In the past 63 days, I’ve seen the message “blocked by administration” more than I thought was possible. Trying to go to schoology…“blocked by administration.” Trying to listen to music after classwork…“blocked by administration,” and even trying to access a document that my actual teacher has given me…you guessed it…“blocked by administration!”
Certain restrictions are necessary to keep kids safe and make sure they aren’t getting distracted by their technology, but this has gone too far. Many students may have noticed that this year there have been a lot more restrictions on our school computers. Some examples of websites that are blocked are crosswords, news sites, digital break out rooms, the app Parlay (an educational site), and YouTube. Not only has this been affecting students, but teachers as well. Educators try to send students links to educational sites, but they hardly ever work. So much work has to be done just to make sure students are on task, when in reality, even if they can’t go on bad sites on their chromebook, they’re going to on their phone and do the exact same thing. I think that to resolve this issue the school should take certain restrictions off of our computer. Along with the restriction issue, many apps and websites have not been working correctly. It is a much longer process to get to Powerschool now, and there are almost always complications. Not all kids are experiencing this issue, but myself and some others have had to deal with this. I almost always have to click, “sign in with Google” and proceed to login at least four or five times before being able to access my document that I usually need to follow with a teacher.
The main issue with these restrictions is kids trying to find busywork when they have their classwork done, such as a word game, an online puzzle, or music to listen to with their earbuds while waiting. When students run into these restrictions, the first thing they automatically do is take out their phone. First off, this is a problem because students are already on their phones too much and should be focusing on something to better their brain instead of spending it on social media (which is what students are most likely to do when on their cellphones). The other reason this aspect is bad is because it reflects poorly on the school. When a visitor walks in and sees all of the students on their phones, that doesn’t look great.
Teachers have actually been using computers less and less just so they don’t run into these common issues with the school’s restrictions. In classes, paper and pencils are being used more commonly than computers now, along with teachers having SmartPass kiosks so that students aren’t on their computer for five minutes just trying to make a pass, or going to a website that their teacher has provided them with, but somehow still being blocked by administration.
In conclusion, let kids listen to music, access a school document, and check their grades without being bombarded with “blocked by administration” 18 times.
