Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools • Hacker News Board

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#31

Post by glesica » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 9:56 PM UTC

pwthornton wrote: post #13

As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad. The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged. The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more tr…

Students have never been allowed to "tinker" with school-owned computers. I have been involved in educational programs that relied on school-owned laptops at the college level. In my experience having a locked-down machine is really the only way to make this sort of thing work well.

Unless you're teaching CS or networking or something along those lines there is just no benefit to allowing students fiddle with the computers that isn't completely overwhelmed by the negative effects of students accidentally hosing the machines.

I guess in a perfect world we would let everyone tinker with everything. You never know where the next brilliant idea will come from and all that. But in the world we live in, there are costs and there are benefits. When the costs of something dwarf the benefits of that thing you don't do it.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#32

Post by jeffk1337 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 9:56 PM UTC

pwthornton wrote: post #13

As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad. The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged. The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more tr…

The machines are also totally fungible. If something happens to a computer, you can swap in a loaner machine with negligible loss of productivity.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#33

Post by daeken » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 9:56 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #19

When it comes to Google, HN often exhibits a surprising amount of tolerance for vendor lock in.

What vendor lock-in? You can install any OS you want on these devices.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#34

Post by NegativeK » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:06 PM UTC

RexRollman wrote: post #2

Sweet. Too bad it is for students only because my CR-48 is starting to show its wear.

What was your usage pattern for you with your CR-48?

I tried using it initially, but I very quickly ran into speed issues when I was trying to rapidly find information and take notes in Google Docs. The hardware simply couldn't keep up.

I've recently ressurected it by connecting it to my stereo and running Rdio on it, but I have a feeling that this is a misuse.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#35

Post by meaty » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:08 PM UTC

glesica wrote: post #31

pwthornton wrote: post #13

As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad. The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged. The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more tr…

Students have never been allowed to "tinker" with school-owned computers. I have been involved in educational programs that relied on school-owned laptops at the college level. In my experience having a locked-down machine is really the only way to make this sort of thing work well. Unless you're teaching CS or networking or something along those lines there is just no benefit to allowing students fiddle with the com…

We weren't allowed to meddle with them, but did that stop us? No.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#36

Post by meaty » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:11 PM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #25

dublinben wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been in school for a while, but they rather discouraged any tinkering with the computers while I was there. Merely launching the command prompt was enough to be written up by a teacher. Trying to 'experiment' in any way would have gotten your computer privileges revoked.

It's character building! If tinkering was merely hard instead of forbidden, it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.

This times a million. Getting dragged up in front of the head master for cracking the econet filestore in my school was the start of my career :)

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#37

Post by jeffk1337 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 10:11 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #19

When it comes to Google, HN often exhibits a surprising amount of tolerance for vendor lock in.

It promotes using web apps, web apps which can also be accessed with browsers on any OS. Not happy with Chromebooks? Use Windows or Mac instead and access the same webapp. That's the exact opposite of vendor lock-in.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#38

Post by glesica » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 12:56 AM UTC

meaty wrote: post #35

glesica wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Students have never been allowed to "tinker" with school-owned computers. I have been involved in educational programs that relied on school-owned laptops at the college level. In my experience having a locked-down machine is really the only way to make this sort of thing work well. Unless you're teaching CS or networking or something along those lines there is just no benefit to allowing students fiddle with the com…

We weren't allowed to meddle with them, but did that stop us? No.

Yeah, and that's fine. What I'm saying is that when the computer is a primary mode of delivering course material or is otherwise absolutely necessary for the curriculum, malfunctions, whether caused by user error or otherwise, are unacceptable. Most schools just don't have the resources to support "real" computers in the hands of the students.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#39

Post by RexRollman » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:23 AM UTC

NegativeK wrote: post #34

RexRollman wrote: post #2

Sweet. Too bad it is for students only because my CR-48 is starting to show its wear.

What was your usage pattern for you with your CR-48? I tried using it initially, but I very quickly ran into speed issues when I was trying to rapidly find information and take notes in Google Docs. The hardware simply couldn't keep up. I've recently ressurected it by connecting it to my stereo and running Rdio on it, but I have a feeling that this is a misuse.

Mine is mainly used for everyday web browsing while sitting in front of the TV. I agree it is a bit slow but I am generally not in a rush.

Personally, if I had to fault ChromeOS for something, it would be that there is no way to create an account on the machine without having a Google account. I believe that needs to be changed.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools

#40

Post by Evbn » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 5:02 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #15

so898 wrote: post #8

Chrome OS with Thinkpad? Sweets. However, if I get one of this laptop, I will install Ubuntu or other Linux system on it. Because in most time, without networking, Chrome OS is useless.

It boggles my mind how popular ChromeOS would be if it did indeed have strong offline capabilities (like say, an Android tablet). This is likely why I would recommend a Transformer+keyboard instead - around the same price, but higher utility.

Chrome supports offline apps.