Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop generalizing. All MCPS teachers can monitor what each student is doing on their laptop at any given time. They can then block any site they choose remotely. My 15 year old daughter has seen it in action this year, and last year, and as far back as she can remember.

At Westland and BCC, teachers enforce that pretty systematically. Sometimes when the teacher is distracted, a kid gets through, but it's not at all the free-for-all you're claiming it is.

If your kid is telling you that everyone is watching whatever they want, take it with a grain of salt: perhaps that teacher allows it when kids finish their work. Perhaps that teacher doesn't know how to use the blocking software, or doesn't care.

My daughter likes to access the Sora library on her chromebook to read in class, and usually teachers let her. Sometimes they block it when they want everyone to pay attention to an announcement.

These excuses are maddening. I want teachers to focus on teaching. I don't want them to have to spend their time policing the screens.

Best option is more classroom class time and homework on paper and in discussions without screens altogether.

PP you replied to. If you want to go back to pen and paper, I am all for it, because research has shown that humans retain more information when they handwrite than when they type.

But let's not conflate various topics. I just want you to stop catastrophizing. My kids have gone through their MCPS education without getting distracted by websites in class, they've been able to follow teacher directions, and teachers have not expressed any problems with blocking Youtube or whatever else. It's much easier to do that policing phone use (which they don't have to do anymore). And I promise you that in high school, when your kid is juggling 4 AP classes every year, they're not going to want to do something else than listen to the teachers!

Bottom line - blocking websites in class is not the big deal you think it is.

But yeah, pen and paper sounds great. I taught my kids cursive when they were little. It would be a great idea, but alas, I don't think the world is moving that way at all.

Anonymous wrote:Stop generalizing. All MCPS teachers can monitor what each student is doing on their laptop at any given time. They can then block any site they choose remotely. My 15 year old daughter has seen it in action this year, and last year, and as far back as she can remember.

At Westland and BCC, teachers enforce that pretty systematically. Sometimes when the teacher is distracted, a kid gets through, but it's not at all the free-for-all you're claiming it is.

If your kid is telling you that everyone is watching whatever they want, take it with a grain of salt: perhaps that teacher allows it when kids finish their work. Perhaps that teacher doesn't know how to use the blocking software, or doesn't care.

My daughter likes to access the Sora library on her chromebook to read in class, and usually teachers let her. Sometimes they block it when they want everyone to pay attention to an announcement.

These excuses are maddening. I want teachers to focus on teaching. I don't want them to have to spend their time policing the screens.

Best option is more classroom class time and homework on paper and in discussions without screens altogether.

You cannot and kids find work arounds.

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone interested in pushing MCPS / BOE to get google to actually block YouTube?!

MCPS/BOE need to support teachers in shifting away from online work. We've seen some of this in the past two years. Teachers need to be given the time and resources to do more of this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a PGCPS teacher. We have hapara. It means that we can push out to students Chromebooks the exact and only website they can use with everything else being frozen. We also, as teachers, can choose not to use Chromebooks in our lessons or assignments. I am sure MCPS is similar. Therefore, it is teacher dependent.

This sounds really helpful!

My understanding is that MCPS used to have a better management system called GoGuardian but then dropped it to save money in favor of something worse called Lightspeed: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/1181712.page ... don't know how either of those compare to Hapara or other options.

But honestly spending a frw hundred thousand dollars for a system that actually works seems well worth it to me. Kids being able to access unapproved websites during class can just absolutely tank the amount of learning that happens...

Lightspeed does the job. It allows a teacher to see what the kids are doing on their chromebooks in real time, and block whatever site they're using.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop generalizing. All MCPS teachers can monitor what each student is doing on their laptop at any given time. They can then block any site they choose remotely. My 15 year old daughter has seen it in action this year, and last year, and as far back as she can remember.

At Westland and BCC, teachers enforce that pretty systematically. Sometimes when the teacher is distracted, a kid gets through, but it's not at all the free-for-all you're claiming it is.

If your kid is telling you that everyone is watching whatever they want, take it with a grain of salt: perhaps that teacher allows it when kids finish their work. Perhaps that teacher doesn't know how to use the blocking software, or doesn't care.

My daughter likes to access the Sora library on her chromebook to read in class, and usually teachers let her. Sometimes they block it when they want everyone to pay attention to an announcement.

Your privilege is showing- Westland and BCC are very different places to where kids go!

Teachers allow kids to zombie out on YouTube at our school- as at least it stops them throwing chairs!! It basically just sedation!!

Yeah, now you just sound insane. Stop using such dramatic language, it makes you lose all credibility.

Bethesda is not on a different planet than other MCPS locations. If you think there's a problem in one of your child's classes, you contact the teacher first, then you go up the chain to the Principal, and you remind them that parents want teachers to block these sites. But what you're describing seems like a choice on the part of that particular teacher. MPCS has given teachers all the tools to block everything on Chromebooks and to my knowledge, all the teachers know how to use them!

Anonymous wrote:I am a PGCPS teacher. We have hapara. It means that we can push out to students Chromebooks the exact and only website they can use with everything else being frozen. We also, as teachers, can choose not to use Chromebooks in our lessons or assignments. I am sure MCPS is similar. Therefore, it is teacher dependent.

This sounds really helpful!

My understanding is that MCPS used to have a better management system called GoGuardian but then dropped it to save money in favor of something worse called Lightspeed: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/1181712.page ... don't know how either of those compare to Hapara or other options.

But honestly spending a frw hundred thousand dollars for a system that actually works seems well worth it to me. Kids being able to access unapproved websites during class can just absolutely tank the amount of learning that happens...

Anonymous wrote:Stop generalizing. All MCPS teachers can monitor what each student is doing on their laptop at any given time. They can then block any site they choose remotely. My 15 year old daughter has seen it in action this year, and last year, and as far back as she can remember.

At Westland and BCC, teachers enforce that pretty systematically. Sometimes when the teacher is distracted, a kid gets through, but it's not at all the free-for-all you're claiming it is.

If your kid is telling you that everyone is watching whatever they want, take it with a grain of salt: perhaps that teacher allows it when kids finish their work. Perhaps that teacher doesn't know how to use the blocking software, or doesn't care.

My daughter likes to access the Sora library on her chromebook to read in class, and usually teachers let her. Sometimes they block it when they want everyone to pay attention to an announcement.

Your privilege is showing- Westland and BCC are very different places to where kids go!

Teachers allow kids to zombie out on YouTube at our school- as at least it stops them throwing chairs!! It basically just sedation!!

Can teachers just have the laptops be put away when they're not supposed to be in use for class?

Anonymous wrote:What does the principal at your school say? Also meet with the teacher leadership team.

Principal is on my side - but they have no power to change things. All they can do is ask teachers to observe kids more. MCPS is setting them all up to fail.

I am a PGCPS teacher. We have hapara. It means that we can push out to students Chromebooks the exact and only website they can use with everything else being frozen. We also, as teachers, can choose not to use Chromebooks in our lessons or assignments. I am sure MCPS is similar. Therefore, it is teacher dependent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am thinking of testifying at BOE and showing everyone the work around the kids all know for YouTube.

Will they let me present a MCPS computer?

A screen recording through video testimony as you walk through some of the workarounds would be the best way to show that.

Ooh, I love this. Please do it, PP!