What were/are your school's policies on use of technology?

[pythonmegapixel]

Mine is fairly simple... you can use phones in the cafeteria and the playground but nowhere else. You also had to have the sound off.

 

Computers, no real policy for students' own machines but I remember having to agree to a load of e-safety stuff before being allowed to use the school computers. Stuff like not abusing social media, not giving out passwords to others, farely sensible stuff in my opinion.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

General, from last year, things have changed.

You could use your phone before the bell rang, during lunch, during recess, during homeroom, and during study hall.

Now, this year.
N/A.

We have no lunch, as we leave before it. 

We have no recess, as we leave early.

We have homeroom, but are not allowed to use phones.

We can no longer use phones, or any other device in study hall, except for for homework. I tried to do something that wasn't homework on my school Chromebook, and I got in trouble. I used my phone, same issue. Used both my PSP and 2ds, and the same exact result. 

[freeagent]

When I was in school we had 5.25 floppies, green or orange green monochrome screens, and cordless phones were becoming popular lol. 

 

[Guest]

Up through high school cell phones didn't really exist and weren't very widespread, but the flip phones were becoming popular in my area when I became a freshman. Rules were fairly simple, they couldn't be out during class but between classes and lunch was fair game. No one at my school brought their laptops to class, or if they did it was few and far between. Our building had K-12 in it because it was so small.

 

College was straightforward enough, nothing in class though laptops were more prevalent. Enforcing the cell phone rule in class was difficult and each professor had his/her own way of doing it.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

13 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Mine is fairly simple... you can use phones in the cafeteria and the playground but nowhere else. You also had to have the sound off.

 

Computers, no real policy for students' own machines but I remember having to agree to a load of e-safety stuff before being allowed to use the school computers. Stuff like not abusing social media, not giving out passwords to others, farely sensible stuff in my opinion.

We actually had OG Counter Strike installed on the CAD machines and had our own little Counter Strike matches. The teacher knew about it and was okay with it. But I think one kid got salty when we wouldn't let him join and he reported us to the administrators. Needless to say they quickly put an end to our little underground Counter Strike league. 

 

But in terms of phones, yea they had to be "silent" during class and you're not supposed to be using them. It was around the time phones started becoming good educational tools so it was as bit of mixed bag when I graduated. 

[Mihle]

No phone use or sounds in class themselves was really the only thing.

 

On laptops you used you were ofc supposed to only do school things in classes themselves, but only a few teachers actually walked around the room looking at people's screen during class.

[Minicoop]

Got issued some HP mini Notebooks that were just only suppose to be used for school projects and what not but ended up being used more to to play Counter-Strike 1.6, Halo Online, Call of Duty 1&2 Online servers, one of the early builds of Minecraft. This was definitely frowned upon for the entire time that we did it but the IT department never figured out how to keep people from local play.

 

Phones were not suppose to be seen nor heard during class at all or you would have it taken away for the rest of class but being that I had a phone with the full slide out keyboard I would just text with my hands inside of the desk.

[Uttamattamakin]

Comming from a different perspective:  I am a part time college professor and for all faculty it was up to each of us to make policies regarding this.    

My policy has been that students are allowed to use their device in the classroom but if it is a distraction, in my judgement, they must turn it off or put it away when asked without debate.  

 

This is to allow students to use their laptops for learning activities in class, or to review or take their notes, etc etc.  

Then there are those who bring full fat GAMING laptops and their controller... uh... NO. 

[TomvanWijnen]

At my high school (for ± age 12-18) phones were allowed just everywhere. Of course not while at an ongoing lesson (unless you had to do something on your phone), but for the rest, anytime, anywhere.

[TempestCatto]

On 9/24/2020 at 1:19 PM, pythonmegapixel said:

agree to a load of e-safety stuff before being allowed to use the school computers. Stuff like not abusing social media, not giving out passwords to others

Is that what those papers used to contain? I never really read them, just signed them. Hell, some years I didn't even sign them. No one really cared.

[piratemonkey]

The regular "use the network appropriately, don't use phones during class unless directed by the teacher, have them off during class, etc". Now though since you can't really use school laptops, you can use your phone during class for school work. They also have blocked some sites that contain hate speech, discriminatory stuff and porn (I'm presuming at least). Personally I use a VPN and tor as what I do shouldn't concern anyone besides myself. 

[Andreas Lilja]

Graduated high school in 2007.

 

Phones were allowed, but nearly no one had them. I'm talking regular flip phones.

[Nayr438]

Left school I think in 2011. Policy was No Electronics on Campus, depending on the teacher however, depended on how much it was enforced.

Some teachers didn't care at all and some would confiscate as soon as they seen any part of it.

School policy didn't require confiscated items to be returned either, so depending on who you dealt with, you may never see that device again.

[Trik'Stari]

31 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Graduated high school in 2007.

 

Phones were allowed, but nearly no one had them. I'm talking regular flip phones.

Same here.

 

Teachers did however confiscate anything that played music. Unfortunately for them, my mother was rather free with threats of litigation, and the principle wasn't about to try and test her resolve.

 

She was rather, aggressive when she found out I had been kicked out of English class for listening to music and reading a much larger book, instead of read along with the class on a book I finished in the first week of class.

 

I was reading the Space Odyssey series. They were struggling through Lord of The Flies.

 

God that book was fucking awful.

[White15gt]

When I graduated high school (2009) it was a very simple “no phones in the classroom or it will be confiscated” 

 

Nobody brought laptops or anything like that, tablets weren’t really a thing either. 

[TheRandomness]

In lower school phones were generally frowned upon, though that relaxed in GCSE years (so years 7 to 9 they cared, 9 to 11 not so much). So like, Years 9 to 11 could use their phones during break/lunch and occasionally to google something in a lesson or whatever.

In sixth form, basically not at all at any time. So long as you were doing/had done your work, we were free to do whatever we'd like (So year 12 to 13).

[vong]

Back in highschool (2004-2010) we weren't allowed to have any electronics unless it was a laptop for taking notes.Some teachers were lenient if we were caught using them though. If we needed to bring a phone to school then it had to be handed in to the front desk then claimed after school was finished. Nowadays, my youngest sister goes to the same highschool and from what she tells me the school doesn't give 2 sh!ts about what they bring to school or when they use them. Bloody BS.

[pythonmegapixel]

35 minutes ago, vong said:

Back in highschool (2004-2010) we weren't allowed to have any electronics unless it was a laptop for taking notes.Some teachers were lenient if we were caught using them though. If we needed to bring a phone to school then it had to be handed in to the front desk then claimed after school was finished.

Oh wow, that does seem extreme... every school I've ever been to hasn't had a problem with them being switched off in a bag...

[TetraSky]

I finished highschool long ago and went back to college this year (I certainly picked the best year to go back to school, eh...).

In college, you can basically use your phone anywhere, even in class ("hey, it's your education, if you're not willing to listen and play on your phone instead, that's on you", is what a teacher said).

But for some reason, none of my teachers wanted the students to use a laptop for note taking... Even though it's so much faster to type than it is to write (Some crap about how apparently you retain more info if you actually write it down instead of typing it). Obviously, you can't use any electronics during exams though (pre-covid shutdowns).

 

Though before that, in my time of highschool, phones weren't exactly super "smart" yet. So other than the few who texted on the down low, phones weren't allowed during class. There was no policy about phones or other devices in the hallways though.

[pm128]

Don't use phones during classes. Sometimes teacher might allow you to do that (finding answer on internet, stopwatch during physics etc)

[Bombastinator]

No transistor radios in class.  Also no calculators or slide rules except in special circumstances.

[Senzelian]

Officially: No phones, laptops or any other electronic devices.

Unofficially: Use whatever you want, as long as you shut up and don't disturb anyone.

 

Keep in mind its an IT school.

[HyperPro_Andrew118]

Officially: No phones, laptops or any other electronic devices.

.

[SFFDesigns]

I guess the main policy is that unofficially I can't really bring my tower.

 

In all seriousness, phones aren't really allowed but you can bring a laptop for school to the best of my knowledge

[LstpersonalOF]

In My School Has Always Been Not use It In Class Unless We Needed To Do A Research Work But In My Case For The Past years I Have Been Working With School Directly To Do Production Videos,Livestreaming,Projections I Basically The Man Behind It If A teacher Needs Something Like Computers set up help or if they have problems with something i am basically behind of all of that also There Was Not One Day That I Had Not Brought My Laptop or surface To School For my personal use obviously and also had a school account wich i would use if a teacher needed it to present a powerpoint,video,do a live demo And Also My School Work  they All knowed where to find me, im generally a great student if theres a activity there was not one that i wouldnt been involved in also i bringed my speakers,mics to use for activities  And i Honestly love it .when we started back in august it was kind of hard to belive that we are not there And we are working virtually but im ok with it also i cannot wait to go back i honestly have been missing all of those things and im honestly hoping we can get back soon. 

 

If You Are Curios im 15 And 10th Grader And Really want to continue with this and to be honest tech is my thing is one of the very few things i can relate too but we are all diferent 

 

i Hope everyones staying safe and that they have a good day or night