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Google Owns the Classroom (axios.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The NYT's Natasha Singer has a fascinating, provocative look at "How Google Conquered The American Classroom." "[M]ore than half the nation's primary- and secondary-school students -- more than 30 million children -- use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs... Chromebooks, Google-powered laptops that initially struggled to find a purpose... account for more than half the mobile devices shipped to schools."
Out my way, that is very true. All of my kids were initiated into the Google system since 5th grade. My older kids talked about how slow and terrible the windows PC's were, there are a few left. Then they started getting Chromebooks, complaints gone and for $100 they have a machine dedicated to them and they're pretty fast.
They charge the machines maybe twice a week and the biggest complaint now is broken buttons, screens.
An advertising company owns our public school classrooms? Idiocracy. This should be illegal.
It won't be long before a class-action lawsuit is brought against google for digitally stalking and spying on minors.
It's funny, this article acts like Microsoft is about to take the classroom, and the article doesn't even mention Google:
https://www.cnet.com/news/why-...
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Google's stuff is cheap or free, and schools have no money.
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>> How Google Conquered The American Classroom.
This is a question? Google won ON PRICE: free (or dirt-cheap-compared-to-Microsoft) online office suites and cheap (especially compared to Apple) tablets.
You actually have to pay Microsoft for the privilege of their apps spying on you (Windows 10), whereas Google at least does it for free.
So we can expect Google to collapse and drop into utter obscurity until Microsoft bails them out and then they create an insanely great disruptive product that catapults them to the stratosphere?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Why the link to the middleman page at Axios instead of going straight to the NYT article?
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My kids' school is like this - every kid gets a Google logon administered by the school. It's nice because they can access it from home to continue working on things, but not so nice because I don't like everything my children do being tracked by the Americans.
I have no control over what's done with that information, or how it will be used in the years to come. I'm not even in the same country, so I have no legal recourse if I find the data gets shared and abused.
It's not like it would have been that difficult for the school board to set up their own similar system, then the kids would just have to use a different URL than Google's.
"[M]ore than half the nation's primary- and secondary-school students -- more than 30 million children -- use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs...
Sad that the quality of our American classrooms' output still lags the last time I heard.
If you're going to give all of the details of your entire life to Google in exchange for some minor convenience, why not start in grade school?
I don't respond to AC's.
My two sons are in high school. They use Google Docs, Android phones, and gmail for all school related work. They even submit papers using Google Docs and share using various Google tools.
I have mentioned to many co-workers that Microsoft should be very worried about their hegemony in the office when this generation comes out into the workforce and doesn't demand Office or Windows on the desktop.
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a coincidence? I think not.
Surly APPLE should have the leg up on school linked names.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
50,000 feet: "It puts Google, and the tech economy, at the center of one of the great debates that has raged in American education for more than a century: whether the purpose of public schools is to turn out knowledgeable citizens or skilled workers."
50,000 feet: we're talking about the advertising economy.
Google's business is advertising. Anything and everything they do is to boost that business. I don't give a shit what their public relations people say. Their revenues and subsequently PROFITS come from - ADVERTISING!
Ubiquiti makes some really nice stuff - yes it is "enterprise lite", but for most schools, their network gear has the bases covered.
After deploying TONS of UAP-AC-PROs ($130 each) and replacing lots of Meraki/Aruba/HP/Cisco gear - it's pretty hard to justify $800 to $1200 for an access point.
Their EdgeMax series of products is also very impressive for the money.
Brocade and Cisco have their place - but public education can get by with quite a bit less.
I seriously do not like this.
When i went to school, all of the computers in the CCSD were macs. i hated it.
We've been using G Suite for Education at our school for a few years now, and it has been fantastic. It's exactly what schools need.
Google clearly publishes a privacy policy here:
https://edu.google.com/trust/
Does Google sell school or student data to third parties?
No. We don’t sell your G Suite data to third parties, and we do not share personal information placed in our systems with third parties, except in the few exceptional circumstances described in the G Suite agreement and our Privacy Policy, such as when you ask us to share it or when we are required to do so by law.
Sometimes charity really is nothing more than charity - this seems to be the case here.
To be honest, I'm not sure how this is a surprise. Chromebooks are cheap, of reasonable quality and provide everything you need minus most of the viruses and problems with Windows. Administrators are also sure that kids arn't just flat out gaming on their Chromebooks (lack of space and video games) whereas on a PC you're never entirely sure. I'm sure a lot of us have heard kids or been kids who installed video games into the system.
I mostly trust Google and believe they're mostly honest and in the Consumer's interest. The problem is while Google is trustworthy and reliable now, it's hard to say what will happen when Google's founders pass away and in the future which is why putting all your eggs in one basket is a dangerous thing, even if it's a great basket. Nothing we've made lasts forever.
Google basically just delivered what Apple had tried to deliver and failed with the eMate and 1st-Gen MacBook - a simple, cheap laptop for education.
Apple is way too busy marketing "high-end" trendy crap to give a rip about education anymore.
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Last week or so the Classroom app stopped working with certain versions of iPad(don't ask me which ones, I don't use apple products, I'm just telling what I know). This is 2 weeks before the end of school in this area and Google just pissed off a ton of teachers who have to either buy a new ipad, or use the web interface(many can only use it while at school). I'm guessing the next recommendation will be to move away from Google products if they don't correct this soon. I get that they don't want to support older devices but they should have waited till July or so when school would clearly be out and everyone wasn't relying 100% on it.
Apple essentially abandoned the education market in the early to mid 2000's. I was working IT support at a school through the Apple resurgence and migration to Intel CPUs. The education discounts went from being very generous to 10%. No volume discounts, and they actively prohibited their dealers, who might be willing to work something out, from selling to schools. Any other PC manufacturer would knock of 40% with a purchase of 20 or more laptops. Apple's iPad managements tools were complicated and fraught with dead-ends and gotchas. From the get-go, Chromebooks were easy to manage and easy to reset to factory defaults, and were 1/4 the cost.
The only company I hated dealing with more than Apple was Adobe.
Chromebooks are cheap, and you can guarantee internet access in a fixed location like a typical American school.
Most schools gravitate toward the cheapest thing that gets the job done.
There will always be well-funded schools experimenting with new gadgets, but most places can't afford them. Especially when the bill comes in for their sporting equipment and facilities.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Apples are for teachers. The Alphabet is for the students. See where they went wrong? All in the naming!
at least at our local schools they just plop the stuff in and expected everyone to know what to do. So it hardly ever gets used.
and pay some ransoms time and again.
That must have been when Apple realized that there was no profit in low margin areas. And then started trying to exploit their name for Capitol gains. I'd say they did a rather good job as I type this from my iPhone. But imo the iPhone was the only product they have produced worth spending money on. I second your opinion on Adobe and Apple. And from the moment I read about chrome books and the fact they were going to be entry level priced I was intrigued. I don't however like the idea of turning people into marketing tools before they are old enough to legally sign a contract. Then again I'm sure that's most of the reason the hardware is as cheap as it is. Hopefully they will breed a generation of programmers that don't write shotty code like we see today.
My two sons are in high school. They use Google Docs, Android phones, and gmail for all school related work. They even submit papers using Google Docs and share using various Google tools.
I have mentioned to many co-workers that Microsoft should be very worried about their hegemony in the office when this generation comes out into the workforce and doesn't demand Office or Windows on the desktop.
I doubt Microsoft are that worried.
They still control the enterprise with an iron fist and Google aren't anywhere near replacing O365, let alone on premise exchange. As long as there's no viable competitor to MS Office, they have the business market by the short and curlies.
Also, Google didn't take the classroom from Microsoft, Apple took it from Microsoft. Google is taking it from Apple and its resulted in a marked increase in the quality of candidates. For the last 5 years, candidates for entry level positions have been leaving schools and universities with little to no knowledge on how to operate a computer. This is starting to turn around as they're at least rote memorising an interface that is similar to what they'll use in a workplace.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As long as there's no viable competitor to MS Office, they have the business market by the short and curlies.
Sorry, should have been more specific. I'm sure MS isn't worried *now* but they probably want to ensure the next generation grows up with Office. I work for a company with 77,000 O365 accounts - we pay some ridiculously low amount for each. That's all well and good for those of us in the workforce. However, the next generation may not look so favorably.<quote><p>Google is taking it from Apple and its resulted in a marked increase in the quality of candidates. </p></quote>Concur. As a hiring manager, I have had to wade through hundreds of less than stellar candidates over the years. Even those with CS degrees came out with few technical skills.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
I love some aspects of the ChromeOS on Chromebook environment. They're relatively fast despite the price, they don't usually break, anything that goes wrong can usually be fixed by a boot cycle or removing and re-logging-in the user.
But as a physics teacher, there are applications and tools I need that are not replicated on Chromebooks. There is no usable equivalent to Tracker Video Analysis; support for probeware is minimal and hobbled; support for USB and serial-USB lab interfaces and data collection interfaces is lacking.
As a result, I use the Chromebooks and Google Classroom for quite a bit of communication, sending documents, receiving assignments, and some data anlysis. My classroom computers are necessary to do the heavy hitting with Logger Pro, connecting Vernier hardware, Tracker, and occasionally some other esoteric tools. I'll have to keep them until something like a mature WINE environment is available in ChromeOS.