Google Classroom
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Google Classroom
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Re: Google Classroom
#2All this could be done by a local server at the school without providing all the data and information to Google. If Google was altruistic, they would provide the software and technical guidance to do so.
Re: Google Classroom
#3I asked my partner what she thought of this as she is a tenured lecturer at a Russell Group university.
Her view is that they would not only not be able to use this (politically they feel the need to have everything in the UK) but that there was a preference to support a universal framework that they had full control over.
Specifically her university (Exeter) uses a version of Moodle: https://moodle.org/
That said, I think for smaller schools and less well-funded universities that do not have the means or expertise to run something like Moodle themselves, Google Classroom is going to be great.
Re: Google Classroom
#4All this could be done by a local server at the school without providing all the data and information to Google. If Google was altruistic, they would provide the software and technical guidance to do so.
That would probably cost them a lot more than just setting aside a few of their servers (of which they have millions) to be used by schools.
What they are doing here is utilizing resources that they already have, so low cost to them. These kids will then grow up using Google apps and many will likely continue to do so outside of school.
Re: Google Classroom
#5All this could be done by a local server at the school without providing all the data and information to Google. If Google was altruistic, they would provide the software and technical guidance to do so.
Unfortunately the trend across the world in education is to cut costs (typically at grave cost to students, no pun intended). Privacy concerns aside, this has the following advantages for the school (I write school from the point of view of smaller educational institutions where this is likely to make a bigger impact and has better chances of adoption):
- Cost (sometimes this trumps everything)
- Ease of use for teachers (automatic generation of assignment etc. means lesser work for teachers)
- Availability anywhere; typically teachers take work home and this means they can have it available outside the school servers
- No need to worry about backups etc. Also easier lookup/search (which is Google's strength) e.g. for older assignments instead of trawling through old folders
For Google: like every company they want to get their users when they are young since that means a lifetime of usage once they get used/comfortable/dependent to/with/on it. Nothing is better than capturing minds when they are in school when young people are forming their habits which will last for a lifetime. This was also seen in banking industry when some banks introduced kids's saving account etc (not saying learning to save when you are young is a bad thing).
Re: Google Classroom
#6I asked my partner what she thought of this as she is a tenured lecturer at a Russell Group university. Her view is that they would not only not be able to use this (politically they feel the need to have everything in the UK) but that there was a preference to support a universal framework that they had full control over. Specifically her university (Exeter) uses a version of Moodle: https://moodle.org/ That said, I…
Moodle is used everywhere in the UK, FE Colleges, Sixth Form etc.
However students hate it, mainly because its not very good.
Re: Google Classroom
#7I wonder if backboard will try to sue google like they sue everyone else based on their "Internet-based education support system" patent[1].
Watching tech is like watching the nature channel---now the bigger beast (big g) goes to bite into the market while the hyenas (bb lawyers) backs off to the side of the scene.
[1] http://www.google.com/patents/US6988138, mo info: http://www.downes.ca/blackboard_patent.htm
Re: Google Classroom
#8I asked my partner what she thought of this as she is a tenured lecturer at a Russell Group university. Her view is that they would not only not be able to use this (politically they feel the need to have everything in the UK) but that there was a preference to support a universal framework that they had full control over. Specifically her university (Exeter) uses a version of Moodle: https://moodle.org/ That said, I…
Moodle is used everywhere in the UK, FE Colleges, Sixth Form etc. However students hate it, mainly because its not very good.
Really? I have used Moodle extensively both in my own courses (at a high school level) and in my own studies at university. I have had very little negative feedback from students, nor have I observed much difficulty in using it.
Re: Google Classroom
#9I asked my partner what she thought of this as she is a tenured lecturer at a Russell Group university. Her view is that they would not only not be able to use this (politically they feel the need to have everything in the UK) but that there was a preference to support a universal framework that they had full control over. Specifically her university (Exeter) uses a version of Moodle: https://moodle.org/ That said, I…
Moodle is used everywhere in the UK, FE Colleges, Sixth Form etc. However students hate it, mainly because its not very good.
It's used extensively in Australia too, and having recently gone through an university that uses it extensively for assignment submissions, out of class "discussions", and a few other things, and it's a terrible, broken platform.
The primary thing I was forced to use it for was assignment submission, which was primarily collections of source-code, compiled binaries and reports on them,so nothing overly large, though generally larger than the single word document I suspect the uploader was designed for, and it was horrible.
If your connection was somewhat poor the uploads sometimes randomly failed either reporting success or not reporting anything at all, sometimes it took hours to upload small files, and frequently you had to use chrome to upload, as the firefox uploader would simply fail. Even uploading from the university campus, from the same building the servers were hosted in the upload process was frequently so risky that some lecturers asked for the submission of source code in physical copies, as well as the digital submission, to ensure something got submitted they could look at.
I'd love for something better built to take over, but given how dominant moodle is in the market, I can't see it being shifted any time soon.
Re: Google Classroom
#10Another product without support, without someone to call if things don't work, or worse: your classroom was banned (e.g., a student tried to mess with it). The model were your work, organisation and critical data relies on a no support platform can not work.