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Google Classroom

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Re: Google Classroom

#111

Post by prostoalex »

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…

Data and interface to that data are two different things.

Requiring that data be open and standardized (as far as import-export is concerned) makes sense, requiring that UI to manipulate that data is built by a government-affiliated entity is questionable.

Even if you love government-designed Web sites, there might be someone somewhere capable of building faster, more intuitive, mobile-friendlier front-end.

Re: Google Classroom

#112

Post by ticviking »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #97
ticviking wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a medium US university and I can say that the thick java stacks and waterfall is a huge part of the sources of headaches in my job. I've got my team quite agile for a Uni development team but we still face lots and lots of problems with FERPA(US student privacy rules), and trying to work with much less agile internal teams. Most of the rest of the local developers are 40-60 and very resistant to any kind of…

Could you or the parent express what you dislike about backends written in Java? I think there tends to be a pretty negative stigma associated with it, but I haven't really seen why. Personally, I've worked with both C# .Net and Java backends, and it's really a horse a piece. Is performance the issue? Security? What is the general dislike of Java about?

Java is a pretty nice language, it's the Java old-school waterfall java developers that bother me. Our IT development unit is a slow dinosaur waiting to be eaten up but no native competitors.

I've waited months for a bug to be fixed because it "wasn't in the schedule". Theres a kind of "sealed lab" mentality where they hold a bunch of meetings to get stakeholder views, and then disappear for 3-4 months and come back with some 1/2 working software that I could have(and a few times have) knocked out as an alpha in 3-4 weeks.

It's the worst aspects of people being "enterprisey" with people who have no performance or profit pressure so they're able to put out crap and if it's better than nothing the admins accept it.

Re: Google Classroom

#113

Post by ticviking »

zippergz wrote: post #110
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you or the parent express what you dislike about backends written in Java? I think there tends to be a pretty negative stigma associated with it, but I haven't really seen why. Personally, I've worked with both C# .Net and Java backends, and it's really a horse a piece. Is performance the issue? Security? What is the general dislike of Java about?

In my experience .Net has a very similar set of problems and cultural issues, so if those are the two you're comparing, I'm not surprised you don't see much difference...

Depends on the parts of the .net community a lot. There's some really nice parts of the Java/JRE community too so it's not like it a function of the language, its a function of the organizations choosing the languages.

Re: Google Classroom

#114

Post by ticviking »

nacho2sweet wrote: post #105
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you or the parent express what you dislike about backends written in Java? I think there tends to be a pretty negative stigma associated with it, but I haven't really seen why. Personally, I've worked with both C# .Net and Java backends, and it's really a horse a piece. Is performance the issue? Security? What is the general dislike of Java about?

I was just saying it off the cuff as sort of a comment on giant waterfall departments that never create anything great or effective. I don't really have any hate for Java and there is a lot of great software created with it (J2EE was my intro to IS development), just the kind of culture and staff it attracts in this sector. Everyone is in their cubical doing java never innovating anything with no care in the world to…

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with this explanation though.

Re: Google Classroom

#115

Post by reledi »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #97
ticviking wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a medium US university and I can say that the thick java stacks and waterfall is a huge part of the sources of headaches in my job. I've got my team quite agile for a Uni development team but we still face lots and lots of problems with FERPA(US student privacy rules), and trying to work with much less agile internal teams. Most of the rest of the local developers are 40-60 and very resistant to any kind of…

Could you or the parent express what you dislike about backends written in Java? I think there tends to be a pretty negative stigma associated with it, but I haven't really seen why. Personally, I've worked with both C# .Net and Java backends, and it's really a horse a piece. Is performance the issue? Security? What is the general dislike of Java about?

I think when people pick a bone with Java, they are really talking about the community, not the language. To generalize, the Java community is seen as enterprise-y. They often like process and unnecessary complexity.

Re: Google Classroom

#116

Post by gerbal »

raldi wrote: post #102
gerbal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs more and introduces additional complexity. It would be far useful to allow any arbitrary Google Account to join any arbitrary classroom, and trust that Teachers can do a decent job figuring out who is in their classes.

Why do you feel it would cost more or add a significant amount of new complexity?

Students have their own gmail accounts vs having accounts issued by the school, who is then responsible for them in some capacity. There is also a cost per-account in Google Apps for Education.

Re: Google Classroom

#117

Post by raldi »

gerbal wrote: post #116
raldi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel it would cost more or add a significant amount of new complexity?

Students have their own gmail accounts vs having accounts issued by the school, who is then responsible for them in some capacity. There is also a cost per-account in Google Apps for Education.

But a system where students brought their own outside accounts would have all sorts of other complexities; in fact, I think they would add up to a greater overall workload. Similarly, the alternative would come with its own set of costs, and the fact that schools are expected to sign up for this service, and that they're generally not run by stupid people, would suggest to me that the overall total cost of ownership, including the fees Google charges, would be less than doing it the other way.

Re: Google Classroom

#118

Post by cromwellian »

chestnut-tree wrote: post #108
cromwellian wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I volunteer in school science and computer lab, I have observed first hand how schools simply do not have the bandwidth to run any kind of IT. Even something as simple as installing a single new application on all of the lab computers is beyond the teachers of the classroom. That means most schools pretty much have to adopt some kind of cloud based solution that allows network administration of all of the compu…

"...if you say "we don't track activities of school students", what does that mean?" It means whatever Google explains it to mean. Google can either be vague about it, or they can be clear and informative. Google is the one collecting the data. Only they know what is captured and for what purpose. It's their responsibility to explain clearly what they track and record. All of the questions you pose are ones that Goog…

Profiling student behavior in the classroom could in fact be used to improve software. Teachers often construct a profile of students. If you go to a parent teacher conference, the teacher will often present you with a dossier of boiled down things your child does well, things they do poorly, and how to improve, and this is often culled from examining classwork and homework.

Giving a teacher a kind of dashboard based on profiling work habits, could be useful for both the teacher and the student.

I think it is better to enumerate what you don't do, rather than enumerate only what you will do.

Re: Google Classroom

#119

Post by mikeleeorg »

If you are not a teacher or student actively using Google Classroom, you should pay attention to the comments from teachers and students here. Or go talk to a local teacher for their impression.

I've been doing that and the general response is overwhelmingly positive. Others have already stated why. I would like to amplify those sentiments:

+ Many alternative solutions on the market are generally considered to be sub-par, such as Moodle, Blackboard, etc. (I personally love the open source concept behind Moodle and have high hopes for them, but their implementation is oudated; fortunately, they know this and are working on it.)

+ Home-grown solutions are generally very poor for all kinds of reasons, including inability to find technical talent, bureaucracy and mismanagement, lack of budget, lack of project management, etc.

+ Google has a strong positive brand with teachers. While privacy concerns are growing, the overall community doesn't have the same stigma with Google that many readers of HN have. Google Apps for Education (GAFE) already had a decent footprint within schools and Google Classroom is piggybacking off of that penetration.

With that said, concerns about privacy, being operated by a separate for-profit, and comprehensiveness of features are great points and present ample opportunities for aspiring competitors. In some ways, Google Classroom just stepped up the game. If this causes anyone to release even better software for teachers and students, that's a great thing for teachers and students.

Re: Google Classroom

#120

Post by owenversteeg »

I have a younger brother in high school that has to use Google Classroom/Chromebooks/Google whatnot. Ask him anything through me.

What I've heard so far:

- It sometimes acts weirdly

- When it emails an assignment, the full text of the assignment is put in the title, resulting in comically massive titles.

- Using it at the same time as a personal gmail account is strange/not fun

- It doesn't have as many features as Edmodo (what the school was using before)

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