Last week, a student at Big Spring High School in Newville, Pennsylvania was given detention for using Firefox on a school computer. Quoted below is the key explanation from the official detention writeup: Posted on 12/17/2007 11:41:53 AM PST by twntaipan
Last week, a student at Big Spring High School in Newville, Pennsylvania was given detention for using Firefox on a school computer. Quoted below is the key explanation from the official detention writeup:
“Today in class [name] had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told [name] to close the program and to resume work but he told me that is was just a different browser and that he was doing his work. I had given him two warnings but he insisted that it was just a ‘better’ browser and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had then issued his detention.”
I’m sure whether I should laugh or cry. It says so much about the state of technical education, respect for authority, what passes for civil disobedience and–of course–the all-consuming corporate hegemony of Microsoft. We live in a strange world.
Once again, hat tip to my buddy Lizard for the heads up.
Once upon a time, there was a program called “NCSA Mosaic” ...
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Man, does that brings back memories.
I use Avant quite a bit these days myself.
re: this policy, curious if students or parents are required to sign a contract that specifies a specific browser only.
It is likely that the kid brought his own flash drive and plugged it into the USB port. The advantage is that you can run your own browser app, which retains your own personal links and history. So, if you are working on a school project and need to remember a link when you get home, you don’t have to write it out. Also, you can save all your personal work and keep it with you in a pretty secure format.
Of course, other advantages include the ability to bypass any security put on IE and IE itself for that matter. It is simply a bonus to make your teacher look stupid at your tech savvyness.
Let's see, the teacher told the kid to use a different browser, he refused. The teacher gave him TWO more warnings, the kid still refused, then the teacher gave him detention.
The kid got detention for being DISOBEDIENT, this has ALWAYS happened in schools (in years past it happened much more frequently and was generally more severe) and through history the reasons behind it have often seemed trivial (chewing gum in class, etc.).
No. Each machine must have at least one account with admin rights. As IT/admin, you log on and can create user accounts with various levels of authority. So create a generic user profile or one per student, and only give them that user name and password. That was the way it was always done on mainframe systems and it worked just fine.
I finally changed to Firefox and like it much better than IE, except my Hotmail inbox doesn’t format as well.
I had told [name] to close the program {firefox} and to resume work
The "teacher" is unaware, here, that the "work" could be done using a program other than "explorer".
I have no problem with the school Admin limiting what software/browsers can be run on thier computer. The scary things are:
1) The school IT department apparently doesn’t know how to set up thier computers to prevent users from installing unauthorized software.
2) The teacher in question didn’t have a clue what Firefox was, even though computers (and internet browsing) are apparently being used as a learning tool in thier class.
It’s not that they were wrong for giving out the detention... it’s just sad the level of ignorance they displayed WHILE handing out the detention.
Thanks. While all the potential IT policy violations given here are legit, it looks like this happened specifically because the teacher is a moron and the kid has little patience for morons.
Kid had better hope he doesn’t join the military though. Even when they tell you something stupid, you do it.
If the kid didn’t install Firefox (not impossible, but not likely in a school; if he could install a program on a school computer, the school has a serious IT problem), and if he was told to use the Internet to do research, he didn’t do enough to warrant suspension.
The assignment wasn’t to use Internet Explorer; it was to do research on the Internet.
You were preparing to talk to a group of high school students?
<}B^)
-then of course it would be alright.
That is the bottom line.
Teacher told student not to ________ on school property. Student argued and continued to ________ on school property. Teacher gave student detention. Fill in the blank with anything, but what goes in the blank isn't the point.
I would have considered that a great victory. Still feel that way, 35 years later.
And the kid was told THREE TIMES not to use Firefox before he was given detention. All he needed to do was close Firefox and use IE. The ONLY issue that matters is that the kid was disobedient, the teacher's lack of tech savvy has nothing to do with it.
I wonder what the reaction would be if it was reversed. What if the kid was using IE, but was supposed to be using Firefox. My guess is that the story wouldn't have gotten a bit of notice.
He might as well get used to the real world where it goes from God to Sys Adms to peons.
That alone speaks volumes about the competence of the school administrators. If you don’t want students installing software, don’t put install privileges in their accounts.
Firefox is essentially an updated Netscape. Both browsers are derived from Mozilla.
Right!!!!
Well I was never malicious, but I did get to know all the girls well, when they found out I could customize their Apple II boot disks to give them each their own nice little personalized graphical welcome. :->
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