With a Chromebook in the hands of each student at IHS, you can bet that schoolwork isn’t the only thing the shiny new devices are used for. The administration and IT department have made valiant efforts to prevent students from playing games or visiting websites related to games during the school day with a series of fairly comprehensive blocks—which nevertheless fail to prevent the age-old strategy of googling “unblocked games.” This has resulted in a sort of cat-and-mouse between students and IT, where high traffic on certain gaming websites led to blocks and subsequent migrations to different websites, and so on. Curiously, one game in particular has remained a constant attraction for students over almost the entire school year: Tetris. One specific Tetris website that is used by most students playing the game has been unblocked all year, and a variety of other Tetris websites are frequented as well.
As a result, one mostly unintended side effect of the introduction of Chromebooks has been a sweeping increase in the Tetris skill of the average IHS student.
“When I was born, they say I was born with a Chromebook in my hands playing Tetris,” joked an anonymous junior, one of the top Tetris players of his grade. “With the great financial help of ICSD, I was able to continue playing Tetris throughout the school day. Because of this, I improved my time in Tetris Sprint [clearing 40 lines] from 2:30 to 1:00.” The junior had his Chromebook in front of him and was navigating his way through a round of Tetris as we spoke at the end of class. It does seem that most Tetris players, like the junior, tend to avoid gaming during class, which should be a relief for concerned teachers.
Another anonymous junior, who is currently the top Tetris player of the grade, was actually introduced to the game by his Chromebook. “I used to play Team Fortress 2, but now I only play Tetris,” he said. Since October, this junior dropped his Tetris Sprint time from around 3:00 to less than a minute—all from playing on his Chromebook during school hours. When I asked him what else he used his Chromebook for, he declined to comment.
There are several lessons to be learned from this, chiefly regarding the nature of blocked websites and the actual utility of the Chromebooks. IHS has already had discussions at length about the effectiveness of the blocks, but anecdotal evidence may be the strongest indicator in that regard. When the teacher stops talking perhaps five minutes before the bell, leaving the class to its own devices, and over half the class pulls out their Chromebooks only to boot up Tetris, something is clearly off. At the very least, the Chromebooks may help jumpstart the professional career of some aspiring Tetris players.