Students in Los Angeles and Indiana wasted no time in cracking the security codes on their iPads and going to sites that were supposedly off-limits, like games, Facebook, and other social media.

Who says our students are not smart?

Categories Education Reform, Technology, Computers

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Mary says:

September 24, 2013 at 10:27 pm

Gotta love it! Next step……hack the tests? Better yet, mess with the data system. Who says kids lack critical thinking skills?

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Chiara says:

September 24, 2013 at 10:35 pm

This is why Pennsylvania will offer online courses to 6th graders who attend brick and mortar schools:

Acting Education Secretary Carolyn Dumaresq noted many colleges now offer online courses.
“This will help our children to get read for consuming that type of education when they get to higher education,” Dumaresq said.

Couldn’t they do better than that? I think I could come up with a better reason, and I’m not an Acting Education Secretary.

They have to take online courses to prepare for taking online courses. Does she know any 6th graders? By the time those 6th graders get to college they’ll have spent YEARS online. What special skills does she imagine online students need, that they have to start practicing in 6th grade for their cyber college?

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- Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:
  
  September 24, 2013 at 10:56 pm
  
  Horrors!
  
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- teachingeconomist says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 12:05 am
  
  Depending on the student, an online class may be more appropriate than that offered in the brick and mortar schools. The classes offered by The Art of Problem Solving (http://www.artofproblemsolving.com) comes to mind, but I am sure there are others.
  
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- Dienne says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 6:07 am
  
  “This will help our children to get read for consuming that type of education when they get to higher education.”
  
  Yikes. I could write a graduate thesis on the problems in just that one sentence. Who are these twisted people who think like this?
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 6:55 am
  
  “. . . to get ready for consuming that type of education. . . ”
  
  If you don’t see the sickness in that statement, I pity you!
  
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- Mary Ollie says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 10:47 pm
  
  I teach online courses to college students. One does not need online courses in grade 6 to function in an online course in college. Dumb! I can teach any college student what they need to know to function online in an hour. What I cannot teach in that hour is self-discipline, imagination, creativity, and love of learning. Apparently acting education secretary has little or no teaching experience.
  
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educator says:

September 24, 2013 at 10:38 pm

More from LA Daily News. Roosevelt was one of three schools with the problem.

http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20130924/students-at-three-lausd-high-schools-access-unauthorized-sites-on-new-ipads

Please note that this article states that it’s up to the individual principal to decide if they’re going home or not. Huh????? What a horrible position that will put the principal in, especially if the parents find out that their child’s principal said “no” and another down the street said “yes”. Also, the whole idea that was used to sell the iPads to the school board was the issue of equality of opportunity for ALL students. Well, if the iPads don’t go home, that completely destroys that argument.

Superintendent Deasy and his cohorts Chandler and Loera(now minus Jaime Aquino), took a huge risk that somehow, the public would be hoodwinked before all these weaknesses and failures to plan properly were made public.

Who will be next on the chopping block? With Aquino gone, will it be Chandler or Loera? Or, maybe Deasy should step up to the plate and follow Tony Bennett’s lead and resign?

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- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 24, 2013 at 11:38 pm
  
  Well, if the iPads don’t go home–and if kids are not freely able to use them, I would add– that completely destroys that argument.
  
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- Joseph K. says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 2:16 am
  
  iPads going home for ALL students makes for equality? When poor parents have no wireless internet access (or any internet access) at home? How does letting all children take home their iPad lead to equality when a lack of proper infrastructure cuts poor people off, unlike their more affluent peers, from the world?
  
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Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

September 24, 2013 at 10:55 pm

Hooray!

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Ron Poirier says:

September 24, 2013 at 10:58 pm

People thinking the students aren’t smart — that’s funny, I came to the blog to post this in the home forum:

http://warwickonline.com/stories/NECAP-is-the-real-sideshow,85709?category_id=52&town_id=1&sub_type=stories

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- werebat73 says:
  
  September 24, 2013 at 11:00 pm
  
  The point being that there is a HUGE loophole in our state’s high stakes graduation requirement test that I have been pointing out for well over a year now. Today was the first time an administrator has done something other than pooh-pooh the issue when I bring it up — my principal took me aside and was very upset because he thought I had been teaching kids about the loophole! No, I had just been verifying that it was there when they asked. The kids aren’t dumb — they figured it out on their own.
  
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- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 24, 2013 at 11:37 pm
  
  A great piece, Ron. Very interesting.
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:00 am
  
  From the article:
  
  “These students tend to know who they are, as the first NECAP tests are administered as early as third grade.”
  
  Yep, a prime example of Foucault’s subjectivization, Hacking’s the looping effect and what I call internalization. One of the most insidious aspects of standardized testing.
  
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Paula says:

September 24, 2013 at 11:16 pm

People, your tax dollars at work. What next, visits to porn sites.

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- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 24, 2013 at 11:45 pm
  
  Many of the online adaptive learning programs in K-12 that I have seen over the past few years might as well be porn sites for all their educational value.
  
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  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    September 25, 2013 at 12:06 am
    
    I thought you liked The Art of Problem a solving. Have you changed your mind?
    
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:01 am
  
  “What next, visits to porn sites.”
  
  Well, maybe they’d learn some “real world” skills then!
  
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Robert D. Shepherd says:

September 24, 2013 at 11:31 pm

The value in the new technology is that it makes the whole world accessible. It HAS to be a pull medium to be of value, not a push medium. But turning it into a push medium serves the limited interests of those who just see this as a way to sell their canned stuff. Good for these kids.

Next, we shall be hearing that they are to be arrested as terrorists for hacking their devices. Such is the world we live in today.

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- Joseph K. says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 2:22 am
  
  Superintendent Deasy has already called for the development of progressive discipline policies for these terrorists. What will they do, take away their iPads? How will these terrorists take the oceans of VAM exams he has planned for them?
  
  How about if we make the children write standards using their iPads. Now THERE is an innovative use of technology! “No copy and pasting, boys and girls. If we catch you copying and pasting, we’ll double the number of standards you must write.”
  
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    September 25, 2013 at 7:03 am
    
    Were you schooled by nuns in a Catholic school?
    
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Robert D. Shepherd says:

September 24, 2013 at 11:44 pm

Here’s something of ENORMOUS value that we could do.

Buy a wi-fi-enabled iPad or equivalent machine and pay for a 3G connection for every kid who doesn’t have these. AND THEN, DO NOT REQUIRE THEIR USE FOR ANYTHING RELATED TO SCHOOL.

The consequences of this, given the disparity in access to computers today, would be enormous. (25% of kids have no computers at home; more than that have no Internet access. Poverty matters.)

Much has been made of the cost of these machines. And it’s a lot, certainly. But we could make the decision not to build ONE of several thousand weapons systems and never have to think about those costs again.

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- teachingeconomist says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 12:09 am
  
  That seems right and is the basis for the hole in the wall ideas of Sugata Mitra.
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:04 am
  
  What and take away the advantage that the advantaged already have. We’ll have none of that, mind you!
  
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Jenee Gossard says:

September 25, 2013 at 12:01 am

Oh, snap!!

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lellingw says:

September 25, 2013 at 12:13 am

There are so many limits put on iPads and computers in school that they become not useful for students. People decry censorship in books but other forms of censorship are considered Ok.

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Ellen Lubic says:

September 25, 2013 at 2:34 am

And you all thought I was crazy when I told you about things at LAUSD.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:06 am
  
  Nah, we didn’t think we knew!
  
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- Ron Poirier says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:57 am
  
  This is a time when more and more people who were previously thought to be crazy are turning out to have been right all along.
  
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Terri Rector Michal says:

September 25, 2013 at 4:15 am

The older kids here in Huntsville have laptops. They would put a new OS on a thumb drive and then redirect everything to go through it. The IT guy said that the kids were always a step ahead of him, they were running him RAGGED!

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Dan McConnell (@DMaxMJ) says:

September 25, 2013 at 4:59 am

If we open up the world to them we shouldn’t be surprised when they choose to explore, and occasionally confound the goals we have in favor of their own (sometimes less productive and possibly dangerous).

Wonder if we can common core their imagination and curiosity. Those things are hard to standardize and market-ize.

In a perfect world, there would be some calling, or profession where people educated to understand how children develop and learn in a variety of ways, and were able to connect to learners and communities would be more empowered to lead learners than machines and formulas.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:07 am
  
  With that last paragraph you’re getting all utopian on us!!
  
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Mom/speducator says:

September 25, 2013 at 6:24 am

I’ve reduced the time I use iPADS, they were becoming like crack with the kids perseverating on “are we using the IPADS?” . Back to old fashioned home made activities that allow for interaction and equal engagement, without the desire to get sucked in to that device.

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George Schmidt says:

September 25, 2013 at 6:50 am

Thanks for this. Here at the Schmidt House, we spent 30 days on the Grand Theft Auto V countdown. Since D-Day, one of our sons has been playing it as many hours as he can, reading Game Informer, and commenting to friends as he works out (a bit in the company of his little brother) the complexities of one of the greatest tours de force of graphics I’ve ever seen. Although Sam’s Mom and Dad are impatient to make sure he also (a) does his homework, (b) minimum chores, and (c) gets some exercise, that’s also gone well. Yesterday, he caught the entire game in a close loss, did his Science Fair work — and then rushed back to Grand Theft Auto V. Oh, and his number, which he understands, for all ball this season is “42.” We get both the Sandman notes and Jackie Robinson.

Any school system who thinks it can outwit a bunch of determined 12-year-olds when computers are involved is being as silly as those who believe that multiple choice testings measure anything but mindless mandates.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 7:10 am
  
  And they don’t measure mindless mandates all that well!! (Actually they don’t measure anything as they are not “measuring” devices)
  
  It’s the mindless who have been leading the clueless in the quest for the Holy Metrics Grail.
  
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    September 25, 2013 at 8:11 am
    
    Or is that Edumetrics Grail, KTA?
    
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- KrazyTA says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 12:22 pm
  
  I am shocked—SHOCKED AND DISMAYED!—Señor Duane Swacker, that you would play games with the Most Cagebusting EduExcellent EduMantras of the High Church of Holy EduMetrics! [there will be a computer-adaptive test on alliteration to follow]
  
  I am in high dudgeon right now and have a mind to put you in a low dungeon for that snippety remark. Rest assured that as long as plants grow [count on William L. Sanders to back me up on this] and as long as 98% of all teachers get a perfunctory ‘Satisfactory’ on their evaluations [Go, Bill Gates!], you will never—and I mean NEVER—
  
  Take your students from the 13th percentile to the 90th in anything until your attitude improves. [See that person standing behind me? Trust me, you don’t want to cross Michelle Rhee when she’s riding, er, using her broom and carrying a roll of masking tape in her super-heroine utility belt. I won’t go into details, but there’s blood involved…]
  
  Hold on, I’m getting an incoming from that famous Mexican superhero yesteryear, El Chapulín Colorado [The Red Grasshopper]… “Mis antenitas de vinyl están detectando la presencia del enemigo”/”My little antennae of vinyl are detecting the presence of the enemy.”
  
  Oops! I just realized I got a severely debilitating computer virus from one of those LAUSD iPads that students hacked into. Apparently I became vulnerable to a Rheeality Distortion Field and almost promised to buy another $1 billion dollars worth of iPads on behalf of the LAUSD.
  
  Sorry about that. It just seems that $tudent $ucce$$ infects everything it comes in contact with…
  
  🙂
  
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Shirley Ende-Saxe says:

September 25, 2013 at 7:36 am

You have to love them (the students)! When ever I hear “all students can learn” it reminds me of how limited some of our educational leaders have become. All students learn. Full stop. It’s up to us to be at least as smart (and one hopes, smarter) than they are or the outcome will be a toss-up.

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Chiara says:

September 25, 2013 at 7:41 am

Challenger in Michigan governor’s race calls for transparency and accountability in charter schools:

http://www.freep.com/article/20130905/OPINION05/309050100/mark-schauer-education-charter-schools-reform

He’s the first I’ve seen using this issue in a campaign. Michigan has a big for-profit K-12 industry at this point, they have whole districts that are completely privatized, so I’m not surprised it started there. It’s great to see that he’s talking about what they’re spending on advertising.

Should be interesting to see if this spreads to the neighboring big for-profit K-12 ed state, Ohio.

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KrazyTA says:

September 25, 2013 at 11:15 am

From the LATimes, 9-25-13, comments on the iPad article linked below:

“The numb nuts in charge didn’t see this one coming?”

“ah, that’s the LAUSD we know and love. Seriously? Who sat at that boardroom table and didn’t think thsi [sic] would happen? So sad. I’m speechless.” (brackets mine)

“Boondoggle. At least the LAUSD Administration didn’t do something silly with that money, like wasting it repairing buildings.”

Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-lausd-ipads-20130925,0,906924.story

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Emmy says:

September 25, 2013 at 12:01 pm

Ha ha ha. But, seriously, I wouldn’t get too excited about this. It was probably a cabal of a few students who figured it out and then passed it on to their friends, who passed it on to their friends.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 25, 2013 at 3:46 pm
  
  Remember it only takes just one. Just say no!
  
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