Internet Pranks in Schools

Ferante125 writes "An interesting article about online pranks by students and teachers' responses to them. There are some interesting stats that sounded a little hard to believe. My immature side finds it funny and my more mature side is interested in the legal aspects." For the most part it seems like this article thinks pranks are basically just name calling and flaming on websites.

Does defacing websites count as a prank?

Hmm, interesting article. The definition of "prank" isn't just name calling and flaming. We have to re-define the term to include modern equivalent actions that corresponds to the term "prank". What is an acceptable on-line prank and what isn't?

Lame

Obviously these students need to be indoctrinated in the latest Internet memes:
There were no rickrolls, and not even a single Longcat reference.

Re:Does defacing websites count as a prank?

The "pranks" in the article sound like flaming and name calling, which don't seem like much of a prank to me. I would consider defacing websites more of a prank. Of course, all the pranks i remember doing always leaned on the wrong side of the law... moving an office to the hallway... decorating and relocating a car... you know, creative pranks that require time, effort, and a little adrenaline.

Re:Does defacing websites count as a prank?

Moving an office or relocating a car a few parking spaces or so (even decorating it if the decorations can easily be washed off) is not jail material - an judge will look at this and think "why do you waste my time".
      Yet, the article contains this:
"Last month, Charlotte became the second North Carolina school district to criminally charge a student for creating a website that accused a teacher of criminal behavior including pedophilia."
      This sets you on the bad side of the law, and if you don't have any proof, a judge won't be amused.

Re:Does defacing websites count as a prank?

Actually, that exact thing happened recently on a site I run. The teacher emailed me and just asked me to take the post down, and also said he didn't hold me or my site responsible. Of course, the site rules clearly state that the posters are responsible for what they post, not us. But still. I'm glad to see that at least one teacher handles this in the proper way (ie, being civil and hating the correct party). According to the teacher, this poor kid is getting slapped with a lawsuit and criminal charges for defamation of character. Oh well, ce la vie.

I guess I dodged a bullet

In grade 8 mid-last-decade a friend and I wrote a little BASIC program on our class's standalone Apple IIe something like this:

10 ? "Bwahahaha! I am the Michaelangelo virus!";
20 GOTO 10

This caused a bit of a stir in our class for half a day before we fessed up. I suppose I'm fortunate to have escaped without prosecution.

Re: I guess I dodged a bullet

It's always the low-tech pranks that take people the longest to fix.

I unintentionally freaked out my poor mom when I got smarmy and edited the Win98 logoff screen in mspaint. I changted a W to a T so that it said "It is not safe to turn off your computer." She left it like that for 3 days until I let her in on the joke. Oopsie.

Re:I guess I dodged a bullet

In my day we pulled a prank where we changed the number of beads on the Math teachers abacus. Oh man, I'm old!

schools, the net and the generation gap

If the gap between teachers and pupils is as large as the one between parents and children then it is no surprise that todays teachers really don't know what to do with the technology savvy generation that is about to supplant them.

Schools haven't got a clue about the internet, how to use it and what it could bring them. Pupils are running circles around their supposed betters and are showing earlier in life a degree of independence that teachers wished they had had when they were young. Todays youth are so connected using cellphones, the net and social networking that they are as alien from the previous generation as any that has ever been.

Just wait until it's your turn

With the rate of growth of technology being greater than exponential this gap is just going to increase. We are running into a major revolution in society where the old paradigms simply won't work. The only problem is that those with the authority to make the changes, almost by definition, don't have the understanding.

But then, back in the 60's we thought that we were the misunderstood generation who were going to sweep away all the old farts and bring in the dawning of the age of Aquarius so some things don't change.

Re:schools, the net and the generation gap

I really wonder what schools you are talking about.

Yes, there are always a handful of individuals at the cutting edge, not only of technology but of culture. These people existed in previous generations, and they will always exist; in many ways, they operate very similarly across multiple generations, just with a change of medium.

But the vast majority of today's youth also have no clue about the Internet, how to use it, and what it could bring them. They show exceptionally limited independent action and little to no independent thought.

Today's youth may be connected- but there's no real information passing between them.

There will always be a... cutting edge, a group of individuals both as students and as adults, who will find ways to use everything they have available in the best ways possible. This has always been true, and as a rule, people have never really known what to do about them.

Unfortunately, as a student, I have far less confidence in my peers than you seem to.

Re:schools, the net and the generation gap

I've already posted, so I can't moderate - yet, I'd like to bow to the parent and say:
Every generation had its stars, and every generation will have them. And the new generations have higher possibilities (mainly in access to information and possibilities of training), so they can do things the stars of the previous generations could only dream about. All the while, all this new technology makes it easier to work less for those inclined to do so, so the gap between the stars and the rest might even get wider.

     

Re:schools, the net and the generation gap

I think this is very true. As a rule, the general 'trend' of knowledge and capability is increasing- we see the percentage of 25 year olds who have undergraduate degrees today is the same as the percentage of 25 year olds who had high school diplomas forty or fifty years ago.

But the maximum, the possibilities, have increased immensely- in 50 years, we've developed in every field, from metallurgy to medicine to computers in ways that would never have been dreamed possible seventy-five years ago.

And, as you posit, our transition to a knowledge-based economy has made it possible for those who aren't interested in self-development to essentially stagnate, comfortably, at an unusual lack of development, especially compared to those who DO focus on development and continue to advance.

The financial gap between the rich and the poor continues to increase; and yes, so does the knowledge gap.

Essentially, I think, you are starting to see a striation into class-like bands in our society- between those who want to develop and advance for advancement's sake and those who merely want to live their lives.

This is all ridiculous and breeds future behavior!

In the so-called "Teacher Sux" case in Pennsylvania, for example, a high school student put up a website about a teacher with threats and comments such as "she shows off her fat ... legs."

Critics, however, contend that words like "annoy" and "embarrass" are too broad and may infringe upon First Amendment protections of parody.

Honestly, if she had fat legs and someone pointed it out to her in person would they have criminal/civil court documents filed over it? No, they would get detention/short-term suspension and move on with their lives. The recent rise in people being upset that a co-worker won't speak to them and is "threatening" because they dress in all black and wear sunglasses or that someone doesn't like them is created by this trend in secondary education that teaches people to behave like this.

I just can't understand why a grown adult would not be able to leave the house because some little fucking bastard said she had fat legs on the Internet. Both the adult and the student need to grow up -- fast.

Re:This is all ridiculous and breeds future behavi

Exactly. What do you think is going to happen when you willingly put yourself in posistion of authority over adolecents. I really don't get why labelling things as "online" makes them new and edgy. Making fun of the teachers is going to happen in middle and high schools. It will/has happen(ed) by whatever means of communication kids use. A teacher claiming she can't work because she got made fun of is like a firefighter complaining he can't work because fires are hot.

Re:This is all ridiculous and breeds future behavi

I really don't get why labelling things as "online" makes them new and edgy.

Because things on the Internet have the potential to (a) be seen by a lot more people, and (b) last almost forever. There's a difference between calling someone a fatass in the classroom or schoolyard, and doing it on youtube.

It will/has happen(ed) by whatever means of communication kids use.

Yes it will happen, but no, it shouldn't happen. There's a difference between descriptive and normative ethics. For example, I have never heard of teachers were the pupils posted posters all over town describing how much they disliked them. And if it happened, I'm sure it would involve a criminal case. Kids need to learn that with greater power (the Internet) comes greater responsibility. If they can't handle that responsibility, they shouldn't use the Internet. Lots of people probably shouldn't (and now I'm talking about posting stuff, not using Internet banking or similar things that everybody needs to do).

A teacher claiming she can't work because she got made fun of is like a firefighter complaining he can't work because fires are hot.

Actually, firefighters do that all the time. Going into a burning building is a very high-risk operation, and you need to carefully examine many factors, including temperature, before you decide to enter. Similarly, school-teachers are, like most people, emotional beings, and if the abuse is to large, they can't continue teaching.

Re:This is all ridiculous and breeds future behavi

For example, I have never heard of teachers were the pupils posted posters all over town describing how much they disliked them. And if it happened, I'm sure it would involve a criminal case.

On what grounds, littering? It's legal to dislike someone. It's legal to say you dislike someone.
It's legal to make posters describing how much you dislike someone.

Re:This is all ridiculous and breeds future behavi

Honestly, if she had fat legs and someone pointed it out to her in person would they have criminal/civil court documents filed over it? No, they would get detention/short-term suspension and move on with their lives. The recent rise in people being upset that a co-worker won't speak to them and is "threatening" because they dress in all black and wear sunglasses or that someone doesn't like them is created by this trend in secondary education that teaches people to behave like this.

I just can't understand why a grown adult would not be able to leave the house because some little fucking bastard said she had fat legs on the Internet. Both the adult and the student need to grow up -- fast.

You have a point there - but there is a difference. As the amount of SPAM in most people's inboxes shows, the internet provides us with a terrifyingly efficient way of reaching large numbers of people. If you insult somebody face to face, that is between you and that person, and possibly a couple of people nearby, but what you put n the internet is visible to the whole world. This can easily be an overwhelming prospect for the victim of cyber-bullying. You know, even adults in high positions are just humans, and vulnerable.

Re:This is all ridiculous and breeds future behavi

Hell, teachers today have little authority on anything that happens on school grounds. My wife teaches elementary music, and even at that age it's a little less than Lord of the Flies because the teachers can do little about behavior and the kids know it.

What is there to do when the kids keep upping the ante and there's no recourse on the school ground? Hit 'em were it hurts. Maybe if parents have to pay for a lawyer for mommy's little bastard's behavior, some parents will start, you know, parenting...

Depends on the prank...

Having taught computers to students before, I found quite a few of them.

If it was something dumb and non-harmful, it was good for a laugh... this is where most teachers fail it.

If it damaged an OS install, I'd make the kid stay after school the entire week and re-load every workstation image in the classroom each day.

If it escaped the local network and damaged something else (fortunately I never saw that happen), then the kid gets to face the consequences full-on, and I would've been stuck with preparing a forensics report to show how it happened and what I would do to prevent it in the future.

The point is to make this clear up-front, and if it isn't harmful, use it as a teaching aid. It also helps to know, as a techer, WTF you're doing around the machinery (unlike one Texas teacher who IIRC had a kid arrested for "hacking" because he used Windows Messenger to pass notes in class... can't remember the specifics, but it was a dumb overreaction to say the least).

/P

Those aren't pranks...

Putting your high school up for sale [newsbank.com] is a prank.

Wait 'till they need a job

Can you imagine the digital trail these kids are unknowingly leaving about their behavior on the net? Even now it's not unheard of to have employers google/myspace their applicants, on top of all the info aggregation services that are running wild out there.

It's going to be a hard lesson to learn (for those that commit serious enough 'offenses') but I strongly suspect that the next generation of kids will know the risks as they get pummeled by their school with "Cyber Bullying awareness" classes and such along with all the other becoming an adult type sex education classes.

my wife is a teacher, and it sucks

this article vastly undermines the severity of this situation.

my wife is a teacher, and believe me, it is bad out there. she teaches 6th grade mathematics, and she is dealing with the internet, bullying, and humiliation on a weekly basis because of it. fortunately, the kids at her school aren't really old enough to know how to create proper websites yet, or dont have the money to sneak small webcams into the classroom, but their internet usage definitely affects the school environment.

with the prevalence of myspace, many kids are threatening each other and bullying each other over the internet (i still dont see how cyber-bullying is possible, since you can always just "not go to that site", but whatever...). they get caught up in the "he said, she said" game, and say some very awful things. teachers are all advised not to have myspace pages or facebook pages, for if they post pictures of them at the beach, at the bar, or even at home, children can and will spin them so that the teacher somehow comes across in a bad light. and the kids are so resourceful that they dont even take into account what a teacher says about themselves. one of my wife's coworkers had a friend sign her "wall" or whatever in myspace, and the comment left made a reference to a stripper or stripping (something along the lines of "you looked like a stipper that night"), and the kids in her class saw the comment and started telling people around the school that one of the teachers was a stripper. of course, this made it all the way to the parents, and they began calling the school. the kids spun something that someone else said, not even what the teacher said.

they are threatening each other, and posting inappropriate material about each other, which is creating fodder for the classrooms. 5th and 6th grade girls are posting pictures of themselves wearing little clothing, talking about their sexual experiences and knowledge online, and are basically begging to be preyed upon. what is worse is that the parents don't know and don't care. people can dismiss it as much as they want, and believe that it doesn't happen or that it is just a small percentage of kids. well, believe me, it is not. it is much worse than you think.

it is a parent's responsibility to know what their child is doing on the internet. those who say that it is "too much work" and that their kid is "smarter than i am" are full of it, because we often do meet the parents who put in the work, who monitor their children properly, and who properly look after their children and prevent this kind of behavior. we know that parents can handle it because there is still a small percentage out there who do it right. the rest of them need to look at themselves, and not their children, and certainly not the teachers.

teachers get paid a small amount of money to do a ton of work. my wife works 10 hour days, gets a 15 minute lunch, and is not only expected to be the one to educate them with the material that the school board deems appropriate (which grows larger every year), but yet she is expected to be their moral educator as well; a job she gladly does. most of them take pride in their work, and believe me, they hate giving out bad grades and low test scores because it makes them look bad. the problem with education these days is not the school, nor the teachers, nor the funding (believe it or not). it is the parents. parents have stopped being accountable. they have stopped checking their kids homework, monitoring their activity, and disciplining their children. they make excuses for their children (ADD, ODD, ADHD...), and often laugh at the behavior that their child is displaying. parenting in america has become a dismal affair.

Re:Unlikely Statistic

Dating.

Re:Yet another case made for homeschooling...

Yeah, there's tons of 'socialization' skills that home-schooled kids don't learn. There was a girl when I went to high school (over a decade ago) who started public school in grade 10 (hard to get into university otherwise). There was TONS of stuff she didn't know!

For example, she had never learned that girls aren't supposed to be good at math. She didn't realize that when you're in class, and you don't understand something, you're supposed to keep quiet instead of raising your had to ask for clarification!

And worst of all, she didn't know you're supposed to pick on kids who are smaller/weaker/different! I guess they had to work out some remedial classes for her or something...