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Google Wants Google Doodles Taught In Public School, Warns Kids They Best Behave
theodp writes: Well, this year's Hour of Code is almost upon us, and if Google has its way, K-12 schoolchildren across the nation will be learning computer science by creating Google Doodles with Scratch (lesson plan). Curiously, the introductory video for the Create Your Own Google Logo Hour of Code activity from the Google Computer Science Education Department sternly warns kids, "While it is okay to use the Google logo for your personal Doodle, it is not okay [emphasis Google's] to use it anyplace else or outside this activity." In addition to respecting its intellectual property, Google instructs kids that they are to follow the Scratch Community Guidelines when they create Google logos: "Please stay positive, friendly, and supportive towards others in the Scratch Community. Help us keep Scratch a place where people of different backgrounds and interests feel welcome to hang out and create together."
as a parent of a kid dealing with CommonClusterfuck I can say that this has *nothing* on just how political and railroaded CC is.
[rant]
Us parents were billed as "it's an additional method to help us teach, not all kids understand the math lessons we grew up with"...
BUT!
My kid is hyper analytical (and an aspie, so...) he thrives on a sheet of graph paper and columns for long division, not this brainfuck of repeated additions and subtractions to find the right answer.
He was reduced to sobbing trying to figure out how to do his homework, which might as well been written in greek, considering the teachers can't even properly explain it.
I read it, extracted the actual division problems and taught him how to use graph paper to keep his columns straight for classic long division with remainders. He did the entire worksheet with the right answers. and got an F.
[/rant]
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IMHO she has a case. She will win. And she'll have more money than she would if she worked there. Male executives already set precedent for that company (documented), doing far worse than flipping the President off.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
When our kids were in school, decades ago, our battles along these lines were many. There was McDonald's handing out arithmetic worksheets asking the students to add up the costs of Big Macs and fries, decorated with the company's cartoon characters. There were even charities that lobbied for sales or other fund raising activities, for themselves, during school instruction hours. So it's not simply big business (unless one also puts some charities in that same bucket). All of these activities had the strong support of the school district's leadership and it took a lot of effort to get these stopped or limited. Eventually, the primary supporter was voted out of office. Some district leaders continue to think of these programs as "free" instructional material or other supposed benefits. But it's all really designed to sell product or reduce instruction time, and should continue to be fought.
At the same time, we supported other fund raising activities, for the school itself, when they were held outside of instruction hours. That might be the annual Walk-A-Thon type event held on a weekend or a bake sale after school. And we involved our kids in our own charitable giving. But absolutely none of this on school time.
In the case of Google's offer, this might be a fine example to use to explain the concepts of copyright, fair use, and even open source to the targets of this unacceptable activity.
What you and the GGP are missing is what the actual lesson is: You assume it's to learn how to do long division, because that's what it looks like to you. That's what you learned, and how you learned it. Newsflash: This is a different standard, in a different time. It's not the same lesson you learned.
This lesson is to learn that method of long division. Not the underlying math, but the method.
That's why his kiddo got an F. Not because he can't do long division, because he can't demonstrate that he understands that method. That's the standard he was being assessed on. Dad's mistake was assuming that long division was the end goal, when it's actually an indirect goal. While the GP here was a bit harsh, he was spot on.
The reason that the focus is on this method is that it's a building block for higher order math skills. Column division with remainders isn't. The idea is that if students learn enough of these methods, they can apply them to algebra and calculus in the future. That wasn't a lesson on long division. It was foundational work to support mathematics growth far in the future.
Good on dad up there for caring and teaching his kiddo a new skill, but bad on him for misunderstanding the lesson and subverting his kid's learning. If you really care and want to help, you're going to need to learn what's being taught and why, and not just inject your vastly out-of-date knowledge into kids' brains. That's going to make things worse rather than better.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor