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The Wi-Fi On the Bus
theodp writes "For students who endure hundreds of hours on a school bus each year in a desert exurb of Tucson, the Wi-Fi on the bus improves the ride. Last fall, school officials mounted a $200 mobile Internet router from Autonet Mobile to bus No. 92's sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. What began as a hi-tech experiment has had an unexpected result — Wi-Fi has transformed the formerly boisterous bus rides into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared. 'Boys aren't hitting each other, girls are busy, and there's not so much jumping around,' said J. J. Johnson, the Internet Bus driver."
I doubt it.
1-to-10 says they're all on facebook.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Up and down... up and down. the wifi on the bus goes down and then, all peace ends.
"behavioral problems have virtually disappeared" --- well, that depends on what you consider a behavioral problem. I find it healthier for a bunch of kid to be noisy and hyperactive (even if this involves occasionally hitting each other) than to be all hunched down on their 7'' netbooks checking Facebook.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Just like good parenting...
Stick a TV/DS/Xbox infront of your kid and they act all perfect.
Can't wait for the virtual elementary school. Just strap your kid to the gurney and put the goggles on 'em.
I know, I know. This is robably a good thing. Kids fighting on a school bus is probably not the safest thing. But on reading the article, I can't help but compare it to medicating a kid so he doesn't run around as much and so he's docile and well behaved and compliant and conforming. That's scary to me.
The boys are all looking at porn, and the girls are on social networks discussing how to get their boy's attention or how to make themselves look nicer than the professional porn stars...
In all seriousness however, in ten years I imagine that the internet will be accessible in every location and being unable to access the internet in the middle of the desert or on top of a mountain will result in some serious complaints to the phone companies.
Over engineering if you ask me. The same result can be accomplished with a roll of duct tape. Silence is golden, duct tape is silver as the saying goes.
Right, because before putting wifi on the bus, there were so many opportunities for learning and self-achievement
If anything, making people shut the fuck up in the bus will help the introspective types that just want to be left alone so they can get some reading done. From personal experience, the most distracting thing about reading in the bus was not trying to read through the bumpiness and the constant starting and stopping. No, the most distracting thing was the guy next to me trying to get into a fight with the dude directly in front of me, reducing my personal space to whatever my eye's shortest focal length could be.
This signature serves no purpose other than to help you see which posts were made by me.
The kids never actually have to interact with one another. Problem solved.
The three most important words in a relationship are "I love you." The two most important are "Humor me."
Since I was the one usually getting hit, frankly I dont' wouldn't care what they are were hunched down on as long as it isn't me.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Or the idiot parents that get the DVD player in the minivan. That one blows my mind. "Going to the store kids! pick out a movie for the 5 minute ride!"
wow..... just wow....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In a time when school budgets are being slashed, this is pretty expensive. You put this on 50 buses and you've just lost a teacher.
That's really about the only thing which would make me dislike the service. Buses are notoriously rowdy places, and hotbeds for bullying. If you have a long bus ride, it probably could function as a partial study hall - especially with the filtering that most public schools put in place. Even if the kids are just pulling up online magazines to read, or chatting with friends, it's not that bad - their gainfully occupied and relatively quiet.
A bunch of posters seem to think that a bus should be rowdy. Why? Is the bus driver not normally distracted enough? And what, exactly, is "normal" or "free" about sticking 30 kids in an enclosed space for 45 minutes twice a day with nothing to do? It sucks. Might as well give them something to do that doesn't involve carrying (yet more) books to read on the way, or give them an option other that talking/arguing with the 6 other kids that happen to sit near them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Pretty much depend on what they are doing while there, what you consider "education", and how much you consider education what they would be doing if that werent implemented. In any case, the main difference between internet and the things that parents put them at home, is that tv is not even interactive, and games are usually alone, no interaction with others.
Anyway, if they are so plugged at the bus, then at home they wouldnt be tv/ds/xbox, but pretty much at what they are doing at the bus.
BTW, i live in Uruguay, where most school children have an XO (and few days i read that they plan to give them to even younger kids), and there seem to be a trend to be quieter and plugged to them for some children at least. I hope that that kind of education don't have a clear negative effect (if it will be the end of childhood, please that be the A.C.Clarke version)
I can think of a vast number of trips in the car that I experienced as a child that would have been improved a million-fold by the presence of a movie. Driving is usually boring. I did a lot of reading on trips, but that was trouble on long trips - I wouldn't always finish the book when we were near a major metro area.
Most things that kids get dragged along to are things that the adults really don't want the kids around for - like grocery runs - but that would be too expensive to hire a babysitter for every time you wanted to do them. Couple that with increased expectations of supervision by the authorities (see here; Illinois requires supervision at all times for all kids under 14, and the site and several states' CPS suggest that children should be 12 before they're ever left alone), and you've got kids spending a lot more time in the car than thirty years ago. I was left home alone by 7 or 8 for short trips, by 10 for several-hour blocks, and by 12 I was babysitting my sister all day during the summer. I also walked home from school, about a mile, from third grade on. (If the weather was nice, I'd ride my bike both ways, but I liked to sleep late too much to wake up early enough to walk there.)
I just took a trip to Penang. Wifi buses are widespread there - perhaps 1 in every 5 that pulled up. I just wonder when bystanders will start staging 'accidents' so they can finish their surfing ...
Adopt the restraint technique used for Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs: Face mask, straight jacket, and tied to a hand cart for easy mobility.
Parent: How was school today?
Child: mmrrmmph...
Parent: Awww, isn't that special.
Right, because before putting wifi on the bus, there were so many opportunities for learning and self-achievement
Actually, you're right. They're missing the mark on the public school mission, and what public schools are best at: socialization.
Really, there's no better argument for mass public schools: get along with those around you and you'll be a good adult, or some such shit. The education is shit, so nothing to remark about as a positive there.
So, truly: the wifi is detracting from the Mission Statement. Someone will probably have to get rid of it.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The internet is more than just studying. You can take a Wikipedia link hopping trip and see what you learn, you can read the news, you can read and post on Slashdot, and you can go on Facebook/Myspace/Twitter/email. Notice how the first three are educational but without relating to your school subjects and the last two are in fact forms of socializing.
I occasionally take the Montreal-Magog bus in Quebec. This is a 90 minutes ride, mostly highway. Still, the bus has access to the Internet through free wifi. It's especially good considering most of the ride is through rural areas.
Most Estonian railway and bus companies have been offering free WiFi via Kõu (thunder) on longer rides for some years now. Loving it.
I followed your link, then another link, and found the Illinois law actually says:
So based on that little snippet, it says "an unreasonable period of time" and "without regard for their safety."
And that pretty much leaves it to the judge unless those terms are defined.
I don't think it's unreasonable to leave a 12 year old alone for 3 or 4 hours after school if it's a responsible kid.
I do think it's unreasonable to leave him alone for 3 or 4 days.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
A bullying victim can't have a cop or a teacher or a parent standing over them, protecting them all the time. The only people who are always present when bullying occurs are the perp and the victim. The only person who is always available and able to convince the perp that bullying is a bad idea is the victim.
Refuse to be a victim.
Specific instructions as to how to do that would only open this post to criticism based on unimportant details, so I'm not going there. Let the principle stand: You, the victim, can break the cycle of abuse. It's absolutely heartbreaking that so many kids don't figure this out before they're 40 years old.
This bus is on the information superhighway!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
"What kind of speeds can I expect? Over the 3G network, download speeds average from 400kbps-800kbps. Upload ranges from 128kbps-300kbps. When not on 3G the average download is 120kbps-200kbps and 50kbps-100kbps for upload."q>
Now we know why the kids are so quiet. They spend the whole trip waiting for something to load.