Comments: 18 Score: [-] 703 [+].
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Posted: 12 months ago by pocksucket:
Perhaps the angle the principal should take is to lobby for a change in the law to allow licenced authorities to operate a signal jammer.
Feel free to suggest one if I've missed it but I cannot conceive of a situation in a school that required telephony that couldn't be solved by either using a regular phone or turning the thing off.
Score: [-] 239 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by drogue:
« pocksucket : Perhaps the angle the principal should take is to lobby for a change in the law to allow licenced authorities to operate a signal jammer.
Feel free to suggest one if I've missed it but I cannot conceive of a situation in a school that required telephony that couldn't be solved by either using a regular phone or turning the thing off. Not to sound like a shrill soccer mom, but there are plenty of unsupervised areas of schools, and sometimes things happen when seconds count. Food allergy, epileptic seizure, reporting a bad beatdown, or worse, a school shooter. And as much as older people are baffled by cellphones, and twitters, and Bobos, kids increasingly are much in the same way baffled by something like a payphone.
We're undergoing a generational burp in our expectations of what connectedness means. Many parents give their ever-younger kids cellphones in case of such emergencies.
But for many kids, finding out "who called Troy a penis wrinkle" qualifies as an emergency. In my view, kids attend school to be educated, and the curriculum ought to at least try to stay current with communication trends, and educate them about appropriate tech behavior, rather than pretending the way the kids communicate is just some passing trend to be weathered by heavy-handed cold-war tactics.
As far as the law, even a licensed cell jammer in the wrong hands (racist cop, dashcam off, jammer on) can create a very bad situation for someone who has good reason, and every expectation of being able to call for help. Pretty sure that's why radio jamming technology has been illegal over here for civilians since it's been available.
Score: [-] 182 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by pocksucket:
« drogue : Not to sound like a shrill soccer mom, but there are plenty of unsupervised areas of schools, and sometimes things happen when seconds count. Food allergy, epileptic seizure, reporting a bad beatdown, or worse, a school shooter. And as much as older people are baffled by cellphones, and twitters, and Bobos, kids increasingly are much in the same way baffled by something like a payphone.
We're undergoing a generational burp in our expectations of what connectedness means. Many parents give their ever-younger kids cellphones in case of such emergencies.
But for many kids, finding out "who called Troy a penis wrinkle" qualifies as an emergency. In my view, kids attend school to be educated, and the curriculum ought to at least try to stay current with communication trends, and educate them about appropriate tech behavior, rather than pretending the way the kids communicate is just some passing trend to be weathered by heavy-handed cold-war tactics.
As far as the law, even a licensed cell jammer in the wrong hands (racist cop, dashcam off, jammer on) can create a very bad situation for someone who has good reason, and every expectation of being able to call for help. Pretty sure that's why radio jamming technology has been illegal over here for civilians since it's been available. Not to sound like an older person who is baffled by cellphones and the like but I just don't buy that about the school. It just doesn't happen like that. If Booger Benson is busily employed kicking Tucker's face off in morning break then Tucker isn't going to have time to call for help.
As for medical emergencies then the person afflicted isn't going to be able to call themselves so it's down to the people with them. They can do what kids have done for pretty much as long as there have been kids - run for help.
Look at it realistically. If little Danny Kendall has a condition so bad that the difference in time it would take for someone to run and find a teacher compared to calling someone on a mobile then in this cripplingly over protective age we live in that child would not be allowed out of the range of supervision, ever.
As for what you say about licencing, by extrapolating you kind of negate the point.
Step one - prove a need - why would a cop (racist or otherwise) need one? Can't do that? Don't get a licence. What genuine need would a cop have for blocking communication?
My guess is that the real reason that they remain illegal is that there's no real way of administering the licences that would bring in an acceptable revenue.
Score: [-] 310 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by chinook:
As a person who is baffled by neither mobile phones nor pay phones, I support the principal and I hope regulations change to allow jammers to operate in places like schools.
When I was in university and a student's phone rang or the student payed more attention to the phone than the lecture, most of my professors would spend a few minutes ridiculing the student, and after that everyone made sure their phones were off to spare the humiliation of having one ring during school. This would probably work in high schools, but couldn't be used because Little Suzy's feelings might be hurt and the teacher would get an earful. We had another prof who didn't care if phones rang - any phone noise would cost the student $5. I don't think anyone's phone made a noise in that class, ever.
Score: [-] 276 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by tragluk:
« drogue : a bad beatdown, or worse, a school shooter. Aren't these types of incidents the same justifications given for owning a handgun?
Kids have gotten along in schools just fine without cellphones for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Most schools ban them anyway. My high school didn't allow cellphones, pagers, or any other electronic device over $10.
If you were found to have one, it was confiscated and you had to have your parents pick it up.
Score: [-] 232 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by theclansman:
I have always wondered why these jammers aren't used more often, I say we put them in movie theaters as well. In fact, I might just order one and bring it with me next time!
Score: [-] 154 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by Hypersapien:
« drogue : As far as the law, even a licensed cell jammer in the wrong hands (racist cop, dashcam off, jammer on) Doesn't even have to be racist. Any kind of corrupt cop with delusions of godhood counts as the 'wrong hands' in my book.
Score: [-] 50 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by davbob:
« pocksucket :
Look at it realistically. If little Danny Kendall has a condition so bad that the difference in time it would take for someone to run and find a teacher compared to calling someone on a mobile then in this cripplingly over protective age we live in that child would not be allowed out of the range of supervision, ever.
Yeah but Danny was in Mr Bronsons car (which he stole)when he died therefore out of school so even then a jammer wouldn't have made a difference.
I hate mobile phones. Actually I don't I just hate people who use mobile phones. I generally ban phones from being on in the workplace unless there is good reason and if so then they must be on silent. I see no reason for a phone to be on during school hours and would support the confiscation of offending phones.
Score: [-] -57 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by bingo:
No one had cell phones when I went to school. How did we all survive?
I think all schools should have the jammers.
Score: [-] 311 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by tragluk:
« pocksucket : What genuine need would a cop have for blocking communication?
Jammers are used by NSA/FBI/other 3 letter combinations when there is a suspected terrorism (buzzword of the decade) event. It allows them to lock down communication.
My guess is that the real reason that they remain illegal is that there's no real way of administering the licences that would bring in an acceptable revenue.
I think they're illegal because they don't want your local bank robbers to walk into a radio shack and buy one so that they can rob a bank with it.
Score: [-] 119 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by pocksucket:
« tragluk : Jammers are used by NSA/FBI/other 3 letter combinations when there is a suspected terrorism (buzzword of the decade) event. It allows them to lock down communication. Trouble is (and I'm knocking their usage not your bringing it up) is that those three letter agencies don't need to bother.
Believe it or not* I've previously been involved in national emergency contingency plans and in the event of such an emergency a very early step in the process is that access to phone networks is restricted to authorised personnel only.
I think they're illegal because they don't want your local bank robbers to walk into a radio shack and buy one so that they can rob a bank with it.
Banks would have their security on land lines, not mobiles, but that aside, letting authorised and licenced bodies would not mean the things were available in Radio Shack.
*No reason why you shouldn't, I suppose.
Score: [-] 146 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by dork:
We shouldn't ban cellphones. I used them to text the smart kids in my class for answers to tests.
I kid, I kid.
I know they shouldn't be used in schools but I still text my friends and so do many other people, I'd be frustrated if I was being jammed even though it probably is the right thing to do
My phone never bugs anyone else's learning so I think of it as, if I miss the material, my grade will suffer.
I still know the material we learn pretty well despite the fact I text in class.
Score: [-] 50 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by bingo:
« dork : We shouldn't ban cellphones. I used them to text the smart kids in my class for answers to tests.
I kid, I kid.
I know they shouldn't be used in schools but I still text my friends and so do many other people. My phone never bugs anyone else's learning so I think of it as, if I miss the material, my grade will suffer.
I still know the material we learn pretty well despite the fact I text in class. Is that any different than passing notes in class?
That was never allowed either.
Score: [-] 50 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by dork:
« bingo:Is that any different than passing notes in class?
That was never allowed either. I guess it could be like that.
But I can't pass a note to my friend in New York who I keep in touch with after I moved away or any one outside of the room, not that my abilities to do that now changes anything, you are right though, what I do is banned and I run the risk of getting caught and facing the consequences, its just a risk I am willing to take.
Sure passing notes was never allowed but I'm sure you still did it, and if you did not, there has to be others that did.
I never said phones shouldn't be jammed, they probably should. I would just be slightly frustrated if they were, but I'd survive.
I don't know how jammers work exactly but wouldn't they jam any signal that happened to go through the school's jamming radius? I thought that's why they were illegal.
Score: [-] 39 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by chinook:
« theclansman:I have always wondered why these jammers aren't used more often, I say we put them in movie theaters as well. In fact, I might just order one and bring it with me next time! It's just illegal to use one in Canada, but that means it's just fine and dandy to own one.
I bought one for $40, and it works great. I mean, um, in theory, it would work great.
Score: [-] 60 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by suebe:
Not that I know *cough* anything about cell phone jammers, but that must have been an impressive unit to shut down the entire school.
The first offense in the US is a fine of $11,000.
*looks at jammer inventory between BF and me*
Score: [-] 39 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by theclansman:
« dork
I don't know how jammers work exactly but wouldn't they jam any signal that happened to go through the school's jamming radius? I thought that's why they were illegal. Sort of, all that a jammer does is transmit a signal on the same frequency as the cell phone, which causes the signals to cancel each other out. the range would depend on the power of the signal the jammer sends out, and on the surrounding terrain.
With correct use you could contain it to a reasonable area. I think the reason it is illegal is because it has a huge potential for misuse, people could set them up just about anywhere and piss off a lot of people (especially cell phone companies).
Score: [-] 60 [+].
Posted: 12 months ago by bunnysutra:
It's been a while since I've been in school...
I may be a lone voice in this -
Seems to me we're taking a blanket approach to a lot of issues lately. Too many incidents of groin kicking - institute a policy of no touching. Cell phones being disruptive, shut them all down.
I whole heartedly agree they have the potential to be disruptive but I don't think it is teaching any lessons of personal responsibility.
Score: [-] 78 [+].
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