[AVReidy]

modi123_1, on 27 February 2013 - 05:10 PM, said:

Quote

I was once suspended for installing eclipse on a school PC. I think the principal thought I was attempting to hack something.
...
but the Dells we have are so irrevocably locked up that I had to physically tamper with the hardware to install Linux. It's just sad that despite the push for "technology" at schools to aid learning, coding is discouraged and even punished out of pure ignorance. It's like being punished for doing useful math.

... or you know the physical tampering of school property. Typically an inschool or suspension worthy event.

Well... that was a covert operation that took place a few months after the eclipse incident. It's weird cause I didn't get in trouble for finding the Windows 7 admin account password (which is by default not set) by accident and installing a ton of random programs including Visual Studio. Didn't even get a slap on the wrist for that because my mom called and asked for my computer back a month after it was confiscated. Anyway, I wasn't as foolish when I installed Linux, so I didn't get caught. (I would have probably been expelled had they caught me. You know how retarded authority figures are when it comes to technology -- they blow shit the fuck out of proportion.) I was a little paranoid after installing it, so I wiped it and went to school the next day and played dumb to the help desk guy.

"...Hey, my computer crashed (wink wink)..."
"Ok, come back tomorrow."
~relief~

This post has been edited by AVReidy: 27 February 2013 - 03:24 PM

[modi123_1]

I had trouble following that story.. so.. what? You installed linux, removed it, and then purposefully broke your machine so the tech monkey could run a repair/reinstall on it?

[lordofduct]

Sorry to tell ya AVReidy, but tampering or altering school computers to make them do something the school doesn't intend them to do... is hacking.

Ohhhhh yeah, you're one of those kids who go to a school where they give you a computer for home use or something.

Or am I thinking of someone else?

[AVReidy]

I had to wipe some BIOS memory by removing a battery for a minute to remove the CD boot restrictions. Once I got Linux working, I was a little freaked out that I would get caught, so I just sent it to the help desk the next day and pretended the failure to boot was just a routine hard drive crash. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could put Linux on the laptop if I wanted to. And lordofduct, if I'm not mistaken it's pretty common for schools to distribute laptops to students these days.

[jon.kiparsky]

AVReidy, on 27 February 2013 - 05:02 PM, said:

What's really screwed up is that our school gives every student a laptop (my public school district was actually an early adopter with this -- we had Steve Jobs come and speak to the directors when every student was given a Mac) but the Dells we have are so irrevocably locked up that I had to physically tamper with the hardware to install Linux. It's just sad that despite the push for "technology" at schools to aid learning, coding is discouraged and even punished out of pure ignorance. It's like being punished for doing useful math.

AVReidy, you are absolutely required to watch this video. Then share it with everyone at your school.
http://youtu.be/RDgN6kNrNMc

You'll understand why about 5 minutes in.
(and it just gets better and better as it goes on)


EDIT: media tags don't seem to like me, sorry...

This post has been edited by jon.kiparsky: 27 February 2013 - 10:11 PM

[wordswords]

In the UK, I went to the equivalent of a 'magnet school' in the US. We were taught programming, in fact it was my main introduction to programming and I loved it. Currently we are in the process of restructuring our IT/CS curriculum in the UK. It is important to have a secondary school grounding in CS, but currently our schools are only set to give a basic IT introduction (how to use MS Word, Excel etc). The government want to change that, to bring in 'real' CS. However the school tutors are not prepared to teach CS, and are not qualified in it. Hopefully that will change..

[creativecoding]

My only worry would be what the schools are teaching. Who's to say if they're teaching the correct things and are hiring the correct people?

I've complained about it before around here, but I took two classes - one being a "college level" course that cost quite a large sum of money. And it was both horrible. It didn't teach anybody anything, it was essentially "copy and paste this code or you get an F". One of our assignments was to make a 2d video game and I wrote up a small little engine that'd make it easier for me in the long run. My teacher said she couldn't understand it and I was marked down. Her exact words being that my assignment was to copy the code, not do "whatever this is" (even though it completed the original assignment that contained no specification to use the demos provided).

Oh and Google Chrome's data-mining spyware requiring you to reimage the school's machines - but that's another story.


So while I totally support teaching programming in schools, I also worry about the standards. I'm afraid it can do more harm than good to some students who will either go into the world thinking programming is merely drag-and-drop block elements, or it's all about the copy/paste (and we all know how that works out). I'll have to remain undecided on the poll.

[AVReidy]

Congrats to Martyr2 on his related blog post featured on Hacker News. I read it and said, "Hey, that avatar looks familiar." I would feel like a boss if seeing my thread's title had anything to do with Martyr's decision to write that.

This post has been edited by AVReidy: 01 March 2013 - 09:49 PM

[Magiculs]

OP I completely understand you, it's like... "no I don't want you coming and programming when I have put so much time and effort in to learn" I have no idea how to explain the feeling man, but I understand you.

[lordofduct]

We all empathize with the feeling. It's called jealousy. It's a very normal human reaction to feel protecting and exclusionary about things you worked hard at.

We're just saying, get over it.