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."

Comments

In our area, Midwestern US, true

[btroy]

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.

Re:In our area, Midwestern US, true

[TWX]

In some ways Google was smart about ChromeOS; it has many of the support-advantages of an OS like OSX with closed hardware, but as it was something of a clean-sheet implementation as far as software support goes it didn't have to drag-in support for legacy applications unlike OSX, which had the ability (and arguably the need) to run "System" applications from pre-OSX days. Google has arguably done a better job of permissions in Chrome than other OSes have, it's a lot harder for the end user to compromise the machine by accident, and even a user that intentionally tampers with it has some pretty hard limitations to work around for some things. If you're one to tinker to learn then this is a problem, but if you need the equipment to just work and not eat itself for lunch then it's fine.

Chromebooks also have the advantage of being extraordinarily inexpensive in most cases. It's hard to argue with a machine that does what's needed for half the price of a Windows machine or 1/3 the price of an OSX or iOS machine.

For myself I wish that there was an easy way to flesh-out a ChromeOS install into a full-fledged Linux workstation without having to resort to cronut and chroot or without having to nuke-out ChromeOS entierly, but thems the breaks.

tl;dr

[sootman]

Google's stuff is cheap or free, and schools have no money.

Re:tl;dr

[TWX]

What do you expect when you're spending $500 for an AP or $5000 for a 48-port switch? And those prices are in-bulk, if you're paying list it's closer to $1000 for an AP and $8000 for a switch, without even buying SFP modules. It's easily half a million bucks just for switches and APs for a large high school, and if the school was cabled with lots of small closets then you're looking at another $100,000 in fiber transceivers for 10G, plus the cost to the WAN provider to link at a meaningful speed back to the main datacenter. Hell, the 10G fiber switch for the high school campus is going to come in at $50,000 and that's assuming that the local campus is just connecting to the WAN, and not directly to the Internet.

Once you've spent all of the money to build the network you don't necessarily have a lot left for the devices to use on that network.

Re:tl;dr

[ShanghaiBill]

There is a tremendous amount of waste in school IT systems. At my local elementary school the principal asked me to look at a proposal for their "IT infrastructure" that included racked Cisco switches, and would cost over $20k. I explained that for the amount of bandwidth they were using, a few $39 routers from the local Walmart would be more than adequate. They went with the Walmart option, and it worked fine.

This is a question?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 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.

Re:This is a question?

[stephanruby]

Not to mention simpler security.

The machines update themselves automatically. And the user can't install applications that run in the background and slow the entire thing down. So this essentially means very little support on your end when you give one of these devices.

Now, don't get me wrong, you may still have grandma call to tell you that she hates Google Photos because it forces her to upload all her pictures online and it's lousy at editing pictures. And that she'd rather you install the PC photo editing software she bought out of the bargain bin at Best Buy.

To which, you tell her that can't be done. And that's it. And if for some reason, she does break her Chromebook, or it gets stolen, she'll actually be able to recover her pictures, because they will all be online. So that's one more thing you don't have to worry about.

Difference between Google and Microsoft

[JoeyRox]

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.

Start them early!

[DogDude]

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?

Re:Start them early!

[rhabyt]

Google gets no details from them in school. There are quite strict FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) regulations protecting the privacy of kids in school. Part of the reason that Google has won classrooms is that they are willing to put the dev time into security and anonymizing Chrome for schools. Though this is all about cost for school districts, a lawsuit over FERPA violations is part of the cost calculation. That said, ten years of learning to trust Google buys habits and loyalty, so when they step out of the protection of school, they will be open and innocent to the corporate surveillance that follows. Its the same smart investment in future customers that Apple once subsidized but then ditched.

Reminds me of Apple II and early Macs in the '80s

[filesiteguy]

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.

May I introduce you to Ubiquiti?

[zerofoo]

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.

Google haters and privacy concerns

[zerofoo]

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.

Re:Google haters and privacy concerns

[UncleRage]

I'm not sure why this is so difficult for people to grasp.

Google's privacy statement and stand on student privacy (no direct marketing/child's identity is not monetized) makes complete sense. They are fully within their rights to aggregate trends in a user base without deep mining individual data. The follow up (what I'm dealing with, for example) is the ability to migrate a G Suite for Edu account to a a personal account once the student graduates... at that point, they're fair game.

Even within K-12, very few people up the management ladder have any concept of what's happening behind the scenes (and demonstrate that they really do not want to know).