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Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

nytimes.com

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Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#131

Post by leshow »

zanny wrote: post #44
xnzakg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about engineers. Of course you need to understand some formulas if you're going to be an engineer. But for most of the people who aren't going to do that, they're useless.

Except the quadratic formula, just as an example, has a lot of positive qualities when taught to children: * The longform is fairly complex, so it is non-trivial to remember or recount. You can't just guess it (at least without knowledge well beyond it). So it looks like "magic". * It is a great introduction to what formulas are. They are non-trivial proofs of concepts that took research and logic to conclude. Learni…

At the same time, I think some amount of repetition is important. You don't get a true understanding of something by just studying it, you need to apply it "on a couple dozen data sets" to get a feel for it, at least in my opinion. "Understanding" can initially be a bit transient.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#132

Post by tchaffee »

dhimes wrote: post #126
tchaffee wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of free software. My desktop is Linux. But I almost never use LibreOffice. Can't access and edit the docs on my Android, nor my wife's work Mac. Nor my parent's Windows PC when I visit them. I'm definitely not installing software on my parent's PC. I'll be responsible for the next 100 "something isn't working" phone calls.

Is there no way to install LO on the Mac or Android? Do you use Google Docs instead?

Can't install stuff on my wife's company Mac. But a browser is everywhere. Yes, I begrudgingly use Google Docs. One big challenge to alternative offerings is compatibility. There is usually little resistance to asking someone to accept a Google Doc or an MS Doc. I wish there were a widely accepted open source alternative.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#133

Post by dhimes »

tchaffee wrote: post #132
dhimes wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no way to install LO on the Mac or Android? Do you use Google Docs instead?

Can't install stuff on my wife's company Mac. But a browser is everywhere. Yes, I begrudgingly use Google Docs. One big challenge to alternative offerings is compatibility. There is usually little resistance to asking someone to accept a Google Doc or an MS Doc. I wish there were a widely accepted open source alternative.

Agree. I even started using Google Docs with a contractor. Not happy about it, but it more-or-less worked. I'm on a slow network and I find Google Docs annoyingly unresponsive.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#134

Post by rebootthesystem »

matt2000 wrote: post #30

A couple personal anecdotes related to this: I volunteer at a school to help maintain around 300 iPads and ~20 iMacs. It's awful. (I am a longtime Mac user at home BTW). The management tools around updating the iPads, installing apps, and configuring users are all terrible, unreliable and old. It leads to teacher frustration and less use of the equipment in the classroom. The only thing worse are the windows computer…

>The only thing worse are the windows computers, which are in such bad shape that they just stopped using them.

Sounds like they are old and haven't been maintained properly.

I have experience with small (~200) and large (~6,000) professionally maintained Windows installations. They operate like a finely tuned engine, allowing you to focus on your core work.

And that's the key. There are hacks who call themselves "IT" and there are true IT folks who have the training and knowledge to do things right the first time around.

Prior to my first experience with professionally managed Windows installations I had completely ignored that entire world. We built our own computers --save laptops-- and every installation, save the initial image, was locally managed by the engineer running that machine. Works great. No question about it.

From experience with 20~30 machine installations, I can't remember a single serious issue in, say, 20+ years other than a hard drive failure. No real hardware failures outside of that. No viruses or any such problems in, again, 20+ years and multiple generations of OS and hardware. The key, I'll guess, is to buy good hardware and install good software.

And so, when I read accounts that describe nightmares I have to wonder what people might be doing. I don't understand it at all. I've been using PC's since the very original IBM PC and I can't remember a nightmare scenario, ever.

As for Mac's and iPads. I've had experience with ~200 seat Mac installations. They have the same issues PC's might have. The only "nightmare" I could point out is that, generally speaking, Mac users are utterly clueless. This excludes developers, of course. I saw IT burn time with the dumbest issues, whereas the PC users in the same business (about 200 as well) really only consumed IT time when there were hardware or software installation issues for the most part.

iPad's? I consider them to be useless for but a narrow set of business or educational applications. Cash register? Sure. Authoring documents and doing heavy web work? Nope. In general terms I am pretty down on tablets. I think they've manage to ruin desktop software. The transition of something like Skype from a computer-class application to mobile-first turned the program into a circus act that uses 10x more screen space for everything. Touch, as far as I am concerned, for business and other applications, is bullshit.

Chromebook is a far better choice, one that is easy to manage and deploy.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#135

Post by dhimes »

dhimes wrote: post #102
webwanderings wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though lots of different publishers were born, they were using the same technology, which is the printing press. Google's core technology is search facility. If someone does this better than them, then there will be no monopoly. The core feature of printing press stood as is for longest period of time (even Xerox did not bring anything "new" to the table). That's, until the Internet in fact, was able to put a de…

If someone does this better than them, then there will be no monopoly The problem is, this isn't necessarily true. Microsoft used to make the same argument in the '90s. The point is when you get entrenched in so many areas it becomes hard to switch. It's a network effect of information rather than people. There would have to be a significant improvement in order for people to switch (with some other motivation, like…

^^ s/with some other motivation/without some other motivation/

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#136

Post by webwanderings »

dhimes wrote: post #102
webwanderings wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though lots of different publishers were born, they were using the same technology, which is the printing press. Google's core technology is search facility. If someone does this better than them, then there will be no monopoly. The core feature of printing press stood as is for longest period of time (even Xerox did not bring anything "new" to the table). That's, until the Internet in fact, was able to put a de…

If someone does this better than them, then there will be no monopoly The problem is, this isn't necessarily true. Microsoft used to make the same argument in the '90s. The point is when you get entrenched in so many areas it becomes hard to switch. It's a network effect of information rather than people. There would have to be a significant improvement in order for people to switch (with some other motivation, like…

If there were only 100 people on the planet, you'd only need one government. Would you call it monopoly? Internet as a whole is monolithic in nature. You are hitting the boundaries with the potential of one product delivering whatever it is supposed to deliver, in the best possible manner which satisfies everyone. If Internet could be broken down and become diverse, you'll naturally see more diversity of choices easily cohabiting.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#137

Post by dredmorbius »

webwanderings wrote: post #27
mark_l_watson wrote: post #25

I have mixed feelings about this. Personally, working as a contractor at Google was one of the interesting jobs I have had and I generally like Google. That said, after reading Dave Eggers' excellent book "The Circle" last year and having watched the movie yesterday, I was reminded of the dangers (even if fictional in the case of the book) of a monopoly controlling knowledge. The book/movie is obviously about Google…

Did the invention of printing press made them a monopoly? Google does not generate information; they facilitate it. The more the information is free, the more it will be converted to knowledge by these same schools and students. Your comparison of it to your values of buying things for yourself, is misleading.

Google gatekeeps information by ranking algorithms, and information payments by advertising.

In bothe these areas, and others, they benefit by network effects, which I'm coming to see as foundational to natural monopoly and rent-seeking.

I simply don't understand what you're trying to say by mentioning the printing press in this context, though you might want to look up its particular disruptive history. Elizabeth Eisenstein is recommended reading.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#138

Post by dredmorbius »

danblick wrote: post #69
webwanderings wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what your definition of "perfect information good" really is, but books have been converting information into knowledge for hundreds of years. Before the printing press, scribes used to hand-duplicate. The invention of printing press effectively changed the whole scene (just as the searching on the Internet changed Internet). Irrespective of the concerns of privacy etc, Google provides the best sauce of…

The term "information good" is from economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_good An information good is one for which it's very cheap to produce additional units. Unfortunately, I'm probably abusing the term, since books are listed as an example of information goods. The idea is that most of the cost of producing the book goes into the content (writing, editing, etc.) and actually printing one additional…

If you're not aware, one of the authors of Information Rules (great book, BTW, I second the recommendation), Hal Varian, now works for Google as their Chief Economist.

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#139

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

patja wrote: post #81
Roritharr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OneDrive works, if one wants to use it. It just came too late.

I've been through too many OneDrive snafus to invest more effort into making it work or trusting it for anything. Failed syncs, never-ending syncs, and it has hosed up my OneNote notebooks such that I have a whole set of duplicate notebooks I have tried and failed to fix, which all say "This section isn't available yet. It was added from another device. You'll be able to use it when that device syncs. Section was las…

Is the onenote data not available as XML?

Re: Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps

#140

Post by tacomonstrous »

patja wrote: post #87
xbmcuser wrote: post #48

Google I feel has broken Microsoft Office monopoly the difference will be felt 10 years from now though. Earlier everyone had grown up using Microsoft office now most children will grow up using Google Office suite. Though I still think Google sheets is still way behind Microsoft Excel. The day Google can build a convertor that can convert all excel files and macros etc I would shift to Google sheets currently I have…

Isn't proficiency with Microsoft Office still expected in most workplace environments? Google docs, sheets, slides all fall short of the capabilities of their equivalent applications in Office. The Google apps are good enough for many tasks, but really don't cut the mustard if you are accustomed to the depth of capabilities in Office. Are we doing students a disservice by sending them out into the world without profi…

Office is hardly nuclear physics. Any college grad can reasonably be expected to pick up what they need within a week or two.
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