can sue them.
We don't need big brother.
I think that the teacher has no reasonable expectation of privacy whatsoever when teaching a class in a public school. Neither, for that matter, does the individual student who takes the class.
If they are going to do this, I think that the parents should have a right to request a copy of the recording of any given class that their child is taking. Parents have a right to know what their children are being taught and need to know that to properly influence what is taught in their school district. Public schools need to be accountable to the parents of the children that attend them, especially because not all parents are able to afford to vote with their feet, i.e., put their children in a non-free private school.
I'm sorry that it just moronic. Now that kid is gonna have a pretty fucked up life from being mollycoddled, smothered and any other word that is suitable. Fast forward to the when that kid has their own child, and the cycle continues.
What the fuck is wrong with parents these days? Oh wait, it's because of all the paedophiles. Yeah, you know those paedophiles that never existed ten years ago but just magically appeared in the forest along with the pixies and the fairies. Now they're lurking at every street corner, with a lollipop for every innocent child - OH WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!
I bet you if you take any guy who has taken a $500 loan and turned it into a multi million dollar business, or someone who has invented a breakthrough in medical science then there's something these people share - that they were given freedom as children to go play in the woods, build treehouses and try and jump logs on their bikes. If they cut their knee they would go home and their parents would tell them to be careful and fix up their wounds, and not shout 'oh my god that's the last time you're going out on your own!' Children that learned to become independent and productive to society, who could be free thinkers and not worry what mommy would say.
I'm sorry but if you think you need a Big Brother installation in your house to watch your kid while your bidding for pointless shit on eBay, then there is something mentally wrong with you.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Frankly the idea of some government-sponsored pedo-ring really bothers me. Not a worthwhile use of tax dollars I think.
I have to admit my initial gut reaction was to be in favour of something like this. If you know teachers, especially in smaller grade inner city and underprivileged schools you'll have heard stories about how a couple of unrully students completely and consistently disrupt the class to the point that the education process almost grinds to a halt. The same parents that produce these little monsters refuse to do anything about it but freak out if someone else does.
So the teacher ends up in a no win situation where they can't really do anything substancial to prevent one or two kids for ruining it for everyone.
Add a camera and instantly - the teacher has an overwhelming argument supporting proper punishment or banishment for the out of control kids. So the psycho kids will get the punishment / attention they need and the other kids get an environment where they can actually learn.
But... you have to wonder what kind of effect it would have on a child to be effectively raised in a constantly monitored environment. If "Friend Computer" or "Big Brother" watches you your whole youth - how agressively are you going to champion your freedoms as an adult? Does America really need a whole generation of people raised to simply - passively - accept being monitored? Can you imagine how different you'd have turned out if you never got away with anything as a student?
There are some merits to the idea of monitoring classrooms. However, there are, if you really think about it very few circumstances that would apply to all classrooms at all times.
What about a program that allows cameras to be brought in on a temporary basis if there is reason to suspect that they are needed? Something like that, implemented correctly would probably cost less, be more effective and wouldn't create an atmosphere where children are raised in a state of constant intrusive monitoring.
Just my opinion, I'll admit I haven't let the idea sink in yet.
also logging yet another pathetic failure buy va lairIE's patentdead PostBlock(tm) devise, c SourceForgerIE(tm) hedgemonIE.
.asp, from a giant hole in the planet/population, & are already hiding underground, expecting to survive something. they are the walking dead.
you know whois needing to be watched/resTRAINed the worst, right? it's the Godless greed/fear based murdering thieving georgewellian fuddite payper liesense hostage ransom stock markup FUDgePacking walking dead of course.
we can take care of our own children, thanks.
the lights are coming up. sum of these greed/fear mongers don't know their
500 cameras, say at least 10KB/sec per camera, that's 5 MB/sec, 18 GB/hour, at least 8 hours a day, so about 150GB a day. About 200 days in a school year, 30 tera bytes/year.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Normally I would say "you're in public, suck it up". But what did most honest hard working teachers do to deserve this sort of attention.
From my experience in public schooling teachers by far have no more authority to discipline children for fear of the "avenging mother" syndrome.
If anything the teacher should be able to turn the camera on the students at will to show how "little johny" is actually a little loud mouth mother fucker.
Also whatever happend to just having the principle audit a few classes each semester? My schools did peer reviews where teachers would audit each other and I'd like to think it was positive for them.
We don't need to spend education money "spying" on our teachers. We need to spend it buying text books, library supplies and technology.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I have to mention Sudbury schools. I first heard about it on /. and it sounds like something you might be interested in.
Also, John Gatto has some good ideas about contemporary schooling and its problems.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
On the contrary, the little hoodlums will continue to blithely doing as they have always done to such as you and I. After all, if they assalted us under the watchful eye of the teacher before, why do you think it should be any different with a camera?
No, it will greatly exacerbate precisely the perception you cite: Big Brother is watching you, and doesn't give a rats ass whether you live or die. If you thought your perception of authority figures was bad, wait for the generation that grew up with their abuse recorded for posterity -- and ignored.
Is a camera going to punish someone? No, merely gather information for a punisher to act upon. But that information is already available; the problem is no one wants to act on it.
A camera is a bluff, and every student knows that. If school staff wanted to know what some kids are doing to other kids, that information is already available to them. But they don't want to have to do anything about it. So they issue vague, idle threats, like "The camera will record you doing it" (so what?), to discourage behavior they don't want to have to intervene in. The punishments will still be a slap on the wrist -- and as often administered to both offender and victim, than just the offender -- and the abuse will continue.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
You are absolutley correct. My post did seem to indicate that it was a federal law, when it does in fact, vary by state.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
If I believed in our legal system, I would fully agree. However, I have more faith in a system that simply practiced random executions of defendants (ie, Texas - sorry, couldn't resist). Alternatively, no camera turns into a "he said, she said" trial - ie, no evidence. Net benefit for school, and probably the teacher.
As such, I think the lawsuit would be too much harm in itself, and the possibility of a retarded guilty verdict ruining a teacher's life is too much risk.
Ultimately, I'll tell you this - schools won't use cameras for the same reason that hospitals have banned video cameras from delivery rooms. Too much liability.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Is this where Mani Srivastava is going to set up his project?
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
The same people that design prisons also design a lot of schools.
Kids in school really get the short end of the rights-stick. Remember how your parents always used to tell you that "school is your job?' well, let's look at it from a work-place sort of view:
They are forced to sit at desks. They can have their belongings searched, they have to ask to use the bathroom. They are constantly micromanaged. Imagine if you were subjected to the same things in your workplace. You'd quit in a second.
Adding cameras to schools is not going to solve any problems- teachers will be more stressed out about performing well, kids will have the fear of an eye constantly watching them, and administrators will have one more piece of power over the kids.
I predict major backlash, but it's going to be one of those things that no one picks up on... I am of the opinion that cracking down on kids more and more is what leads to things like Columbine. Kids are people, and they should be treated as such.
Professor Dolores Umbridge strikes again! Evil old b^H witch!
Isn't it amazing that schools always seem to have money for these stupid projects, but never seem to have enough for books, pencils, field trips, music, athletic equipment, teachers, classrooms, desks...
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
(public) school. According to what she's personally observed, this is exactly the TOOL needed to help maintain good order and discipline.
Based on some comments here, fear of "Big Brother" observing teacher performance or monitoring kids activities seems as overwhelming as the comments of "we don't need the government adding more of intrusion into our lives.
You can't have it both ways and maintain good order. On the one hand, liberals have successfully removed corporal punishment from public education, leaving "less painful" alternatives (and tieing) teacher's hands. On the other hand, they also want to keep out the government or others from "monitoring" classrooms.
Kids have no respect of authority if you cannot properly enforce the rules. This isn't made up BS, it is from listening about the horror stories of "real life" situations.
Many parents side with their children when it comes to the school enforcing the punishments. They cannot seem to believe that "their little Johnny" would never be so horrible. Video would make it impossible for the parents to deny the bad behavior their child is exhibiting poor behavior. This allows administrators to spend less time performing BS Parent/Teacher sessions and more time improving their school.
Plus, as pointed out in other posts, teachers may actually be encouraged to "be all they can be". I can put out three names of Jr. High teachers who could care less about their student's academia and more about being "popular" with the students. One of them in particular (Phys Ed) doesn't even have a 5th grade spelling level.
Nuff said, I think I've made my point.
1) This is just more Nazi tactics from our wonderful Nazi society lead by our Great Leader George Bush II (son of the equally Great Leader George Bush I).
2) The real question - who is getting paid to WATCH these cameras? I mean, if the point is SAFETY, somebody needs to be watching them continuously. If the point is just oppression, they just need the camera to be present and the tapes reviewed periodically. Right? So if nobody is watching the cameras continuously, then we know what the point is.
3) Read the article - these are INTERNET cameras. Which means anybody with some hacking smarts can access these cameras via unsecured servers. And we can imagine how well the average school district's servers are secured. Do YOU want perverts like me watching your girls in class? Capturing the images and uploading them to the Net on porn sites?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I do not accept that surveillance in the classrooms is the answer to the problems cited. You think you are safer as a student because there is a *webcam* in the classroom? Great, so now the kids will beat the **i* out of you in the locker room. OR one kid will stand in front of the camera while another one b**** slaps you. OR someone can just shove a shiv in your back in the press of the crowd when leaving the classroom. How can one principle watch 30 classrooms? Why, of course, we can hire someone to watch the cameras! Just another great waste of tax dollars. And since no one can trust an eyewitness, we need to record the video for future litigation purposes. We don't need to have a rule about discarding old data. After all, we may find a link between terrorists and gum chewing in the 4th grade and what will we do if we have discarded the records. Frankly, the people who should be able to view the cameras are the parents, so they can know if they little bittykins have done their homework or skipped out of class, but instead we must protect kids from the parents - the very people who actually have a right to watch their kids - not the completely "loco" school administrations. And I am *sure* the government would love all kids to grow up used to being under constant surveillance. After all then they won't complain about their loss of privacy when they grow up. They'll be used to and welcome it in their cars, their streets, their homes, their bedrooms, etc.
It is not paranoia when they are out to get you.
this is really a plot to raise money for cash strapped school districts. THey take web cam movies of sex education and sell it on the web.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
Get the kids used to being monitored 24/7 " for their safety"...
Then as adults they will be more accepting to even deeper privacy and rights violations.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My kid is in day care, and I've frequently thought that I'd love to be able to log on to a secure site and check up on her from my desk at work.
:)
This sort of thing shouldn't be for the benefits of the police or the administration... it should allow the parents to keep an eye out for their kids. I know if my parents had an idea the kind of crap I soaked up as a kid, I would have had a much easier young life. This being a hang out for geeks, I'm sure lots of you know what I'm talking about
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
instead of wacking on a video and getting on with pointless mind numbing marking? (UK)
A blog I run for the wealth
Either FERPA will need to be amended, or those tapes will require very careful handling to avoid existing protection in FERPA. This has probably already been addressed in case law, but a brief search revealed nothing.
...
...
Text of FERPA : http://regweb.oit.unc.edu/resources/ferpa_text.php
Basically it restricts who has access to "educational records."
Excerpts follow for the trusting and lazy. Reading the actual text of FERPA is certainly preferable to these tidbits. I'm also putting them in a different order so they will be less dull to read. Be sure to read up on the (long) list of ways in which records can be released without prior consent! This post is becoming too long, otherwise I would have included those as well.
Reg. 99.7
What must an educational agency or institution include in its annual notification?
(a)(1) Each educational agency or institution shall annually notify parents of students currently in attendance, or eligible students currently in attendance, of their rights under the Act and this part.
(2) The notice must inform parents or eligible students that they have the right to --
(iii) Consent to disclosures of personally identifiable information contained in the student's education records, except to the extent that the Act and 99.31 authorize disclosure without consent; and
Reg. 99.1
To which educational agencies or institutions do these regulations apply?
(a) Except as otherwise noted in 99.10, this part applies to an educational agency or institution to which funds have been made available under any program administered by the Secretary of Education if --
(1) The educational institution provides educational services or instruction, or both, to students; or
(2) The educational agency provides administrative control or direction of, or performs service functions for, public elementary or secondary schools or postsecondary institutions.
Directory Information" means information contained in an education record of a student which would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. It includes, but is not limited to the student's name, address, telephone listing, date and place of birth, major field of study, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, dates of attendance, degrees and awards received, and the most recent previous educational agency or institution attended.
(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(5)(A))
"Disciplinary action or proceeding" means the investigation, adjudication, or imposition of sanctions by an educational agency or institution with respect to an infraction or violation of the internal rules of conduct applicable to students of the agency or institution.
"Disclosure" means to permit access to or the release, transfer, or other communication of personally identifiable information contained in education records to any party, by any means, including oral, written, or electronic means.
(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1232g(b)(1))
"Educational agency or institution" means any public or private agency or institution to which this part applies under 99.1(a).
(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(3))
"Education records"
(a) The term means those records that are:
(1) Directly related to a student; and
(2) Maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution.
(b) The term does not include:
(1) Records of instructional, supervisory, and administrative personnel and educational personnel ancillary to those persons that are kept in the sole possession of the maker of the record, and are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a temporary substitute for the maker of the record;
(2) Records of the law enforcement unit of an education
They've actually come up with yet another way to degrade and infantilize high school age children. Kids in high school are just a few years from becoming full members of society - driving, voting, military service, etc. Why don't we try treating them as such? Why not reconsider what's wrong with school culture and try to change it to promote better behavior? Naww...just use technology instead!
In my scool all the teachers that could control the class where the best teachers, and the one that couldn't teach where ignored. It's not that much about social skills as about respect.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
You chide liberals for taking a teacher's right to inflict physical pain in restitution for perceived crimes said student may or may not have perpetrated away, and out of the other side of your mouth you call for the 24/7 monitoring of students in the classroom?
I hope this teaching wife of your has more moxie than you do; I fear greatly for our future with outlandish and misinformed ideas like yours possibly driving reform.
By the way, do keep in mind that advocating such a brazen disregard for personal privacy makes you a "liberal" by your own antiquated standards.
Put them in right after they install the webcams in the principals office, teachers lounge, and the offices in the superintent of schools offices!!
What, they suddenly dont like the idea? I cant imagine why.....
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Thank you. I will test tis out at best buy soon.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Never mind being intimidated by other students... I have the feeling that despite the many big-brother tactics being gleefully endorsed by our government here in Australia, images of teachers and students being recorded would lead to a lot of concerns amongst the anti-paedophilia lobby. Recording images of schoolkids (whether indecent or otherwise) is attracting quite a lot of media attention at the moment, and this would fuel the controversy.
Well, if we really are going to install cameras everywhere then we'd be wise to heed a 21st century parable and make sure that access to what these things see goes into the public domain and is not exclusively controlled by small groups of quasi-political non-educators.
So, I'm going to do my part and start petitioning my local government. After all, it's the one that made news for installing face-recognition in our public-area camera network.
Here my reaons for liking it:
Student Advantages
Another witness. When a teacher does something they shouldn't. It's on the cam. Keeps bad techers in line.
Proof they were in class. How many in High School were accidentally marked absent? Or the substitute teacher wrote bad report on someone, and used the wrong name... check the cam liar!
Teacher Advantages
Safety. Keep bad kids in line. Now there is evidence of anything you do when a teacher turns to the board.
Evidence. No longer is it teachers word, vs. angry parent. It's the truth vs. everyone. Parents tend to think their child can do no wrong. Perhaps it's instinct. But the truth is not always as inocent.
Parents
Is my child in class?
Is my child Awake in class?
Does my childs teacher ignore my child in favor of other kids?
------------------
To me, it sounds good. I wouldn't mind having a camera in my class. Would have kept some of the idiots in the class from being idiots and wasting everyones time. Also keeps that moody menopausal substitute teacher from picking on a class.
Good for parents, good for kids, good for teachers.
If your afraid it might be used against you... odds are you shouldn't be doing what your doing for good reason.
Drop the gun Tommy. Ms. Black is just teaching you subtraction!
...2 recent graduates, and 1 still in HS and 1 in middle school, I say no.
Not only no, but hell no
Fuck no
No goddammed way
over my dead body
The school board and I would rumble over this
Shall I explain myself?
These cameras will do no good
Asshole kids, bent on destruction, will still do it, cameras or no cameras. They do not care. Other kids will be made to feel under suspicion all the time. Teachers will feel pressured. You can't 'force' someone to be a good teacher. Either they are, or fire them. Hey...here's a concept. Pay them a respectable wage.
"Oh, but times have changed! Columbine, drugs, hazing..."
BULLSHIT.
These cams would not stop a Columbine incident. Metal detectors don't, how would cameras?
You know what is needed? Competent teachers and administrators. School district in Mississippi spends 2 million on cameras in the classroom. At $40,000 per, thats 50 teachers. How much good could 50 well paid teachers do? A lot more than some silly cameras, that do not enhance the teaching experience. They can only (possibly) punish the true assholes that do not care. The true assholes will do whatever it is they do with or without cameras.
This concept has so much opportunity for abuse it's not funny. Schools, being quasi-government organizations, will be forced to investigate every little infraction, perceived or real. Instead of letting the teacher and administrators handle things.
What? Incompetent teachers? Crappy principals? Pay them a better wage, and maybe we'll get some competent ones.
The further possibilities of abuse abound. Where are these cameras? In every classroom? OK...no funny stuff going on there. In the bathrooms? In the gym locker rooms? Riiiight. YGBSM. How soon until he cam feed gets hacked?
A bully, bent on hassling some other kid, will simply wait. You gotta go to the bathroom sometime. Or after school.
This will solve nothing
Cameras cannot turn a bad teacher into a good one, nor change the course of an asshole kid. Only human interaction can do that. And cameras are anything but 'human'. Have cameras stopped shoplifting? Not a chance. Have they stopped redlight running? Again, no. Would you feel comfortable under the camera every day, all day, at work? I wouldn't. Then why is it OK to do this to kids?
Give up some freedom, for some perceived security....well...you can see where that goes.
Again...
No
No way
Fuck no
No goddamned way.
Indeed, you will. Hope you are more articulate than you've shown in this post when you get your ass dragged in for DWI.
And, getting back on topic a little, let me point out you will be photographed while attempting to pass your sobriety tests. That's a good thing for all concerned, I think. For you, it will show that the police treated you fairly. Likewise, the cops will have a record demonstrating their impartial evaluation. Thirdly, your lawyer, upon viewing the tape, will be too embarrassed to give a judge some fabricated story about your innocence. Thus society will be spared the risk of another drunk let loose on the road. So everybody wins, I think.
I spend much of my working day in a Connecticut municipal police department headquarters. Every word I speak on the telephone or radio is recorded, and pretty much all my moves are recorded on video. I don't have the slightest problem with it. We are, after all, public servants, and we should be held accountable for everything we do.
As far as snooping on classrooms, I'm not convinced it's a good idea.
The public school system can be as fascist as the educators wish and the administration will allow. ...
If *they* were doing the recording, and were using it for purposes of review and resolving incidents between teachers and students, they could not avoid reviewing it. They couldn't just wish it away if they were making a policy of using the audiovideo. I mean, it's not that the principal or vice-principal were real assholes -- THEY would have removed any detention time and removed it from my record. If they would have been able to listen to the tape. But they couldn't -- the teachers evidently demanded this, either informally or via union, I don't know.
Even if they had the aforementioned and debated school videotapes in your school, what do you think the chances are that the teacher would have allowed it to be used by you against her? And still, you would have been up shit's creek.
I feel for you, your little brother, and whatever students are caught in your school system. And I feel especially sorry for the parents who are both unable and/or unwilling to let this group of unionized miscreants -- so untouchable that Teamsters dare not tread -- rule the educational system.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Do we really want out kids growing thinking that living life in front of a camera is normal?
-rick
cameras in the girls' dressing room.
Ahh, that was my favorite show when I was a kid. Good times. Surveillance cameras in stores are the same thing as in schools. Even if they only capture one crime or violent act per year, it's worth it, don't you think?
Big Brother, your day hath arrived.
I rest my case.
of an incident that happened here in Singapore. A student used his swank camera phone to film a teacher verbally abusing another student. Needless to say, the student got in trouble...
Story here.
Never underestimate the predictability of human stupidity...
In the new High School that was recently built down the road from me, the classrooms have partially high ceilings that go up to skylights. The rest is false ceiling, which contains a catwalk that runs partially over every room in the school. Each room has a way to view the entire classroom from the catwalk. If a school shooting were occuring, SWAT could easily clear every classroom within a matter of minutes, virtually undetected. Putting aside from the obvious administrative monitoring of faculty/students, this definitely beats cameras.
While this is obviously impossible for most existing high school buildings, it is interesting nonetheless, and a smart architectural design (I bet running phone/network cable was a breeze!)
Just as a note, i actually work in an enviroment where cameras have been put in place, and have been there for some time... they dont really do anything, everyone just congregates in the small "black spots" where they arent being monitored...
It hasnt really changed anything.. its just made the areas where you can sit on breaks a little smaller... major annoyance..
In schools however it think this would be a great thing, i went to a small private school, and as such had the same teacher for calculus, physics and discrete mathematics.. he was hardly competent and covered this up by simply mocking the students (we all had to get private tuition in order to get a passing grade), had cameras been in place maybe our complaints would of been heard.
-KronicD
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
I dated some teachers in the past, so I understand the mindset. But from my standpoint, if the supplies aren't available due to lack of general funding, then that's it. Finito. Fuggetaboutit... Let the kids go home and tell mommie and daddie that they don't have whatever's necessary for them to get an education.
Then if mom and dad actually give a shit, they can buy the stuff for their kid. The other kids can do without, or they can go begging from whereever they want...
Eventually the poorest of the poor will rant and rave and scream and yell and stamp their feet, and taxes will go up so some politico doesn't have to listen to them...
In the meantime, you and your wife can keep the extra cash you'd waste on some unappreciative little shit in the classroom, and go on a well-deserved vacation...
Tell your wife to tally up everything she's spent out of pocket and submit an expense report with receipt copies... If the district doesn't pay - send a copy to the newspapers... That oughta wake up the taxing bodies as to the need for more funding...
As an aside - three cheers to the people who decided to charge for after-school extracurricular activities. I never participated in sports, thought they were a total scam and was pissed that I was forced to spend my money for some jock to play.. Now if they'd just go the extra inch or so and say that the max for a free education is two kids, and charge anyone with more for the total cost of educating each child over two (that way if someone has 6 kids, they get to pay the full costs of the extra 4) - no reason why I ought to...
Even better - I don't have any kids (that I know about), so I should only pay 20% of what someone with kids does...
An even cheaper way to get footage. =)
How long before some student gets the webcam to display on his PDA, so he can read someone else's answers during a test?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
We had them at our school. After the whole system was up and running, there were a couple locker break-ins with money stolen. Not a single person was caught because the face couldn't be made out. Soon after this, violence in the hallways returned to previous levels. Whether it was because they got used to it, or because everyone realized that they wouldn't get caught, I have no idea. I just know in the end they became pretty much worthless.
What really gets me is that even with no change in behavior, they'll never get rid of them. Even though they cost a lot, it'll make the administration look bad.
In Thailand and other countries where an educated population is seen as helpful, the age is 18. When I went to school it was 14 :-)
Reported on how one paedophile exploited a "loophole in the law" by waiting until his victims were old enough to have sex before meeting them. This loophole will be closed by the new law of "internet grooming" which makes it illegal to talk to anyone either underage or (in the case of cops) pretending to be underage over the net.
But if the committee on un-American activities^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H department of homeland security runs it, then I'll sign up.
Its a sad day indeed when we introduce the ever watching eye under the guise of "safety". How long is it until someone suggests that cameras are placed in our own homes in order to prevent 'potential hazards to society'. Hopefully they soon realize the freedom they're giving up with this concept but IMOH i don't believe that any changes will be forth coming and in fact the opposite will occur and this may become the standard.
I've got a friend that's a teacher at an all girls Catholic high school and I've been trying to get a web cam in that class room for months now.
Speaking as someone who went to high school in Natchez Mississippi, I would have welcomed cameras with open arms. There were so many distractions because of minorities causing trouble that it was necessary to have armed guards walking around the campus. I think having cameras would have cut down a lot on the crap that went on in the classrooms while teachers were gone. Who wants to rat someone out for showing knife in class? With cameras recording stuff, people would tend to act better. Unfortunately there would be a lot of blind spots with any camera setup where the innocent could be led before being attacked.
To put this place into perspective, I once popped a lunchbag in the lunch room and almost everyone jumped under the table thinking it was a gunshot! Stupidly I ended up being suspended for that.
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
We've already decided we're going to homeshcool, but stuff like this just cements it.
I find myself feeling like I'm waking up ... why would you send your child to a government institution for 8 hours a day, if you didn't have to for some reason? Yet it is considered utterly normal, to the point where schemes like this monitoring scheme are actually seen as workable and necessary.
"You are the dead".
The science teacher has a web cam with no password on it. Anyone can be watching the children ALL day. If someone parked across the street with a telescope, would that be OK too? If school principals can't do the job, GET OUT. I have had some of the best learing experiences when teachers do things that a 10 second clip of would look VERY BAD. When teachers are not AFRAID they can do great things. When administrators suck, the whole system fails and web cams won't fix it.
While I completely disagree with the Stasi tactics of the school system, what people fail to see is that it is the system that is broken and was designed to keep children in line.
Compulsory school only came about in the mid 1850's. It's time to get rid of the system. I suggest reading some of John Taylor Gatto's books to find some more information and better answers to the questions about education.
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
A Different Kind of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto
Trust has to be earned. In my experience people with your attitude usually have something to hide.
Cameras in classrooms?
This is ridiculous. It only sends out the message: "We don't think our teachers are able to enforce discipline by themselves." And it teaches childrine that conflicts can only be resolved by hard evidence, not by taking reports. The teacher's word should be good enough, and management should back him up (but also audit classes once in a while). In classrooms are really physicially unsafe (and I think this is rare), you need to do a lot more than just install cameras.
Cameras in other places
I think this good be good, but especially for protecting property (getting evidence). Bullies will always find another place to bully, and school personnel doesn't really care anyway.
Other uses
Sometimes, cameras in classrooms (with the consent of everybody involved) could actually be useful. E.g. when part of the class is missing lessons because of an extracurricular activity, or an epidemic. Of course, you would need good sound, so it would be a bit more expensive than surveillance cameras. But watching these lessons in your own time would be a great advantage. Of course I'm assuming the lessons are actually worth watching, but if they're not, you can always surf the web and simultaneously listen in case something interesting happens in the recording.
I recall a Wired or Technology Review article sometime back saying that if the camera feeds were made available to everyone as well as the security authority, then they would be less onerous. Then everyone would know what everyone was seeing. This capbability is probably feasible in the near term on the InterNet. The article was about ubiquitos British police town-square cameras, but is applicable to any "public" area.
Ooops...
... ahem ... less attentive conduct.
Imagine for a moment, that Lady had had a cam in her classroom when she got into trouble for
Now, instead of getting fined for negligence while teaching, Ashcroft's bullies would pursue her for what ?
From ABC News:
The district has not yet written its policy on how the cameras will be used, (Deputy Superintendent Robert) Voles said, but the list of people who can view the tapes is limited.
Only a school principal, vice principal, superintendent, school board member or board attorney can view the recordings, he said. A parent, student or teacher would have to go through court.
So, have a judge friendly with the school system, and you have a way of stonewalling any legitimate counterpoints if Johnny and Susie get into trouble.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Why did you have to bring religion into this? Religion != morality; get it through your god-haunted head.
So what happens when a kid needs to talk to a teacher privately about a matter? Maybe they won't because there is a camera watching.