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Google Classroom

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Re: Google Classroom

#31

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

acbart wrote: post #29

I got into the demo over the summer, and I was pretty underwhelmed. They list the features on the front page there, and that's exactly what they have. So in other words, you can manage a feed of assignments ("X is due on Tuesday", "Here is a link to a video!") and some very simplistic google docs control. I really expected something on the level of Canvas or Moodle, but it's clearly just a few convenience features fo…

My thoughts exactly. I am in charge of Canvas at our school, and we are deploying Google Apps for Ed. next year. Not thinking of using Classroom at all - at least not with the current feature set.

Re: Google Classroom

#32

Post by pfortuny »

sagischwarz wrote: post #14

I think the public educational IT system should not be outsourced to the private sector, where schools completely lose control of the data and depend more or less on the good will of the company. University courses should not be organized by Facebook and pupils should not be forced to use IT systems of non-trustworthy companies like Google, which earn money by profiling their customers. Maybe my view is too German, b…

In my country (Spain) it is most likely illegal to store the students' assignments on a server which does not belong to the University.

Then again, the Univ. at which I teach outsources the e-mail to Microsoft.

I tend to not understand.

And I agree: students data belongs to the University, not to google.

Re: Google Classroom

#33

Post by vfgf »

Does it require Google Account for each student?

What if student doesn't want account, and doesn't agree with Google Terms of Service?

Re: Google Classroom

#34

Post by jrells »

FD3SA wrote: post #15
sagischwarz wrote: post #14

I think the public educational IT system should not be outsourced to the private sector, where schools completely lose control of the data and depend more or less on the good will of the company. University courses should not be organized by Facebook and pupils should not be forced to use IT systems of non-trustworthy companies like Google, which earn money by profiling their customers. Maybe my view is too German, b…

Cannot agree more with this. Open source software is a perfect fit with public institutions. I don't understand why any government uses proprietary platforms. It would be cheaper and far more effective to hire a dozen open source devs to cater a particular platform to the public's needs, and have it be open and free to use forever. Developers aren't that expensive compared to software licenses for thousands of machin…

I agree too but there are non-technical problems. Educational institutions regularly spend money on software when some CS students could do it better and cheaper over a summer. The people making these decisions are non-technical and risk averse.

Re: Google Classroom

#35

Post by cbhl »

Steuard wrote: post #22
yincrash wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Universities already use stuff like Blackboard[1] which for the most part is TERRIBLE (at least how I remember it in school.) These pieces of software are already around, and if anything competition in the space will hopefully make things better. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc .

But as far as I know, Blackboard (or Moodle or Sakai or...) data is stored locally at your institution, not housed on a Google server somewhere. I think the data mining possibilities are much lower in that case. I'm all in favor of disruptive competition in that market, mind you! But I don't think it's easy.

Not true. Blackboard has a cloud offering. Plus, many competing products also rely on centralized servers.

Re: Google Classroom

#36

Post by josefresco »

vfgf wrote: post #33

Does it require Google Account for each student? What if student doesn't want account, and doesn't agree with Google Terms of Service?

I don't know which would be more concerning, Google's terms of service, or the school's acceptable use policy.

Re: Google Classroom

#37

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

jrells wrote: post #34
FD3SA wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot agree more with this. Open source software is a perfect fit with public institutions. I don't understand why any government uses proprietary platforms. It would be cheaper and far more effective to hire a dozen open source devs to cater a particular platform to the public's needs, and have it be open and free to use forever. Developers aren't that expensive compared to software licenses for thousands of machin…

I agree too but there are non-technical problems. Educational institutions regularly spend money on software when some CS students could do it better and cheaper over a summer. The people making these decisions are non-technical and risk averse.

This times one billion.

Re: Google Classroom

#40

Post by jrells »

yincrash wrote: post #19
sagischwarz wrote: post #14

I think the public educational IT system should not be outsourced to the private sector, where schools completely lose control of the data and depend more or less on the good will of the company. University courses should not be organized by Facebook and pupils should not be forced to use IT systems of non-trustworthy companies like Google, which earn money by profiling their customers. Maybe my view is too German, b…

Many Universities already use stuff like Blackboard[1] which for the most part is TERRIBLE (at least how I remember it in school.) These pieces of software are already around, and if anything competition in the space will hopefully make things better. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc .

My University uses Moodle, which is also TERRIBLE. I do all my grades and such in Google Docs, since Moodle is a UX nightmare. Something as simple as entering grades in Moodle requires a lot of clicking around for each grade. We have multi-page documents describing how to perform even the most basic tasks, they require constantly clicking and going to new pages of indiscernible icons. Menus are impossible to navigate without help.
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