This editorial represents the opinion of 14 out of 15 Outlook editors.
The Aragon Wi-Fi, under the name “AHS,” has long been about providing Aragon students a way to access the Internet for productive schoolwork. It is especially useful for students who are less privileged and do not have Internet access outside of school. However, although we appreciate the AHS Wi-Fi’s presence, it has become increasingly apparent that the AHS Wi-Fi isn’t leveraged to its full capabilities in helping foster productivity. The Aragon Wi-Fi is hard to access, slow and overly censored, which all prevent a truly productive working environment.
Before students can even access the Internet through the AHS Wi-Fi, a page pops up with the button “Continue to the Internet.” After clicking the button, students must wait for an unpredictable period of time before being able to use the Internet. In the past, this button existed in the bottom of a page with terms and conditions. This was also a hassle but at least had an understandable point in its existence. Today, these terms and conditions are absent, which makes the button both a hassle and useless, from what it seems. Therefore, we believe the use of this button should be removed, and the button should not be replaced with a different form of authentication. The AHS password is already sufficient for authentication, and adding another layer of authentication does more bad than good. Furthermore, sometimes this extra layer of authentication fails to do its job — the button sometimes doesn’t pop up at all, preventing Internet access completely.
After we click the button and try to open a webpage, it often takes much too long of a wait before the page actually opens so that we can continue with our schoolwork. Sometimes the page does not load at all. Whether it’s Schoolloop, Google Drive, Google Classroom, Gmail or any other website, the AHS Wi-Fi is too sluggish to be used productively. In the end, students must resort to using their phone’s data plan for a faster and more productive working experience. Not all students, however, have a data plan. And even for the students that do, they cannot use their data plan because Aragon classrooms are in built in a way that impede the ability to use it. Students should not have to resort to using the data plan anyway, as this defeats the purpose of Aragon Wi-Fi. In order to ensure that students can complete their school work productively and not run into problems in the process, the AHS Wi-Fi’s bandwidth should be increased. Adding routers, for example, could be a solution.
In addition, too much of the Internet through the AHS Wi-Fi is unnecessarily censored. Social media and YouTube contain distracting, even inappropriate content, and because of such concerns, the administration has blocked these websites.
However, the decision to block all these websites is, in fact, counterproductive. Some clubs use social media, such as Facebook, for communication between club members. Many students also benefit from watching educational videos on YouTube to receive more insight into the topics they are learning in their classes. Blocking them is a solution that hurts productivity much more than increases it. Distraction and inappropriate content is everywhere around us. Unblocking these websites might increase distraction and exposure to inappropriate content to a handful of students, but the eventual benefits will outweigh the costs when considering the entire Aragon student body.
Furthermore, Aragon students have a 30-minute lunch that allows students to eat lunch, relax and socialize with friends. With social media blocked, students cannot use social media websites during lunch to socialize, and this restrains the socializing that lunch supposedly permits.
Of course, there are sites that should continue to be blocked — there’s no good reason for students to be using gaming websites, for example. The school should be more lenient with the Wi-Fi restrictions, but continue to block websites that are not conducive to a learning environment.
While it is expected that there will inevitably be students who will not use the Wi-Fi productively as there are today, increasing the Wi-Fi speed and minimizing censorship is the next step to ensuring that Aragon students receive a more ideal educational environment. We appreciate the cooperation and understanding of the Aragon administration, staff and faculty.
