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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

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346 points obscurette | 3 comments | 12 Nov 24 14:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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jansan ◴[12 Nov 24 15:44 UTC] No.42116405[source]▶
Router-manufacturer should be mandated to implement a functionality that allows applying a whitelist filter for certain times of a day. It would have helped me a lot as a parent to make sure that my children can only access Desmos, online Office sites etc. while they are supposed to do their homework.
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1. marksbrown ◴[12 Nov 24 16:13 UTC] No.42116767[source]▶
Unfortunately the internet has been corrupted by JavaScript. A website is rarely loading a single site anymore. Try noscript and you'll quickly see that, even a trivial website loads dozens of dependencies. Dependencies that shift over time.

Reality is whitelisting can't work as you'll simply break websites. This has been my experience at several schools now. Websites may or may not load. And even if they do, they rarely work properly.

Irony is, students are clever enough to realise you can use translate websites to load anything with translation from English to English. No blocking at all!

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2. cwoolfe ◴[12 Nov 24 19:09 UTC] No.42118566[source]▶
There are plenty of companies successfully doing allow-list only filters. At home for focus: https://gertrude.app/ At work for security: https://adamnet.works/
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3. marksbrown ◴[12 Nov 24 23:36 UTC] No.42121204[source]▶
Sure but here in the UK schools will use what is cheapest, free or part of a wider package of software already used. RM web filtering or smoothwall make me want to bash my skull against a wall at times. Finally School IT staff are not judged on their ability to manage a web filter well. Safeguarding is (rightly) the primary concern and so if an existing solution can be said to block the more egregious parts of the internet, it's irrelevant if it blocks the useful parts too.