School Kids Get Virtual Web Lockers

Lucas123 writes "Seventh and eighth graders in Tulsa, Oklahoma not only get tablet PCs at the beginning of the school year, but they are now issued 100MB of storage through a hosted school 'Web Locker' system. The Web lockers also include chat, calendaring, and collaboration capabilities, but school administrators can also monitor and track all files uploaded to the system, and lock out individuals for misuse."

Comments

Useless...

[MMC Monster]

Any eight-grader who's worth his salt will have an accessory gmail account to keep the important stuff.

Re:Useless...

[thewiz]

100MB?
Most kids have thumb drives; why would they want to use 100MB of disk space that can be spied on?

Re:Useless...

[badspyro]

Yes, it would
In the past, parents let their children read all kinds of books. Horror stories, romances, hell, even the bible includes sex, rape and murder. This stuff is NORMAL for a child to see and experience. Hell, I was reading Steven king at the age of 10. A pannel member at a games development company stated that he read the exorcist at about the same age.

As far as I can see, there is little to no difference between what children see now and what they saw in the past. The only difference is that parents can actualy tell that their children have been looking at those websites rather than them not noticeing what books the children were reading.

(gets off high horse)

Incentive?

[arth1]

And what's the incentive for the kids to use this solution, as opposed to the numerous free one provided, which won't have the big brother sees you problem?

Re:Incentive?

[arth1]

There wasn't an advantage to the kind of paper pad my highschool teacher required, but I used them anyway, because it was required.

The big difference being that the school didn't have and didn't exercise a right to read through everything written on school paper. Your love poems to the girl two rows over, and which you kept at home, were kept safe, not only from her and other schoolmates, but from the teachers too. The papers they got to see, they got to see because you handed them over, not because they had automatic access.

I think it's really bad when everything kids do is being supervised 24/7. Kids need hidey-holes and journals with a lock on. They won't ever be able to build their own identity nor handle secrets as an adult if they haven't been allowed to and trusted to keep secrets while growing up.

Re:Incentive?

[SamP2]

Umm, maybe the same one as when in the workplace you are given a corporate email?

This big brother paranoia is going through the roof on /. Nobody is forcing students to use the mail/file system for their own private stuff. But just like in the workplace, where for official business you use corporate resources, in school you are given *for free* school resources to store your notes, homework, projects, or anything else school related.

Some advantages:

- Local storage means much faster access times than external provider
- School bears responsibility for system upkeep - if it fails, you have a legitimate reason to not produce your homework or project that was stored or submitted there.
- System can be integrated with class notes and announcements, and the calendar can be used as school agenda - student logs in, sees the courses he's taking, and sees the homework assigned to him in each course.
- With login information tied to student IDs, it is much easier to track assignments and work going through the system for administration and teachers, you don't need to wonder who submitted the work coming from email s3xyb4b3@gmail.com.

And YES, you will get in trouble if you download pr0n or pirate music using the system... Just like you would at your workplace for doing the same thing using the corporate system. If you want to send something without being monitored, don't use the school system for that particular message, just as you wouldn't use your work email unless you expect it to be monitored by your employer.

It's very nice more schools are accepting the high-tech way of doing work. Not only it makes managing assignments much easier (meaning teachers can spend more time TEACHING and less time going through homework), but it trains children to real life, where high-tech work has already became a standard.

Product Placement

[Frosty Piss]

The Web lockers also include chat, calendaring, and collaboration capabilities

And, of course, a steady supply of advertising and "product placement".

That's quite the story write-up, almost as if done by a PR writer...

great.

[Anonymous Coward]

another way to distract kids from learning in school because some technology zealots want to fill their wallets

Re:They will WANT the control

[stonecypher]

These students are being taught to use a system that is ultimately not in their own interests.

Oh for fuck's sake, it's a convenient integrated storage system for student homework to clean the process up for the teachers. This isn't an Orwellian mystery plot. It's not like having this system shuts the students out of other services. The school can't require digital homework delivery if it doesn't provide a baseline so that they know students can fall back on their system if they don't already have something.

Grow up. Not everything is Big Brother.

ehh

[thatskinnyguy]

The Tablet PC is just plain awesome. If they can get the money to do such a thing, so be it.

But the "Locker" thing... I've seen plenty of solutions like this. All have either received negative or lukewarm reviews by students (including me). WebCT and Blackboard are the only two I can think of off-hand.

Really, what it comes down to is that whatever content is posted on these portals (calling a spade a spade) is owned by the school district. If teachers and students post their work on the portal, the school owns it. I don't suppose people plan on putting any personal work on there.

School deploys nfs with quota

[Cajun Hell]

More in-depth reporting on this amazing and lightning-paced story, as it develops!

Wow, somebody got paid for this, as an innovative product. People's tax money was spent on a "technology" for storing files on a remote server. Does anyone else feel a feint impulse to just give up, turn evil, and start fleecing suckers like this? They're out there, and they're waving their money around, jumping up and down, yelling, "Do me! Do meeeeee!!"