Live data from Hacker News

Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

techcrunch.com

1–10 of 36 posts

Re: Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

#2
It's going to be interesting to watch how this competes with Blackboard.

Anecdotally, it definitely looks like Blackboard has an almost monopoly on class room management stuff. Since the education market is so slow to adopt new things, Google definitely has their work cut out for them.

With that being said, Blackboard definitely leaves a lot to be desired, and with classes supposedly going online more and more, the market is definitely ripe for some disruption.

Re: Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

#3
post #2

It's going to be interesting to watch how this competes with Blackboard. Anecdotally, it definitely looks like Blackboard has an almost monopoly on class room management stuff. Since the education market is so slow to adopt new things, Google definitely has their work cut out for them. With that being said, Blackboard definitely leaves a lot to be desired, and with classes supposedly going online more and more, the m…

One thing that this has going for it against Blackboard is that many universities already use Google Apps to manage their student email/accounts, so it should be a relatively smooth transition to enable access for students and teachers. As a student I would love to never have to use Blackboard again. Its UX is just awful and having a Google integrated solution seems like it would be a lot less hassle for everyone involved.

Re: Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

#6
These tools and services look very promising but Google needs to be clear and transparent about what data it captures when rolling out this service.

Is it tracking and recording the usage and behaviour of teachers and students who use these tools? What does it use this data for? ("we use this data to improve services" says absolutely nothing.)

If you start using these tools in your student years, then continue to use your email and Google apps into adult life, can you imagine the phenomenal amount of data Google will have captured and recorded about you?

Re: Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

#9

These tools and services look very promising but Google needs to be clear and transparent about what data it captures when rolling out this service. Is it tracking and recording the usage and behaviour of teachers and students who use these tools? What does it use this data for? ("we use this data to improve services" says absolutely nothing.) If you start using these tools in your student years, then continue to use…

From the article:

> Google also won’t even use the data that moves through the platform or display ads in Classroom, either, in accordance with its new policy announced last week.

Re: Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

#10
post #2

It's going to be interesting to watch how this competes with Blackboard. Anecdotally, it definitely looks like Blackboard has an almost monopoly on class room management stuff. Since the education market is so slow to adopt new things, Google definitely has their work cut out for them. With that being said, Blackboard definitely leaves a lot to be desired, and with classes supposedly going online more and more, the m…

"Blackboard's market share among universities slipped to about 45 percent last year, down 26 points from six years before." And I question whether their share was really that high or just that high amongst universities that purchased a commercial LMS (as opposed to having a home-grown one, free & open source one, or no school-wide LMS at all).

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/techflash/2013/09...

Post reply on HN