Matthew Artress-Brown, 17, Ella Crowther, 18, Amber Hunt, 18:
We are writing to you to address the implications of an over-reliance on the internet in an academic environment.
We attended a sixth form on the Isle of Wight in which the internet went down, and this has demonstrated to us the importance of the investment in local client and server infrastructure.
This is based on the premise that, because of this incident, we were unable to utilise any of the services that we required to revise.
For example, we use Google Classroom as a platform for communication between teachers and students, as well as for storing and setting work.
As the internet went down, we were unable to access the resources that would ordinarily be available, which greatly impacted our revision.
We want to emphasise that we have three weeks (give or take) until our A-level exams, and if we don’t make the most of our time, we will fall behind.
However, this is not all, as we were also unable to complete work, unable to sign into the computer, or even unable to photocopy or print with the school computer provided (which they push that we use).
If we were able to use local software such as Microsoft Word, it would allow us to edit documents regardless of the availability of the internet.
This would prevent major setbacks like we are currently experiencing. In our school, we have been issued Chromebooks, which are very much a downgrade from the computer that we were previously using, which ran Windows and made it so that we could access documents offline.
With access to a local storage server, you could store and edit data on a server within the school without needing to connect to the internet whatsoever, which also acts as a failsafe when the internet does fail.
Moreover, teachers are being pushed towards using Chromebooks for teaching, which would stop them from being able to use PowerPoints, which are important for accessing slideshows offline, and instead they are being encouraged to use Google Slides, which is completely online and without an internet connection would be rendered completely useless.
In conclusion, we believe to move forward, we should take a step back, re-evaluate our position in terms of the reliance of the internet in the academic environment, and move towards a more reliable, stable, and long-term future.
