My buddy has an app that can control any projector close to him. He has currently frozen the projector and our professor is freaking out 😂
— Curtis Tekell (@MCT_704) April 10, 2014
 |
| Tweet, article link, left-hand graphic. I break all the rules. |
I called up a friend in my school's IT office. This can't be real, can it?
Oh shit. This is not a drill.
It turns out that, yes, you can control electronics with phone apps. However, there are some ways to avoid the problem. Projectors and such require a passcode. They also might work only on certain wireless networks that your school controls. If your IT office changes the code from its default, it's unlikely a student will crack it. A private wireless network can be available only to the IT people who set up the classroom computer and projector. If your school takes reasonable precautions, this won't be a problem for you.
Of course, if schools are prudent like this, higher education would be in better shape than it is.
For me, the projector is generally used to display supplemental materials like images, maps, charts, and graphs, and also to provide an outline of the key points or some definitions or explanations of difficult concepts. I sometimes also use it to show video clips that address the issues we're discussing in class.
ReplyDeleteEverything that I put up on the screen in there to make the class easier and more pleasant for the students. Most of it is is helpful, but not necessary to the actual content that we cover in class. If some punk-assed douchebag decided to mess with the classroom projector, I would simply proceed to lecture, and to lead classroom discussion, without the visuals. The only people that would suffer would be the jerkoff student and his or her classmates. No skin off my nose at all.
And spacing problems and non standard font sizing. Cal will be eating 2 boxes of gluten free cookies tonight if he sees it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I didn't even intend to change the font size. What can I say? I'm in the zone.
DeleteYou can do it all, Ben! I think if you'd called it a Twitter Thirsty you would have blown up Oilmont. But what do I care? I am still 12 hours away by air. And I can't believe vacation is hurtling to an end.
DeleteMy joint sidesteps this issue by having the projectors out for repair almost constantly.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm lecturing in a room without a projector I need to use the one on the cart. The one connected to the five year old laptop that will no longer talk to the network and therefore can't authenticate anyone who wasn't here three years ago when it last could talk to the authentication server.
DeleteIT says they are working on it, but this is a busy time for them.
And in fact I'm perfectly comfortable doing chalk and talk—well, whiteboard-maker and talk—but I had been planning to try out some additional, newfangled, ``active teaching'' strategies on this group of vict^H^H^Hvolunteers.
Ah well. Maybe next year.
On the upside, that projector is too old to be vulnerable to posh attacks like this. On the downside, some of the hardware around here will happily authenticate people who haven't worked here for years, which makes me wonder just what IT is up to.
So where's the doodad that disrupts cell phone signals? Or better yet, the gizmo that grabs smartphone displays and projects them on the classroom screen? That's what I'm waiting for.
ReplyDeleteCell phone jammers are illegal, I'm surprised to discover. See: http://www.cnet.com/news/science-teacher-suspended-for-using-jammer-to-shut-up-students-cell-phones/
DeleteMore's the pity.
DeleteBetter to know that not, I suppose. However, like several others above, I would only be very slightly fazed, if at all, by this (and would make sure to set the students to doing something particularly difficult while I sorted out the problem, if I decided it needed sorting at all).
ReplyDelete