{"id":5878,"date":"2022-06-15T16:43:28","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T20:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=5878"},"modified":"2022-06-15T16:43:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T20:43:29","slug":"disabled-district-changes-teams-security-settings-students-can-no-longer-initiate-chats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=5878","title":{"rendered":"DISABLED: District changes Teams security settings; students can no longer initiate chats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1st Place, News Story<\/strong>
2021-22, Division 2, News Writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Grace Wetherington<\/strong>
Arrow
Utica HS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student Teams chats have recently been disabled district-wide due to inappropriate activity being found in many students\u2019 personal chats. However, all existing chats are still open and the new restrictions only affect students trying to start chats with other students with no teacher moderation.

\u201cI know the gist of it is that new chats between students without teacher moderation has been stopped so you are no longer able to start a chat with another student,\u201d principal Tom Lietz said. \u201cI think at some point even the old chats will be expunged and removed from the system as well, but there is some concern that doing that might eliminate chats that teachers have started as well, and those have some value and meaning for record keeping and for other things.\u201d

The disappointing behavior that has been going on in Teams chats has caused some teachers and administrators to change their minds on the support they previously had for keeping Teams chats open.

\u201cThere was just some really really poor choices being made. I was a huge advocate last year for maintaining those chats be-cause I thought they had huge value, and I still think they do. However, the cost of that value has become, in my mind, too high to keep them open,\u201d Lietz said. \u201cIf I had staff or people that could moderate chats and make sure that inappropriate things were not being said I\u2019d love to keep it open, but I am that staff and that is not sustainable.\u201d

Some students fail to realize that even though they have personal accounts and laptops, they do not have privacy on those school-provided apps and technology.

\u201cThey don\u2019t realize that, despite our saying so, that that\u2019s school property,\u201d Lietz said. \u201cIt is school software, you don\u2019t own your email, you know you do not own that chat and it\u2019s not private. Any-thing that you say or post or share on there that is in violation of school con-duct can be used against you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some students may feel that this is a violation of freedom of speech, however there are rules and regulations that students agree to when using school technology and school administered accounts.

\u201cThere is a difference between freedom of speech and acceptable speech in a particular environment and behavior in a particular environment,\u201d Lietz said. \u201cWe make those guide-lines pretty clear and there are just people who are not thinking and they are assuming it is no different then their personal chat and DM space on Instagram or Snapchat or whatever else, and it is not that so it became a real problem.\u201d

Even though specific examples cannot be released, it is not hard for students to come up with some possible scenarios.

\u201cYou can use your imagination to assume what people might have posted or shared,\u201d Lietz said.

Online group projects are not being hindered due to these restrictions; they are still very possible and can still happen.

\u201cIf a teacher wanted to have a chat between students who are working on a project together could create that group chat which allows for that teacher moderation,\u201d Lietz said. \u201cTeams was not meant for social chat. It was not meant to be Instagram school or Snapchat school, it was meant for academic purposes.\u201d

Not only has this new chat policy affected students\u2019 personal interactions, but has also caused difficulty for the yearbook\u2019s student staff.

\u201cIt sucks because we have a lot of people we\u2019re trying to interview, and we cannot message the virtual kids without asking our adviser to start a group chat,\u201d senior Marissa Barch, editor-in-chief, said. \u201cIf there are kids out on quarantine it is hard to message them, too. It just slows down the class a lot.\u201d

Although staff members feel that disabling Teams chats between students was necessary, students do not share the same opinion.

\u201cI understand the opposing side of wanting to stop the inappropriate activity, but I do not think it is going to be as good of an idea as some people think,\u201d sophomore Grace Jenkins said. \u201cI think having chats with friends is super beneficial and keeps everyone in touch during the day since there is not always service on our phones. If I have a question about an assignment and my text won\u2019t send, I know my friends will always respond on Teams since we\u2019re always on our computers.\u201d

Many other students share the same opinion and find the new restrictions making their days a bit harder.

\u201cI think that the chats shouldn\u2019t be disabled because students have conversations through them and can ask each other questions about different things they\u2019re learning,\u201d junior Thaddeus Kus-tarz said. \u201cAlso, some teachers assign group work through them and now that it\u2019s disabled they can\u2019t do that and it makes it much harder to communicate.\u201d

The Teams chat restrictions have made it especially difficult for classes that heavily rely on group work and team conversations.

\u201cI think that they should not be disabled because I know with group work, especially with science classes, where you\u2019re at tables and you have to do experiments with each other,\u201d junior Kadence Huard said. \u201cWhen we go home to finish them, our group messages are deleted, so we can\u2019t contact our team. Then you have no idea if they did it or understood it.\u201d

Senior Emily Thompson agrees.

\u201cI\u2019ve noticed that in science when group members are quarantined, it is hard to talk to them in the loud classroom and now you can\u2019t even talk to them through the chat, so it makes it difficult,\u201d Thompson said.

Despite the majority of students agreeing that Teams chats being disabled has caused more harm then good, some students are not as affected by the new restrictions.

\u201cI do not care,\u201d senior Jayden Slaughter said. \u201cI do not use Teams so the new rules do not affect me.\u201d

Some students, like junior Dustin Gordon, even think the staff should take action instead of just shutting the whole chat feature for students down.

\u201cInstead of turning the chats off they should put in a program to regulate what words can and cannot be sent,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cThat way the computer would pick up on inappropriate chats before they are even sent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NW-02. News Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

News stories should report but not interpret events that have news value and timeliness to the publication\u2019s readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging Criteria<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
  • Sharp, attention-getting lead that underscores news story importance<\/li>
  • The most important, relevant and timely information is near the beginning of the story<\/li>
  • Emphasizes news elements, i.e. timeliness, nearness, impact, and prominence<\/li>
  • Shows thorough reporting skills; develops an understanding of the issues\/problems through interviews with varied and balanced sources<\/li>
  • Effective use of facts\/quotes gathered predominantly from primary sources. Secondary sources, if used, are cited appropriately.<\/li>
  • Avoids opinion unless properly attributed<\/li>
  • Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely, and vividly<\/li>
  • Proper diction\/grammar; use of third person<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    1st Place, News Story2021-22, Division 2, News Writing By Grace WetheringtonArrowUtica HS Student Teams chats have recently been disabled district-wide due to inappropriate activity being found in many students\u2019 personal chats. However, all existing chats are still open and the new restrictions only affect students trying to start chats with other students with no teacher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[50,4],"tags":[182,21],"class_list":["post-5878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-newsstory","category-nw","tag-2021-22","tag-division2","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/News-writing-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/News-writing-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Morgan Womack","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=12"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/News-writing-scaled.jpg?fit=2235%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1wO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}