Students, projectors & phones

[timbo343]

Over the past few days staff have reported a few projectors turning off or turning on. We had an incline that either a remote or a phone was the issue.

 

It turns out that a student has admitted to doing this via the peel app on their phone.

 

We have epson projectors through out the school.

 

This could be a bigger problem for any device that has a remote control.

 

What do others do about it? Is the only thing to do mention to the powers that be and sanction them?

[KibosJ]

I'm glad our students haven't figured that one out yet >.<

 

Most of our student have iPhones too I think.

[localzuk]

This is a classroom management issue. I'd highlight it is a possible thing that happens to all your teachers, and then the teachers will need to stay vigilant and use the behaviour policies of the school to deal with any transgressions.

 

There's no real technical solution to it really.

[fiza]

We haven't come across this...yet. What can you really do? Unless you have a blanket ban on phones in school you can't really police this. If you have BYOD then this problem could spread.

[timbo343]

Done a quick google search and found this has been a problem for a fair few years. On reddit, theres a comment about someone doing this at their school to annoy the teachers.

[pete]

We did this with those tv remote watches back in the day. Once the penny dropped, we stopped doing it.

[Fazza]

We had this for a few days earlier on in the year, after a few phones were confiscated the issue went away!

[jmak]

Turning it around, could we make use of it? Given the number of remotes that disappear and the number of people who have phones with IR blasters, you might stop the need to buy expensive spares.

 

I'm in a "silver lining" mood this morning [emoji14]

[Sylv3r]

Not sure if these projectors have two sensors (front and rear), could you stick something over the rear sensor so that you need to be at the front of the room to operate i.e. the teacher?

[KibosJ]

Not sure if these projectors have two sensors (front and rear), could you stick something over the rear sensor so that you need to be at the front of the room to operate i.e. the teacher?

 

Or just set it in the settings. Most of our Epsons allow you to disable the rear sensor

[timbo343]

So Epson have come back to me with..

 

On the projectors menu go to Configuration > Settings Menu > Remote Receiver. You can limit the reception of the remote control or turn off. If you wish to enable the remote control after turning off, press and hold the Menu button for at least 15 seconds. Kind regards.

 

After testing this out, i went back to them with this...

 

I've made changes to the settings however mobiles can still be pointed to the board and the signal still turns on the projector.

 

Deactiving the IR ports isn't an option as staff will have to go into the settings each time they turn off the projector to disable the IR ports and holding the menu button for 15 secs isn't an option either.

 

Is there no way that epson can encrypt the IR ports or have a button on the epson remote to disable the IR ports rather than accessing the setting each time?

[john]

If the remote had a turn off IR port how do you turn it back on again from the remote when the projector is 10ft in the air without your ladder?

 

You should look to get wired in some RS232 controls, kits used to be around £30-£50 for a basic on-off system, you could probably DIY it with a Raspberry PI or something

[synaesthesia]

Not a technology problem, entirely classroom control. Mobile phones should be away during class without reason. Some of our teachers have "mobile phone jails" - plastic pots with bars painted on them to look like jails and phones caught out in the lesson are put in said jail until needed.

As @pete mentions, I think so many of us were guilty of this back in the day with those funky watches (we either had a remote/calculator Casio watch or one of those annoying talking watches that did the loud COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!. Mind did that in the middle of an exam.) So whenever a teacher wheeled out the amusingly rickety TV trolley with a well-worn VCR playing a well-worn tape recording from Channel 4 Education, everyone smiled and did what they needed to do.

[mavhc]

Wire ethernet/serial cables in to control them, or wrap each student in IR absorbing film

[Garacesh]

Layer-8 carbon-based problem. Not your remit.

 

You can either: Do nothing, and expect the teachers to notice and sanction any child using their mobile phone in lesson (which is not unreasonable) OR, go remoteless by blocking IR to all of the projectors and fit those funky wall-boxes with buttons on them, at a cost of probably about £300 per unit.

[dapaulio]

Isn't this kind of over thinking the issue. If student are caught using a mobile in lesson (unless it is a tailored in to the lesson which is rare) they are confiscated. Not every problem requires an IT solution.

If it is a problem in your school arming your teachers with that knowledge will make them more vigilant. Everything else is over complicating the issue and we all know most teachers struggle with anything which is the slightest bit complicated