Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops • Hacker News Board

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#41

Post by willcipriano » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #26

raxxorrax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, as a kid I would have hated this. I don't think kids benefit from this kind of overbearing parenting in the long run. Better than being neglected, I guess. Perhaps this is useful for very young children, but knowing myself I would have broken out of there as quickly as possible.

I can understand personal preference of a child but study after study show that children whose parents are actively involved with their education and schooling get better results.

Correlation does not equal causation. Parents more involved in school are more likely to be involved at home more generally.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#42

Post by em500 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

castis wrote: post #9

donkarma wrote: post #4

Schools should NOT have applications, what a mistake

Could you go into more detail on why you think this?

I'm not the OP, and not so opinionated. But (as the parent of an elementary school kid) I can see where the sentiment is coming from. I'm not familiar at all with this Swedish Skolplattform, but from the description in the article, it sounds to me like a solution (or maybe a city budget) in search of a problem. It's pretty unclear what the purpose and scope of this Skolplattform is.

The article description of the open-source alternative reads

> The app shows school calendars and events such as music concerts, a daily schedule for pupils, notifications from teachers that link out to grades and news updates, food that’s being served in cafeterias, and an option to report if children are sick.

Apart from privacy sensitive student specific stuff like grade reports (which our school does on paper), it seems all this stuff can be published just as well on the school website, email lists and/or paper brochures. I really don't see the need for a separate phone app here.

Our school does have a school-specific app for some limited school parent and parent parent messaging, and scheduling the occasional parent-teacher meetings. In my experience it doesn't do anything better than plain old email.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#43

Post by dylan604 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #35

dylan604 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. If those in charge allowed the passionate to do these kinds of things, they wouldn't remain in charge. Authoritarian dicators not required.

Because there's only two levels 1. Passionate that produces amazing software 2. Completely don't care

In a nut shell, yes, but I'd modify the groupings: 1) Passionate people that rally others, 2) everyone else.

Whether you utterly don't care, midly care but not enough to do anything, or care enough to do something only when someone goes first, it is the passionate people that preach to the choir because that's how you get them to sing.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#44

Post by jacobolus » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #26

raxxorrax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, as a kid I would have hated this. I don't think kids benefit from this kind of overbearing parenting in the long run. Better than being neglected, I guess. Perhaps this is useful for very young children, but knowing myself I would have broken out of there as quickly as possible.

I can understand personal preference of a child but study after study show that children whose parents are actively involved with their education and schooling get better results.

Active involvement = parent teaches child various skills and ideas, reads books aloud, suggests interesting problems to solve, works together with them on extra-curricular projects, obtains materials and resources related to the child’s personal interests, ...

Micromanaging the completion of their school-assigned busywork is something different.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#45

Post by Aromasin » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #33

petermcneeley wrote: post #11

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing illegal.

On the other hand, that is a very good excuse for those who want to do evil.

Or for tricking good people into doing evil.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#46

Post by mistrial9 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #2

it is arguable that an entire generation of Western adolescents has been traumatized by social media, so why stop there? next up, elementary school

draws a picture of a Godzilla monster (who is the computer community and their funding enablers) breathing fire-databases on children-in-groups

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#47

Post by Frondo » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #6

rockbruno wrote: post #5

Funny that they were so concerned about GDPR violations given that in Sweden everyone's address/job/phone/salary is public and easily accessible. I like it that every time a foreigner joins my company (I live in Sweden) it's a matter of time before they post a message in our Stockholm channel saying "guys... what the hell is this website and why am I in it?". Then the swedes mention that they see nothing wrong with i…

Salary? How could that being public serve the public's interest? As a privacy advocate that does pique my curiosity.

I would ask the opposite question -- why is that an important number to conceal? (Please no "it's none of your business" replies, that doesn't really answer the question and it's not an interesting direction to go.)

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#48

Post by ess3 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

Ah the joy of public procurement in Sweden. It's basically an extremely long requirement gathering process where the company the can promise the most for the least amount of money wins. Only problem is that the people ordering this are not the users and they just want to cover their backs, meaning that behemoths usually win because they're more trustworthy.

I was in edu-tech world for a while in Sweden. The most frustrating thing is that even if you have a good product that your users enjoy you will fail because you can't sell it to individual schools. You have to sell it to all the schools in the entire county, which just means that some giant actor will swoop in promise the world for a dollar and then we have this.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#49

Post by arp242 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #38

arp242 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, who publishes this information, and why? Address/phone is somewhat standard phonebook stuff (or at least, used to be; less so now I guess) but job and salary?!

In the US, in almost every publicly funded position, your job, salary and benefits are available for everyone to see. I am employed by a publicly funded institution now, and everything I earn is available for consumption, along with extra-duty pay, benefits, and historical data. Why would it be crazy for that to be available for everyone? I genuinely don't get what the big idea is.

For publicly funded positions salary is just a matter of transparent government. Address and phone? Probably not so much. However, the previous post talked about "everyone" and "company", not publicly funded positions.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#50

Post by wonderwonder » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #44

wonderwonder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand personal preference of a child but study after study show that children whose parents are actively involved with their education and schooling get better results.

Active involvement = parent teaches child various skills and ideas, reads books aloud, suggests interesting problems to solve, works together with them on extra-curricular projects, obtains materials and resources related to the child’s personal interests, ... Micromanaging the completion of their school-assigned busywork is something different.

I don't know if you have kids, I am guessing not, if I am wrong, my apologies. Knowing what your kids have due for school is not micromanaging its a core part of being a good parent. I know if my kid has a math test so it lets me sit down with him and review for his test, it allows me to ensure he knows the basis for whatever comes next in his curriculum. Terribly overbearing parents are not good but I think people are for some reason assuming the worst from this app and more so the parents that use it and it seems very odd to me. I ensure my kids study for their weekly spelling tests for 10 minutes a day, and review with them before tests and that is seen as micromanaging and negative? Strange times.