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School Laptops Do Security Blocks Make Them Less Effective?

Posted on: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 03:00 CDT

By Samantha Barton and Kelsey Bryant William Byrd High School and Cave Spring High School

It's old news that high schools in Roanoke County issued all their students laptops. However, this year, some students feel there are far more restrictions and security blocks than in the past.

The original purpose of laptops was to aid students in their school environment, to take notes faster and more efficiently, to have online research at hand and to give students more experience in dealing with technology. However, administrators feel laptops are constantly being misused by students. By increasing restrictions, computer administrators are simply trying to redirect students toward the correct purpose of the laptops.

But how far is too far? How many Web sites can contain security blocks before the computers become useless to the students?

Currently, students are unable to search sites with words referring to anything illegal or non-school related. The majority of e-mail and game sites are blocked, as are all games that were previously installed on the computer by the administrator. In addition to these newly enforced regulations, the laptops also lack floppy drives because administrators are worried viruses could be uploaded on the laptops through floppy disks.

In the meantime, the restrictions leave students unable to save documents and papers on disks and transport them to other sources.

"It's just a hassle to not be able to save things [on floppy disks] and print on other computers," said Mark Givens, a junior at William Byrd High School.

The security blocks and restrictions were instituted with good intentions. However, the blocks can present obstacles when trying to research information or transport documents through e-mail or floppy disks.

"I think the restrictions get in the way of everything, even school-related things," said Abby Austin, a Cave Spring High School junior. "They make the computers much slower and much less effective."

In addition to presenting obstacles in research and document transport, the security blocks cause logging on to be much slower. Students say it takes several minutes for the computers to load and recognize all the restrictions. Teachers and students alike sometimes grow impatient when class time is used waiting for the laptops to boot. Most teachers say it's easier for students to turn on computers at the beginning of class and finish other assignments while waiting for the laptops to boot.

"If there are problems [with the laptops] we can deal with them," said Holley Wakeland, an Advanced Placement English teacher at William Byrd. "The problem could be feasibly solved by the end of the day."

Source: Roanoke Times & World News

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