Silenced Screens: Dozens of Apps and Sites Have Been Blocked This Year

Zac Cross, Staff Reporter

As they continue to settle back into their school routines, most students have now discovered the frightening truth: Netflix and Spotify are no longer loading, and Twitter feeds and Tumblr blogs have stopped refreshing. These changes have left disgruntled students with no other option than to learn and pay attention in class — which is the exact intended effect.

These and many other new apps have been blocked on the student network effective with the beginning of this school year. Restrictions mainly target any sites or apps that the school has deemed distracting, including Spotify, Pandora, and Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Yik Yak, Whisper, Omegle, and Kik Messenger.

In addition to wanting to encourage student attentiveness in class, a secondary factor is the amount of network traffic that has been taking place due to streaming.

Mr. Heinick, La Salle’s Director of Technology, confirmed that the new blocked apps are the result of decisions made by him, Mr. Kuffner, Mr. Devine, and Ms. Powell, and emphasized that this move was made to address two main concerns: student distractions, and costs of an overburdened network.

According to the Mr. Heinick, parents, teachers, and students “felt it would be helpful to have fewer distractions in class” and have asked for help in limiting these interruptions, resulting in the new network blocks. This has come after several years of exploring the advantages and the drawbacks of using iPads.  Using recommendations from the website commonsensemedia.org, apps that have been deemed “distracting”  include the social media giants Twitter and Instagram.

This being said, many of the apps that can be distractions for students also carry educational value. Even though apps such as Instagram and Twitter are notorious go-to’s for students who want to hone their procrastination skills, these apps have also proved to be beneficial in some classes around the school. Teachers have regained access to blocked apps by contacting and explaining to Mr. Heinick why they need a specific app in their classroom. Mr. Heinick then edits the network setting for a specific class to tailor to the teacher’s needs. This process is the result of the school’s decision to start off with a fairly restrictive list of blocked sites and then “pull back the blanket as needed”

When asked about her opinion on the new network restrictions placed on streaming apps, Ms. Coleman said that she has mixed feelings, but that she is mostly in favor of the decision. She believes that many students do not realize the amount of data that they use, when listening to apps like Pandora and Spotify and urges that “[students] use iTunes, so they don’t have to stream.” This being said, Ms. Coleman admits to adding to the network strain last spring with her support of the March Madness brackets of both the students and faculty, and said that it “got to the point of ridiculousness,” but says that she has not heard any negative feedback from her students regarding greater restrictions.

In contrast to Ms. Coleman’s views, some students feel that some blocked apps, such as those that allow music streaming, are beneficial to their learning. Junior Joseph Dierckes said that “music helps me focus” and get work done in class, and he disagrees strongly with the school’s decision to block apps like Spotify.

The school’s secondary reason for implementing the blocks are the costs related to network usage. La Salle pays for each gigabyte of data used by students. According to Mr. Heinick, “We pay for what we use” and streaming is the “big spender” making up the biggest chunk of used data. “On our network,” he said, “60 percent of network traffic is streaming.” As a result, the move to block unnecessary streaming apps like Spotify and Pandora will cut costs for the school.

Though many streaming apps have been blocked, entertainment and education apps like YouTube will remain unblocked because of their wide usage and educational value in the classroom.

However, some students have attempted to circumvent the new restrictions through a variety of methods, including the use of a VPN, or virtual private network. A VPN allows a person to bypass a public network’s restrictions, including blocked apps and sites.

“The hope is we can see this for what it is, an attempt to remove distractions, and there’s going to be ways around it but hopefully students won’t try go too far out of their way to bring distractions back into their lives,” said Mr. Heinick, when asked about students’ VPN usage.

However, Mr. Heinick commented that “It’s one of those thing [where] we try to do our best to remove distractions, [but] there’s no way that we are able to limit everything.” Overall, Mr. Heinick says that he will continue to work on restricting unwanted apps and VPNs as needed as the year progresses, but he knows that he cannot stop all unwanted app usage.

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What do you think about all the new app restrictions this year? Let us know in the comments below.