background and opinions on how Linewize and Classwize have been implemented in at Northern.
Linewize is a 24/7 surveillance app and according to the official Linewize website it is implemented in about 20% of schools all across America. Linewize works by automatically filtering websites based on certain key words or phrases and/or manually blocking sites. Linewize is also active when students are or are not in school, sourced from “Linewize Filter IT Support FAQ” where it states, “Linewize Filter’s 24/7 Filtering (24/7) mode can allow you to enforce your school or district’s content filtering policies and policies on school-owned devices even when those devices aren’t at school, or if the user is hot-spotting from their phone or other devices.” Linewize also implemented AI in their extension. As mentioned in an article by Linewize explaining how it works it states, “Using a combination of AI and a team of highly trained human moderators it finds and assesses risks in more categories and in more digital locations than any other solution of its kind.” Although AI seems to be quite a bit more prevalent in monitoring websites than this quote may allude to.
Many students here at Northern high school express great disdain for the Linewize extension which was forcibly implemented on their school computers. On the other hand, many teachers here at Northern High School seem to like the extension as it helps monitor what students are looking at on their computers during class and prevents temptation which causes students to stray away from their work. Whichever way those may see it, Linewize is a controversial addition to laptops here at Northern. This is especially true because of Linewize’s use of ai and how the extension will block “unnecessary” websites for seemingly no reason at all.
Teachers here at northern high school have many differing opinions on the use of Linewize on students school laptops. Mr. Brennan a patriot English teacher who supports the use of Linewize and Classwize says “yea I think so, there’s no reason for me to not enjoy using it” when asked weather or not he liked Linewize. Another English teacher here at Northern high school Mrs Andes states “I typically do not like to use Classwize.. I don’t wanna have to get on Classwize to make sure they’re(the students) actually following my directions”. It seems that teachers here at Northern are divided on weather or not Linewize is good or bad for students. This further supported with Edward Brennan’s statements of “I think for teachers it is an overall positive” when asked if Linewize was an overall positive or negative for students indicating that he thinks helps with the work load for teachers maybe at the expense of the students however. However when Mrs. Andes was presented with the question “do you think that Classwize is an overall positive or negative for students” she responded with “Do you know what’s really sad, If I threaten to use Classwize most often the percentage of students who are doing their assignments increase However I don’t feel like i should have too give them an ultimatum or give them some level of punitive directive in that manner.” This indicates that the Use of Classwize although is a overall positive to the workflow of Students at Northern still annoys the teachers due to the fact that they even have to use it.
Linewize seems to be a very hated addition to the school at least to the students here at northern. With the rise of generative ai, ai has been put into a very negative spotlight over the years. This opinion has manifested at northern high school as well. Many people at this school do not like the way that Linewize incorporates ai in their technology. When Ezra Chors was asked about Linewize use of ai he responded with a simple “no”. Not only that but Ezra also stated “I think it makes it a lot more difficult to do assignments” when asked if he liked the addition of Linzewize of School laptops. So it seems from personal testimonies that Linewize is not the beneficial extension that the school thinks it is to students.