21–30 of 174 posts
“I cannot answer for them what they are going to do with the quadratic equation. I don’t know why they are learning it.” If Mr Rochelle cannot answer this question, and recommends just googling it, he might not be a good person to be anywhere near STEM eduction.
> I cannot answer for them what they are going to do with the quadratic equation. I don’t know why they are learning it This sounds disingenuous to me. There are lots of things kids and college students and adults learn that have no immediately foreseeable application. I'm sure most people on HN have thought about it. I wonder what the consensus is. My take is that learning how to use technology should not be a class…
Ideally you pay attention to the people who have done some teaching and know something about tech like Sal Khan. He understood what tools kids need only after spending a bunch of time teaching kids.
Tech is not magic just like information access is not magic. Libraries have existed for a longer time than schools have but we don't send our kids to libraries cause a good guide makes more of a diff in where kids end up in life than just access and tools.
They use Lenovo Chromebooks which are built like brick sh*thouses with proper full-travel keyboards and touchscreens.
Chromebooks work, and I am a big fan of them in education. I have a pretty good idea how hard our teachers work, and I'd hate to think of the Windows bullshit being imposed them, like it's imposed on me and my coworkers.
Chromebooks free up teachers and IT admins from Windows update administration, anti-virus software install and administration at the computer level, and from most other malware other than browser extension malware.
Google Docs is incredible and a huge step forward to the point that where possible, most of my own notes are accessible to me from anywhere I can get into my Google account.
For a child, this means they no longer have to schlep a laptop around. Just an account and a Chromebook or other thin client are needed.
I'm a big fan of Microsoft's recent changes, and generally a pretty heavy Windows user warts and all, but it's interesting that Microsoft have never been able to make say cross-machine sync'd folders work, despite pushing it for like 15 years, whereas DropBox has built a giant business from it.
Is there any evidence that computers in the classroom improve results of the 3 R's ?
That said, after reading Dave Eggers' excellent book "The Circle" last year and having watched the movie yesterday, I was reminded of the dangers (even if fictional in the case of the book) of a monopoly controlling knowledge. The book/movie is obviously about Google and information monopolies even if the fictional company is named The Circle. Buying the education business with free/inexpensive services definitely increases Google's chance of being the information monopoly.
Personally I like to pay for services. I pay for FastMail and just use GMail as a backup email. I pay for Evernote instead of using free offerings like Keep. I pay for Office 365 to get lots of cloud storage and the Office apps for the rare times when I need them. I pay for using GCP and I buy movies and TV shows from Google Play and Apple. It is a cliche, but I like to be the customer and not the product.
I understand that School districts are on a tight budget, so it is understandable that they make use of free (or priced under-market) services.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be very happy if the kids became conversant in libre office. It has all the functionality they need and they would be comfortable with it going into college.
For basic-to-semicomplex tasks (I'm sure it'd be different if writing a book or something) I've found Google Docs/Slides/Sheets to be easier to use and more feature-rich (…you still can't crop pictures in LibreOffice…)
You can. It has been in Draw and Impress for a long time, and since LibreOffice 5.0 it's supported in Writer and Calc as well. 5.0 was released 2 years ago.
I have mixed feelings about this. Personally, working as a contractor at Google was one of the interesting jobs I have had and I generally like Google. That said, after reading Dave Eggers' excellent book "The Circle" last year and having watched the movie yesterday, I was reminded of the dangers (even if fictional in the case of the book) of a monopoly controlling knowledge. The book/movie is obviously about Google…
I have a daughter in the local school district. They use Lenovo Chromebooks which are built like brick sh*thouses with proper full-travel keyboards and touchscreens. Chromebooks work, and I am a big fan of them in education. I have a pretty good idea how hard our teachers work, and I'd hate to think of the Windows bullshit being imposed them, like it's imposed on me and my coworkers. Chromebooks free up teachers and…
An example: To install an app for all students on the iPads, we need to plug them all in to a big USB hub, then connect a Mac with management software to it and run a sync procedure. It fails on about 10% of the devices, so we run it again. Each run takes several minutes. There are over-the-air methods for doing this, but they're corporate solutions not provided by Apple and are pretty expensive.
So given all that, if ChromeBooks promise per-user customization and document storage with much simpler administration, it's no wonder they're taking over.