[OLPC Networking] Firewalling...

[MBurns]

On 11/4/06, Xavier Alvarez <xavi.alvarez at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But on the digital world, how can the teacher ensure that the
> students are really not disturbed by outside sources? (ie: IMing
> with the buddy on the next classroom).
>
Interesting question. Because of the mesh network, inherently, there is no
real way to 'turn off' collaboration. Indeed, I don't think you'd want to.
This is not a technical issue, however, it is really a social one. If
students are disruptive, teachers will have to deal with them just as they
do with passing notes and whispering.

Another related issue is pop-quiz, tests, and other exam situation
> where the teacher wants to isolate kids from each other (not just
> from 'outside the class').  Or ensure that the kid is not
> cheating by doing literally doing copy-paste from the friend at
> the other end of the classroom, or even somebody outside the
> class?
>
Technically, you could have a 'test' program, that tries to lock the laptop
to that one program for test taking, so as to make it impossible to bring
up. This is kind of a round-about solution.

If it is really a problem, writing a proper test program wouldn't be hard.
Give each student a N random questions a set of Y questions. With a little
programming logic, this would give each kid in the mesh pretty much a unique
test. But again, this is as much as social problem as it is a technical one.
Teachers look over the shoulders of students as they take tests, etc.

But then, how this actually plays out in the schools will be interesting to
see. Speculation on my part could be wildly off.

>
> So, has anybody thought about this?
>
Maybe. But getting the conversation going in the public is a good thing
regardless. :)


-- 
Michael Burns * Security Student
NET * Oregon State University
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