101–110 of 174 posts
They are also building profiles on every single one of those students which is not only creepy but downright dangerous. Imagine if Trump decided he no longer wanted to hire anyone for a public sector job, if they are pro-green politics. Society will come to regret this and I'll probably still be alive to witness it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The comparison with press does not fully stand. After the invention of printing lots of different publishers were born, while we still have essentially just one Google. So they actually have quite a strong monopoly and quite some power with it. If they decide to not "facilitate" you, you become invisible.
Even though lots of different publishers were born, they were using the same technology, which is the printing press. Google's core technology is search facility. If someone does this better than them, then there will be no monopoly. The core feature of printing press stood as is for longest period of time (even Xerox did not bring anything "new" to the table). That's, until the Internet in fact, was able to put a de…
The problem is, this isn't necessarily true. Microsoft used to make the same argument in the '90s. The point is when you get entrenched in so many areas it becomes hard to switch. It's a network effect of information rather than people. There would have to be a significant improvement in order for people to switch (with some other motivation, like political).
Google is providing cheap, stable laptops for education and most people commenting here are painting Google as an evil data-hungry corporation. I get that companies should be subject to scrutiny due to their outsized responsibility and impact, but this is just silly. In 2013 only 60% of children had internet access at home in the U.S.[0] It might not seem like a big deal for HN readers, but computer access is still a…
In case anyone is curious, this video has a good visual explanation of how to derive the quadratic formula:
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 us we only have 2 of us to cover all technology in our district. That is every from servers to networking to security appliances to the apps on the kindergarten iPads to writing custom tools for admin. We have to carefully choose tools we can manage in mass. I wish we could offer more, but there is no money for it.
I'm still on the fence to whether or not the ability for big companies to give away free software is a net good or not. On one hand, schools theoretically have more money now to spend on mission critical things. On the other hand, the theoretically best possible product will in all likelihood will not be free. Such a product could give exponential gains in productivity to teachers, easily offsetting whatever cost is…
Google I feel has broken Microsoft Office monopoly the difference will be felt 10 years from now though. Earlier everyone had grown up using Microsoft office now most children will grow up using Google Office suite. Though I still think Google sheets is still way behind Microsoft Excel. The day Google can build a convertor that can convert all excel files and macros etc I would shift to Google sheets currently I have…
Isn't proficiency with Microsoft Office still expected in most workplace environments? Google docs, sheets, slides all fall short of the capabilities of their equivalent applications in Office. The Google apps are good enough for many tasks, but really don't cut the mustard if you are accustomed to the depth of capabilities in Office. Are we doing students a disservice by sending them out into the world without profi…
For us Microsoft tools were the highest price point and we didn't use 50% of the features. Apple Enterprise is a joke though they are making good progress now. Google had just enough of a tool at a price we could really justify to the tax payers. As for Google evangelism we offer Google docs and office 365 online. Students are free to choose as Google and Microsoft have been awesome at cooperation in tools. We also h…
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.
They are also building profiles on every single one of those students which is not only creepy but downright dangerous. Imagine if Trump decided he no longer wanted to hire anyone for a public sector job, if they are pro-green politics. Society will come to regret this and I'll probably still be alive to witness it.
The privacy policy for education and the article both explicitly say they are not doing this.
Well, problem solved! Neither the government nor Google have ever lied to us. ;-)
Honestly, this isn't a big issue for two reasons: 1. The Google stuff works. I would have loved for that kind of organization and management in my elementary school classes. Google docs is also great and means I don't have to beg my not so wealthy parents for a Microsoft word license (or learn in the 4th grade how to pirate it). 2. Let's not kid ourselves, everyone is going to make a Google account anyway. As long as…