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I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

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Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#81

Post by ben_w »

andrepd wrote: post #77
mlinhares wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it good they don't know these differences? The fact we know is mostly due to poorly designed UX, not some high level concept that needs to be known. Modern phones are a much better UX for most people.

Jesus, no. Computer illiteracy is a growing problem, kids and teens nowadays have trouble understanding even the basics of what's going on in their computers apart from "swipe here for the next addictive depressive 5-second slop". That's very very bad at a time when these devices are more and more important in their lives.

When I was a kid, general understanding of computers was so basic that "my computer was struck by lightning and now it is sentient" seemed like a reasonable plot device.

In more practical terms, this extended to things like not understanding why an Acorn-formatted floppy disk, or Doom for Windows, couldn't be read by a Mac.

Naturally, another memory of those days was my dad complaining that "these days" people couldn't understand the electrical circuits because everything was getting replaced with ICs where the only thing you could do if it failed was throw the entire chip away and replace it.

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#82

Post by ben_w »

dotancohen wrote: post #69
maccard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the best thing my school ever did for me was give me a paper planner and teach me how to use it A sentiment I’ve heard a lot is “how will kids learn the value of money in a cashless society”. The answer, like with the paper planner is “unfortunately the world has changed”. Using a paper calendar or cash isn’t obsolete, but the real trick is learning to schedule/work with money. And in the modern day, you _must_ be…

Even if the money is in flying 747s (it isn't), learning to fly a Cessna at a younger age is still beneficial. Same with cash money and young children. For what it's worth, I've been in the software field for decades - long enough that I prefer not to use it. My preferred barber loses my business because he only accepts appointments via his app. I'm not installing it, so I cut my hair somewhere else. He knows this, a…

Is cash the only thing that gives that benefit?

Or was cash just a convenient low-risk mechanism because the pocket money parents give to their kids is in small enough units that they can afford for their kids to waste it or straight up lose it?

If the latter, I suspect even games with internal currencies would provide the same learning opportunities. And I don't mean micro-transactions here, I mean like the SimCity (2000 in particular) or Civilization games where your actions within the game are what makes or consumes the currency.

But it could also be, say, €$£5/week of vouchers for Steam or Amazon or whatever.

(I'm like you when it comes to having been in software too long, and therefore not wanting to install apps for everything).

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#83

Post by BoxOfRain »

kleiba wrote: post #28

This is cool, but on a second thought it's sad that someone had to jump through so many hoops -- not just to get his idea implemented because of lacking APIs etc., but that the school provides such a crappy service in the first place. But then you realize that we're talking about Germany here, and before you downvote, trust me, anyone who has lived there for a while and especially if they had to deal with public admi…

When I lived in Wales a German friend of mine shocked me by complimenting what was then Arriva Wales's railway services. The Cambrian Line was and presumably still is notoriously under-served with small, old trains that are ruinously expensive and constantly delayed/cancelled (common story in the UK). I always assumed German trains would be pretty good but apparently not.

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#84

Post by arrowsmith »

BadHumans wrote: post #3

Kids are getting scheduling via apps now? The best thing my school ever did for me was give me a paper planner and teach me how to use it. I've finally reached that "back in my day" age. It's a neat project though. I wasn't aware Soldered existed so this is a nice find.

I'm also confused by this: "our family’s morning routine [includes] the daily check of the timetable and substitution plan for the kids’ school".

I don't get it. Why is he checking his kids' school timetable in the morning? My parents never needed to know my precise timetable for the day. They just dropped me off at school and picked me up again in the morning.

Why is this complicated?

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#85

Post by mschuster91 »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #62
Freak_NL wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is an 'app'. No need to understand where the data goes, where it is stored, who owns it, what they know about you and what is shared with third parties, what is costs to provide such a service (even though none of its users seem to pay anything), how it is monetized, how dark UI patterns nudge you, how algorithms manipulate you, why you can get addicted to them. Just click on the friendly little coloured r…

> Just click on the friendly little coloured rectangle with the rounded corners. That's the app. That's all you need to know. That’s the exact amount knowledge most users want .

> That’s the exact amount knowledge most users want.

Back when I was young I was completely astonished by that mindset... but now that I'm older, I kinda get it. When you gotta juggle 8 hours of work, 2 hours of commute, 1-2 hours of chores, and completely forget about kids or a sane sleep schedule... you don't have the time dealing with bullshit, you need something that works. And you got money to pay for that, too.

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#86

Post by arrowsmith »

jeroenhd wrote: post #46
soysandwhich wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

You managed, good for you! Thankfully, we got it better, and kids these days have it even better. I don't see how that's a bad thing, every generation should strive to make things better for the next ones.

I don't think it's "better" to make kids check a multitude of ever-changing apps and screens just to find out their timetable for the day.

What on earth is the point? When I was a kid we just had the same timetable repeating every week. It changed once a year, at the beginning of the academic year, meaning that within a few weeks I knew it from memory and didn't need to keep looking it up.

In the extremely rare event that things deviated from the timetable, the school found a way to tell us. It's not hard to convey a message to a group of students when you know exactly which room they'll physically be in at any given moment; another advantage of a fixed timetable.

If the school can't accomplish such basic tasks as scheduling a simple timetable, that's the adults' problem, not the children's.

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#87

Post by dotancohen »

ben_w wrote: post #82
dotancohen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the money is in flying 747s (it isn't), learning to fly a Cessna at a younger age is still beneficial. Same with cash money and young children. For what it's worth, I've been in the software field for decades - long enough that I prefer not to use it. My preferred barber loses my business because he only accepts appointments via his app. I'm not installing it, so I cut my hair somewhere else. He knows this, a…

Is cash the only thing that gives that benefit? Or was cash just a convenient low-risk mechanism because the pocket money parents give to their kids is in small enough units that they can afford for their kids to waste it or straight up lose it? If the latter, I suspect even games with internal currencies would provide the same learning opportunities. And I don't mean micro-transactions here, I mean like the SimCity…

Games and such do not have the real-world consequences of cash. I've sent all my kids to go out and e.g. buy some groceries. They learn to count their change and deal with strangers who might not be trustworthy. They learn to protect their wallets and not lose it. They learn to look at price tags. All real world skills that games do not simulate.

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#88

Post by sokoloff »

IshKebab wrote: post #78

I've been working on getting a calendar on an Inkplate 10. Great hardware but my god is the Arduino software awful. It doesn't even have incremental builds! A one line change to my code means it completely recompiles a ton of libraries including mbedtls! The edit-compile-run cycle is like 3 minutes. Awful. Arduino code and APIs are also really badly designed, and badly documented. The Inkplate uses an Xtensa ESP32 so…

I think the beauty and genius of Arduino was how much more accessible that project made microcontroller development for great many people. As a pro-SWE and dabbling electronics person, I had bounced off the PIC and other toolchains, sometimes managing to get a simple 8051 project working. Then Arduino came along and it was like a light switch was turned on. (Witness how many professional AVR programmers were up in arms over the vast eternal September that suddenly flooded the area. :D )

The IDE tooling is terrible/frustrating for pros in many ways, but "it just works" in some other very important ways. You can get to hello-world (blink an LED) in under 5 minutes. That's huge and appears to be more of what Arduino is targeting.

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#89

Post by scoopr »

simon_acca wrote: post #64

Very cool! If someone is looking for something similar with less hassle, let me plug my friend’s product :) https://www.inklay.app/ I’ve been using it for the better part of a year now to show the weather, a dashboard and some comics and am very happy with it, it just works and looks great too

Hmm, it says

> Shipping to Switzerland only

which is a shame :/

Re: I replaced my son's school timetable app with an e-paper

#90

Post by mfld »

cududa wrote: post #41

> The problem is that my son’s mobile phone is governed by strict parental controls, making this daily lookup an unpopular chore on my side This was a neat project, but I feel like this is insanely overkill for a solution that is “whitelist the app required for school”. I sort of feel bad for this kid. I mean, I graduated high school in 15+ years ago and we had a website that we had to regularly check for assignments…

I agree that it seems harsh. However, I have tried the "whitelist this app" route. Turns out that, at least for me, the parental control on android is not sufficient. For example, you cannot block the app store, and in the app store you can watch video previews of games. Also, you get to watch animated gifs on every text field.
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