Another school day of video games

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How was school son?

It was great we play video games on our Chromebooks almost all the day.

This keeps happening - we complain and get some nice words and then it happens again. Does no one care?

The kids do the minimum work and required and then back to games!

ARGGHHHHH

Reason number 263,262,945 your kids need to be in private or parochial schools or even homeschooling is better than this.

It's way better to deal with lack of academic challenge in elementary (it's the same in private and public, BTW), rather than throw money out of the window to pay for private. Maybe privates have less screen times, but the academics aren't better.

We tried both. I know. Now my kids are older, and we are very happy that we mostly stuck to MCPS publics, even with chromebook use. We invested the money we didn't spend on private and can now spend more on things that actually matter.

Then you weren't in the right private. They are not all created equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher here in MCPS and I think Chromebooks shouldn’t be issued until like 10th grade at the earliest. I can’t issue pencil and paper work anymore in 9th grade because 80% of the kids are incapable of writing small and neat enough to fit more than 4 words into a space designed for like three sentences. Probably 50% cant write anything actually legible.

This is absolutely frightening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

Huh, weird. I know nothing about MCPS middle school but in ES there is a ton of writing on paper... I wonder how they go from being able to do that in 5th to losing it by 9th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

Huh, weird. I know nothing about MCPS middle school but in ES there is a ton of writing on paper... I wonder how they go from being able to do that in 5th to losing it by 9th?

Wait a minute, now that I think of it, last year and this year's 9th graders would have been virtual in 3rd&4th or 4th&5th, right? Which is right when you really dig into writing longer work on paper-- earlier than that it's mostly short sentences, and I get the sense that a lot of the writing shifts over to computers by middle school. So this might just be a blip, and future classes who got more of that 3rd-5th grade time actually writing on paper will be better off? Because otherwise it's super puzzling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

Huh, weird. I know nothing about MCPS middle school but in ES there is a ton of writing on paper... I wonder how they go from being able to do that in 5th to losing it by 9th?

In Elementary School they probably still have nice little folders and organizational skills. By Middle and HS, every piece of paper is shoved into a backpack with zero regard for keeping it secure or orderly. Heck, some of my kids don't even have backpacks and they literally fold all of thier assignments up and shove them into their jacket pockets.

[Anonymous]

Can you purchase a Chromebook for your son to use and add parental locks to the browser and apps you don't want him to use?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher here in MCPS and I think Chromebooks shouldn’t be issued until like 10th grade at the earliest. I can’t issue pencil and paper work anymore in 9th grade because 80% of the kids are incapable of writing small and neat enough to fit more than 4 words into a space designed for like three sentences. Probably 50% cant write anything actually legible.

This is absolutely frightening.

Not really… handwriting is an antiquated skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

Huh, weird. I know nothing about MCPS middle school but in ES there is a ton of writing on paper... I wonder how they go from being able to do that in 5th to losing it by 9th?

Wait a minute, now that I think of it, last year and this year's 9th graders would have been virtual in 3rd&4th or 4th&5th, right? Which is right when you really dig into writing longer work on paper-- earlier than that it's mostly short sentences, and I get the sense that a lot of the writing shifts over to computers by middle school. So this might just be a blip, and future classes who got more of that 3rd-5th grade time actually writing on paper will be better off? Because otherwise it's super puzzling.

DP. It's not a blip. Current third and fourth graders are doing their longer writing on computers too, and there's no quality instruction on how to form letters for kindergartners before that. The only reason my fourth grader's handwriting is legible is because we devote daily time to it at home, and we have to keep that up as maintenance because there isn't enough writing in school to serve as practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you purchase a Chromebook for your son to use and add parental locks to the browser and apps you don't want him to use?

MCPS policy is that students are not allowed to use non-MCPS issued chromebooks and computers in school as they violate the PMD policy. If you bought a computer at home, they couldn't use it in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you purchase a Chromebook for your son to use and add parental locks to the browser and apps you don't want him to use?

I assume not. We asked our kid’s guidance counselor if there was any way to add additional parental controls to the McPS laptop and she connected us with the school IT guy who said no.

They’re not going to take privately purchased computers and hook them up with all the McPS applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

Huh, weird. I know nothing about MCPS middle school but in ES there is a ton of writing on paper... I wonder how they go from being able to do that in 5th to losing it by 9th?

Wait a minute, now that I think of it, last year and this year's 9th graders would have been virtual in 3rd&4th or 4th&5th, right? Which is right when you really dig into writing longer work on paper-- earlier than that it's mostly short sentences, and I get the sense that a lot of the writing shifts over to computers by middle school. So this might just be a blip, and future classes who got more of that 3rd-5th grade time actually writing on paper will be better off? Because otherwise it's super puzzling.

DP. It's not a blip. Current third and fourth graders are doing their longer writing on computers too, and there's no quality instruction on how to form letters for kindergartners before that. The only reason my fourth grader's handwriting is legible is because we devote daily time to it at home, and we have to keep that up as maintenance because there isn't enough writing in school to serve as practice.

.

I mean, any kind of multi-paragraph stuff writing is definitely on computers for my 4th grader, but I feel like there's a fair amount of multi-sentence short answers on worksheets and in workbooks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP sounds like the sort of parent who doesn't let their kid play video games at home. It makes sense that their kid would binge on games at school whenever he has the chance.

NP here and when I complain the school blames me for allowing video games at home. You blame parents for not allowing them.

It’s almost like what parents do at home doesn’t matter and the Chromebooks themselves are the problem.

? I don't believe you, because that doesn't make any sense. However, the previous point does make sense, because kids who feel deprived often go out of their way to access TV/video games when they don't get it at home.

Chromebooks ARE the problem. But this isn't likely to change any time soon, so you'd better deal with it. I provided enrichment at home, because no primary school, public or private will ever cater to precocious kids. By secondary, the whole screen issue went away because when kids are in advanced classes they do actual work, which means that when they have free time, nobody begrudges them some goofing off.

PP here and even if you don’t believe me, that’s the meeting I had with the principal at the middle school. She expected me to be able to get my kid to stop playing video games on his Chromebook in the school building, even though I didn’t control the device/ the WiFi and I wasn’t physically there. Suggesting that the school shouldn’t give him a device that wasn’t safe meant that I was a rich white jerk refusing to parent her child (who has strong grades and no discipline issues). He only plays games after he finishes his work which takes about two seconds in most classes and six seconds in the two enriched/accelerated classes offered.

We do enrich at home, actually. That’s why middle school is boring and games are more fun (although both those things would probably be true anyway). But that doesn’t solve the fact that the middle school is an actual waste of time, and removing Chromebooks or reducing use would help at least make it more engaging.

https://www.scrolling2death.com/post/ai-or-opt-out-how-one-mom-took-her-kids-off-school-chromebooks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

I have a 9th grade kid who has dysgraphia. He has a 504 so he can type and when I asked if the school could provide OT for handwriting all the way back in elementary pre pandemic, I was told no (he’d need an IEP for that and he was not eligible because his grades and scores were high). Neighbors told me middle school was all typed/on Chromebook. Then the pandemic hit and end of 3rd plus 4th/5th were also now typed on Chromebook. Now in 9th, teachers are going back to paper because of concerns about chatgpt. But I find it really upsetting that you, as a teacher, are so unsupportive of kids whose handwriting was never addressed through school and who may not have a parent like me who sought accommodations or knew of this disability. I encourage you to give kids the benefit of the doubt. If you can’t read something, ask them to tell you what they wrote. Or refer them to the interventions/counseling team if it is obviously a roadblock that is a potential disability getting in their way. The way you speak about your students is lacking in respect and rife with judgement. I hope my kids’ teachers have more patience than you (since you say you don’t have it) and help support and mitigate any known deficits discovered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You also greatly overestimate the power teachers have over controlling this. We don't have the ability to block websites. We can send links to IT and they can eventually block them in like 7-10 days. By then, the kids have found 3 new sites they use and you're blocking a site they won't ever access anyway.

To make it worse, the kids at my middle school realized that they could put the links inside of google doc pages and they were almost undetectable because anytime you checked a browser history it came up as Google Docs. They also used them as live chat rooms that could be accessed by any student in the county.

As a co-teacher, I do my best when I am not leading class, I monitor lightspeed from time to time and I shut down and lock students screens whenever they are not staying on task. I can't do this 100% of the time though.

Is there a reason they have to have the computers open in the first place? Is it mandated by MCPS to use a curriculum that involves computer use? If not, can't the teacher just have them do assignments on paper?

As I mentioned before, as a 9th grade teacher, I would love to do more paper and pencil work but these kids have zero ability to neatly and legibly write. I have 15 year old kids who cannot write within lines or accurately space their writing to fit in the assigned spaces. Also, they will misspell probably 50% of the words at a minimum. When students do actually do paperwork, I have no shame in admitting the kids typically score 20-30% lower than if it were typed because If I can't read it, it's automatically wrong. No explanation. No questions. Just a zero for the question.

Then there is the fact that they are all too irresponsible to actually keep and maintain paper assignments. Half of them get lost and the other half are turned in folded, ripped, and crumpled up. I take off points for that too.

Doing the assignments on the computer removes all of the human errors and elements that these kids simply weren't taught prior to HS and I don't have the patience to teach to them now.

I have a 9th grade kid who has dysgraphia. He has a 504 so he can type and when I asked if the school could provide OT for handwriting all the way back in elementary pre pandemic, I was told no (he’d need an IEP for that and he was not eligible because his grades and scores were high). Neighbors told me middle school was all typed/on Chromebook. Then the pandemic hit and end of 3rd plus 4th/5th were also now typed on Chromebook. Now in 9th, teachers are going back to paper because of concerns about chatgpt. But I find it really upsetting that you, as a teacher, are so unsupportive of kids whose handwriting was never addressed through school and who may not have a parent like me who sought accommodations or knew of this disability. I encourage you to give kids the benefit of the doubt. If you can’t read something, ask them to tell you what they wrote. Or refer them to the interventions/counseling team if it is obviously a roadblock that is a potential disability getting in their way. The way you speak about your students is lacking in respect and rife with judgement. I hope my kids’ teachers have more patience than you (since you say you don’t have it) and help support and mitigate any known deficits discovered.

Sounds like you identified an issue for your child and completely ignored it on your end and instead are forcing teachers to pick up the slack for your poor parenting at home. Writing workbooks are very cheap and easy to find.

[Anonymous]

When I was in 4th grade back in the 90s, I broke my dominant hand and rather than just say "oh well" my parents made me practice writing with my other hand at home until I could do it well enough to be legible. Schools didn't have to adjust for me. Parents stepped up and did it so I wouldn't struggle.