Security! Security! Security!

So I had my first breach of contract this week on my iPod touch contract. Two breaches, really. The kids took the iPods home to do their video homework, and I had two girls come in the next day without their homework but with iPods with nearly dead batteries. Hmmmm, I thought.

The first flag was that they had changed the settings on the iPods to have a beautiful flowery background rather than the number of their iPod. This was a problem. The kids signed a contract saying that they wouldn't change the settings, and these kids had. (The ipods have numbers as their backgrounds so that I can instantly see what number iPod that I'm using. I also don't want the kids to personalize the iPods because I don't want them to start thinking that these are theirs.)

The second flag was the dead batteries without the homework.

So I went into the internet icon on their iPods, and there was no history. Hmmmm, I thought. What on earth were they doing? Oh, they cleared the history.

What they didn't realize is that there is a separate history for Youtube. And I went into the Youtube app, and sure enough, they had had the time of their lives watching videos all night long.

Now let me say this. I want my kids to have internet access at home, and many of them can't afford home computers. So if a kid takes home my iPod touch and has wireless access at home, I'm all for them surfing away on the web. My students are normally so NOT tech savvy that any trouble they get into is more accidental than anything else.

However, in this case, I was livid. These are two of my lowest students. They make the least effort of all the students in my class in terms of studying and advancing outside the class. And the fact that they had taken home the technology and then used it to watch Burmese videos all night rather than at least trying my homework made me rather angry. And on top of that, the fact that they had changed the settings on their ipods when they had signed a contract promising (among other things) that they wouldn't, also had me rather angry.

I got a professional translator on the phone because I wanted to be clear. I explained that they had violated the terms of the contract that they had signed and that there would be punishment accordingly (they lost free time and had to "pay" me a computer card that they would normally get to use during free time). Then, I asked them about the homework. And the one student (the stronger of the two) actually told me that she didn't know how to use the camera, so she didn't know how to do the homework. I was born on a Saturday, but it wasn't last Saturday. I actually have my students do a practice run or two for their homework and then show it to me in class to make sure that I know they know how to use the technology. Add to that the fact that she had managed to find Burmese music videos all night on Youtube, and she had changed the settings on the phone, and it was just a big, fat lie.

Long story short, they were punished. The rest of the class knew what was going on because I wanted them to know how seriously I took this. But really, what was most revealing to me was the character of the student in that moment. I think the lie is more disappointing to me than anything else.

On another note, I'm going to be posting some iPad apps and activities (and iPod activities) that I'm developing for my kids in the upcoming weeks. The kids just finished their first iMovies, and those are published to Schooltube. It's amazing to see how far they've come.