OT: Purdue banning Netflix, Steam, streaming services in classes
There's an article in the Chicago Tribune this morning about Purdue. Seems their wi-fi is pokey and difficult to use in classes. Why? Because bandwidth is being eaten up by students streaming Netflix, Hulu, gaming, etc. As a result, the Purdue admin is banning these streaming and gaming services to speed up academic access. The ban only applies to wi-fi in academic buildings. A study showed that 34% of traffic was consumed by streaming services and gaming. Speeds slowed to a crawl and students couldn't turn in homework, answers, or pull up academic mtl. in class when the profs wanted them to.
LINK: Purdue has banned Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services.
(This is a Trib link, where I have a subscription, so the link might not open for you.)
I'm curious what it is like in Ann Arbor. Does Michigan have better wi-fi so it doesn't matter? For those of you who are students, TA's, and profs, how much of an issue is it? I've also heard that the Internet makes it much easier to plagiarize, while at the same time making it much easier to track and find plagiarism. Things we really didn't deal with in the infancy of the internet.
I often saw large groups of students take up multiple cubicles in the fish bowl to play video games.
Caveat: I'm old.
It's shocking to me that streaming services would be permitted in classes at all. In fact, I don't think I'd allow any use of smart phones unless directly tied to and required by what was going on in class. Netflix at home, learn in class.
On the other hand, anyone not taking a smartphone into class, it would seem, immediately has an advantage over all the distracted students around her.
Get off my lawn.
Kinda hard to stop a few hundred people in a lecture hall from using cell phones though.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:01 AM ^
These students are paying for their college education. They should be able to use their class time in whatever way they see fit as long as they are not distracting the other students around them. If a student wants to skip class for sleep or spend their time in class on their phone or on netflix, hulu, amazon, ect., that should be fine, because they are paying for the class and should be able to do what they want with their class time. If they fail the class because they didn't spend their time wisely, then that's on them.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:07 AM ^
This would be fine if each student existed independent of every other in class. However, it's incredibly distracting if the person sitting 2 feet to your left, or directly in front of you, is streaming Netflix or gaming.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:11 AM ^
Not to mention distracting to the professor. If you, as a teacher, are even half-way engaged with your students during class, you're going to be distracted by kids constantly using their phones or clearly watching movies in your lecture.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:25 AM ^
Yep. If a dude next to you is doodling in his notebook or typing a math paper during history class, it's not going to bother you.
If the dude next to you is watching "Game of Thrones" and the girl in front of you is watching "Breaking Bad" and the guy on the other side of you is streaming "Fortnite," you're probably being distracted.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:30 AM ^
Typing a math paper?
March 19th, 2019 at 10:35 AM ^
My exact thought.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:44 AM ^
E=Mc2... dammit, where's my superscript?
There are math essays, for those who would be surprised by that. So...
March 19th, 2019 at 10:14 AM ^
Purdue in the article kind of acknowledges that students have the right to study or not. They can choose whatever they want. The issue is bandwidth being slowed to a crawl in class. I guess Purdue would say, skip class if you want to watch movies. But if you're going to be in class, that's not the time to game or to stream Netflix. Especially if it makes the internet unusable for the students who want to get something out of the class.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:37 AM ^
As noted by others, no one studies in a vacuum. The value of the class is directly tied to the engagement of the students. If the students are all distracted and watching movies, the class will suck--why bother even meeting in one place?
That this is not immediately obvious is more confirmation that we are spinning off into isolated, technologically abundant but socially desolate, islands.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
Nobody is saying that the students can't watch those services, just that they can't watch those services in academic buildings, because it hurts other students (slows down the network).
If you want to Netflix and chill, do it in your dorm room.
March 19th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
Paying tuition doesn’t give a student the right to do whatever they want. Step foot in a classroom and you play by the pof’s rules.
Even if they're not distracting the students around them, they're eating up bandwidth and that hurts the students who are actually, you know, studying.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:48 AM ^
I'm a recent graduate (2016), general policy was if you used laptop (presumably to take notes) you were encouraged to sit in the back.
Side note, will never forget the one kid who sat in the front of 1800 Chem who forgot he was watching porn earlier, open his laptop and had... erm... sound effects.... blaring out of his speakers.
bUt My DoG aTe My HoMeWoRk
I thought the same thing (and I'm a lot older than you). If Wi-Fi is supplied to facilitate learning and administering classes, why were these streaming services not filtered from the start? The article also mentions that some professors require that all smart phones be turned in before class so they're not available to students during class time. It would seem that once you're in college, you should be responsible enough for all classwork. However, I can't see how the learning institution should provide bandwidth so students could stream movies, etc. That said, the article does make it sound like Purdue's Wi-Fi is rather lame.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:51 AM ^
Filtering takes money, time and maintenance. As far as I know they have no legal requirement to filter wifi access. You also have the potential for the filtering to interfere with professors' lessons plans (I've seen the corporate equivalent happen often enough).
If they hadn't had a compelling reason to do it before, why would they?
March 19th, 2019 at 11:15 AM ^
The solution for professors/instructors who want to use streaming content to, say, show a film in class is either download it to their device ahead of time or use a hard-wired connection to their laptop (which is usually available on AV lecture stands). They're going to be aware of this, and believe it or not, lesson planning is just that: planning.
In other words, that's a non-starter argument.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
It's an argument for not doing it out of the box, or for doing any filtering that is not restricted to streaming and gaming.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
Filtering is super easy with a decent system and done at the DNS level. I do it on my home network because of having 2 teens in the house. I assume a legit institution has a system 1000x better than mine.
What everyone seems to forget is that this is only school supplied WiFi. With unlimited data plans getting cheaper by the month it is almost a non-issue anyway.
I’m 22 and I feel old from this. The only time I’m not fully engaged in the class is if there’s sports on since I take night classes. I will switch back and forth between a stream of the game and my notes
"Does Michigan have better wi-fi so it doesn't matter?" LMAOOO. Have you never heard of MWireless? It was horrid. Almost useless at times. I remember using my cell phone's hotspot sitting in Angel Hall A Auditorium while trying to answer questions via Canvas (the new CTools)
March 19th, 2019 at 10:07 AM ^
When I was in law school at Michigan (WiFi wasn't a thing when when I was in UG), there was no campus-wide WiFi; instead, each school built and maintained its own WiFi network. I assume that's changed now...?
March 19th, 2019 at 10:22 AM ^
Yeah, MWireless is the U-M campus wide WiFi. Ross had its own WiFi for a bit when I first started but they've also been integrated into MWireless
March 19th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
That Netflix degree ain't gonna cover your student loans.
Wise up, kiddos. You'll be serfs before you know it.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
The fact that they weren't doing this to begin with is surprising. Filtering internet traffic is ridiculously easy these days. Ever heard of a firewall?
March 19th, 2019 at 10:26 AM ^
That's kind of what I was wondering - the firewall at my office doesn't let you use most streaming services for similar reasons (i.e., they kill bandwidth, and I work for a Fortune 250 company), so I was kind of surprised that Purdue wouldn't have gone ahead and enacted similar measures from the start.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:06 AM ^
While I'm sure some students do try to get away with streaming during class, I would guess that most of the streamers are doing so before or after class for whatever reason (waiting for a friend, waiting for class to start, etc.). Wi-Fi doesn't know if a device is currently being used by someone in class or waiting outside of one, nor do most students realize that their movie is screwing over someone trying to upload a document. Seems this policy should fix those issues.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:11 AM ^
during the summer nights when the north campus library was pretty empty, used to go to the lower floor computer section with friends and play network starcraft off of our USB sticks. and then get kicked out.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:19 AM ^
How ironic for the Boilermakers to ban steam.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:49 AM ^
Kinda like OSU banning coolers.
(Okay that was childish and lame, but whatever.)
March 19th, 2019 at 10:28 AM ^
I'm assuming this has more to do with before class, after class and during breaks/transitions in a long class.
If some students really are sitting through a whole class watching a movie or playing a game why go to class? I'm old, but that seems like a very rude thing to do.
March 19th, 2019 at 10:53 AM ^
Attendance often counts for a portion of your grade - showing up = free points
March 19th, 2019 at 11:04 AM ^
Students do it. All. The. Time.
You'd be shocked if you stood at the back of a crowded lecture hall and saw what students were actually doing on their laptop screens. And I'm not talking about idly reading a blog or news site or something. I'm talking full-on video games, watching sports, movies, TV, FaceTiming, the whole nine yards. And this isn't even always for courses where attendance at lecture is even taken.
Not only students - hey - Faculty, guests speakers, ... as well.
UM is my main client and I am every week photographing class rooms, conferences, etc.
And I can tell you that I have seen worst than Netflix being played in some class.
My daughter use to facebook message during boring lectures when she was in vet school. I asked her if she was going to get busted and she assured me that it was probably the least distracting thing students were doing with their laptops. (She graduated with honors so I guess she paid attention enough.)
As a teacher I was not encouraged to hear that...
March 19th, 2019 at 10:48 AM ^
How the hell am I supposed to watch The Office during Engineering class now?
March 19th, 2019 at 10:49 AM ^
Smart move. Honestly, if you're going to show up to class and do nothing but watch Netflix, why are you even bothering showing up at all? Just stay home....
March 19th, 2019 at 11:09 AM ^
Some professors take attendance...
March 19th, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
But not PornHub? Nobody is trying to ban PornHub, right? RIGHT??? Asking for a friend...
March 19th, 2019 at 11:01 AM ^
Good. If you want to watch a movie, don't bother going to lecture and distracting your classmates.
And, no, "my class, my tuition, my choice, I'm going to watch this sick ep" is not an acceptable answer here.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:58 AM ^
I completely agree, which is rare.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:21 AM ^
There's a few snowflake/Gen Z comments to be made somewhere, but I don't have it in me.
March 19th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
The equivalent in my day was the Daily Crossword puzzle. I was always surprised how many people would just sit in lectures and do crosswords. I myself preferred doodling and finishing homework for my upcoming class. I can only imagine how much worse it is now with so many different choices for distraction.
March 19th, 2019 at 12:02 PM ^
The Daily crossword took less than 5min.
Really? I’m terrible at crossword puzzles. I can never finish them.