Access Denied
PHONG HUYNH | DEC. 13, 2017 | FEATURES
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (SCPDA) — The introduction of technology in public schools has become a necessity for student success. Students are recommended by educators to follow the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards For Students, such as to be a digital citizen that “recognize[s] the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world.” The principle of ethical technology use is highly valued by educators but limits are placed as a safety precaution. Though electronic devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones may support learning through educational and informational sources, some students have deviated from responsible technology usage. This has lead to restrictions on student internet access that aim to promote ethical digital usage.
Inappropriate use of smartphones anytime during testing violates the Duval County Student Code of Conduct. At Stanton College Preparatory School, the integration of the cell phone pouches in classrooms ensures that students do not violate this rule. Stanton students rely on technology every day but encounter boundaries that some view necessary or overreaching.
To address the problems of inappropriate searches on the internet, Duval County Public Schools has censored some websites. A U.S. federal government act, called the Children’s Internet Protection Act allows schools and libraries to use internet filtering, prohibiting and censoring some websites.
“The purpose of a content filter is to prevent a student from accidentally accessing something they do not want to see,” Duval County Public Schools Director of Information Technology Mr. Jim Culbert.
The restrictions DCPS placed on Schoology and Google Drive last year limited student access to online material when the district implemented OneView into classrooms. According to a 2016 Jacksonville Public Education Fund news report, the software cost $6.1 million. The district sought to keep everyone on the same electronic platform with the implementation of OneView, Microsoft’s productivity management software. With the district-wide mandate to use OneView, students who regularly utilized Schoology, a learning management system, and Google Drive, a cloud based file storage system, were met with an unexpected change resulting in both frustration and confusion.
“Things like Google Docs and Schoology are no longer able to be used when they are helpful tools,” said sophomore Evan Kraft. “It becomes harder to print out documents needed for school and even access them.”
The transition to adopt OneView as the main software in classrooms was not fully welcomed by some students. However, district officials believe the use of OneView will increase as students grow more acclimated to the software.
“It’s different from using Google [Drive] and in some ways it may not be easy as using Google [Drive] but after getting used to it, it becomes simple,” said Mr. Culbert. “People are dealing with change and resistance but a year or two from now, everyone will be using the software as fluidly as they were with Google.”
DCPS incorporates online barriers to keep online material appropriate for students in all Duval Schools, but at Stanton, administration has added another technological restriction.
At the start of this school year, Stanton’s administration provided teachers with cell phone pouches as a resource for testing security. According to Principal Nongongoma Majova-Seane, these cell phone holders are meant to prevent students from capturing or circulating any possible information on assessments that may invalidate an individual’s test. The holders help enforce the Student Code of Conduct rule that students must not use any sort of electronic medium when testing. As a result of their installation in classrooms, teachers now use the cell phone holders to reinforce this rule and prevent situations of cheating from occurring.
“I use the cell phone pouches on test days to discourage cheating,” said Mr. Michael Sims, a Stanton math teacher. “They are effective in removing distractions in the classroom; whether they are stopping kids from cheating, who knows?”
Unauthorized phone use is believed to be a prevalent issue within Stanton classrooms, but severe consequences arise when the presence of phones during testing is discovered. To prevent the possibility of disrupting the testing or classroom environment, some teachers had previously stepped upon an idea to provide a place where phones could be out-of-reach from students, taking initiative to provide it in their classroom.
“Last year, I had these students that were constantly obsessing over their fantasy basketball rosters and so it struck me to be a solution to that problem,” said Mr. Ben Mackay, a AP US History and IB Contemporary History. “I anticipated it would solve multiple issues at once to get rid of distractions: basketball rosters and games, Snapchat and the potential for cheating.”
Although the cell phone holders are mainly used during testing, some teachers use them rarely or not at all.
“I don’t think I use them as much as I should or could use them because I think it is a really important skill for our students to learn to be responsible users of personal technology,” said Mr. Benjamin Yadon, a Stanton English teacher. “It will be a reality outside of our school so it should be a part of what we should instill in our students.”
Although technology can be seen as a disturbance in classes, electronic devices can enable students to apply and develop skills in various job fields, such as broadcasting and programming. One ISTE standard for students states that students use technology to “seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.” Filming and editing are some of the skills students develop to produce unique videos that display their creative outlet.
“In the last two projects we did in [film] class, we had to use unedited footage with no dialogue to tell our story,” said senior Gabriella Eyler. “We used many different camera shots and angles to convey different emotions and attitudes in story.”
Phones and computers allow people to do efficient work, compared to using paper and pencil. However, the ability to retain knowledge typed on a device versus writing it down by hand creates a difference in how long-term it becomes. In a 2014 psychological study conducted by Pam Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel Oppenheimer of the University of California, Los Angeles, it was found that students who utilized computers to take notes were more likely to type verbatim of what they saw but weaker to comprehend and recall information than those who wrote things down. Although electronic devices are used for efficient work, students find that writing things down a more effective learning process.
“Even though I am encouraged to print out PowerPoint slides from online for my physics class, I feel it’s best to learn when I’m writing things out versus having it already there” said junior Skylar Mazza. “I’d rather have my brain think what I’m writing rather than mindlessly looking over something already done for me.”
Assignments and methods of learning have become increasingly digitized as more people become acclimated to technology. But even without technology, students can still acquire and develop knowledge. Nevertheless, the reliance of technology grows with each new generation and so do the advancements of technological mediums. Despite the technological boundaries that students encounter almost every day, ethical guidelines are what students have to develop in any sort of medium they may obtain.
This story appeared in Volume 34, Issue 2 of the Devil's Advocate, published in December 2017. Read the full issue here.