Ryan CordellFeb 24, 2023
I do not know if he intended to share it with me, but our 11-yo shared a Google Slides deck titled "The New Chat Room" that is approximately 500 slides long, where each slide is students in his class posting pop culture pictures &/or memes & using the Slides comments to chat with each other about them—I knew that students used this kind of hack to get around school content filters but seeing it in action is something else
Show threadRyan CordellFeb 26, 2023

Last night the 11yo broke down the Google Slides middle school Chatroom for me:

1. At first they used a Google doc but the infinite scroll was too chaotic
2. In the slide deck each new slide is one “post”—some all text, some images, some both—
3. They use slides’ comments feature to “reply” to each other’s “posts”
4. This allows participants to easily flip between posts using the slide thumbnail navigation, so they can find the conversations they care about easily
5. He owns the file & if anyone spams it, deletes other people’s posts, or gets nasty, he can revert the file to its previous save state & remove the spammer’s access
6. He did share the file with me on purpose, I think because he was proud & wanted me to see what he’d made

Essentially they’ve created a chatroom with moderation in Google Slides, so they can get around the school’s ban on platforms like Discord. It’s kind of brilliant

Show threadStark

@ryancordell

How does a school ban #discord? Who is snitching on students using it?

Feb 26, 2023 at 6:57pmWeb
Show threadBobFeb 26, 2023
@Stark9837 @ryancordell They first make a rule against accessing it using school devices (to include routers, etc). When that inevitably doesn't work, they'll block the domain, etc. on all school equipment.
Show threadOliFeb 26, 2023
@bobmueller @Stark9837 @ryancordell my kids know more about vpn's, tor, and proxies than i do
And of that doesn't work someone with unlimited data hot-spots their phone for everyone
Show threadGyroplastNov 11

@bobmueller @Stark9837 @ryancordell

If the blocking and surveillance becomes too oppressive, there will always be that one kid who then proceeds to WiFi hotspot its phone to the class, with a VPN and an unlimited data plan, and all your precious local controls are instantly pointless. Too bad, so sad.

I appreciate how schools inadvertently inspire future hackers' creativity, though! You can't really teach Chaotic Good. :)

Thanks for sharing, I love all of this!

And please fist-bump your kiddo once more for taking charge in providing communal communication infrastructure, and maintaining it under threat of repercussions.

Show threadmjfgatesFeb 26, 2023
@Stark9837 @ryancordell System admin removes the ability to access discord.com from inside the local network. There's a couple of layers of "oh, and disallow this TOO to prevent thus-and-such workaround" but they're all pretty well known.
Show threadGerty SteinblattFeb 27, 2023
@Stark9837 @ryancordell
The snitches are more than likely other students.