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As an Avonworth student, one experiences the struggle of the online iBoss blocking system on a daily basis. It can strike while innocently researching a project or watching Netflix on school grounds, and has become so iconic that it was English teacher Mr. Tuffiash’s Halloween costume this year, constructed from two poster boards and some in-character method acting.
Students expressed frustration at their past struggles with iBoss. Junior Marion Haney said, “It blocks me when I search the term war, like for history class, and even stops educational YouTube videos. Oh, and it also blocks the Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs wiki page!”
Juniors Erin Ove and Chloe Boothby concurred, exclaiming, “The Fairly Odd Parents’ wiki page is blocked too! We were making a literary allusion to The Scarlet Letter’s Dimmesdale…and iBoss wouldn’t allow it.”
Seniors Gabby Grachen and Andy Chrvala found the arbitrary words, “lace,” and “gang” to both be blocked as well, although in both cases their initial general search term was historical and G-rated.
“It gets in the way of my education,” Junior Summer Skillen said.
“It blocks me when I was looking for homework help last year,” claimed Junior Katelyn Eng.
“I remember that Genocide project {from World Affairs class} being so impossible because iBoss couldn’t let me research anything,” added Junior Olivia Scrabis.
“Once, a student couldn’t get her email through to me because it contained the word ‘meme’,” Mr. Tuffiash shared.
Sometimes even Google.com is too spicy of a search for iBoss, as it blocks the Internet’s gates and asks for a password before allowing students through.
“I think it should loosen the reigns a bit,” Marion Haney said, “and trust students not to search ridiculously inappropriate stuff. It’d be more efficient.”
The iBoss blocks, seemingly random, and often annoying, prove the importance of context. But, here’s a protip: conjugating a word, from “lace” to “lacy,” is enough to trick the system.
Great job getting multiple different points of view across several grades. Additionally, it is nice to read a rather humorous article once in a while. Good job!
I like how you got responses of multiple different students in different grades.
I really like this article and it was very interesting to read.
I like how you got different grades opinions on it.