After Trying it out for a bit and perusing their available add ons, I have to say I am extremely impressed, even for Google. First off, they dont try to shove the sidebar down your throat, as u can still just use it like before and not have problems. Second, they took a page from Firefox's book and make it completely customizable. With all these first party extensions from day one, I have my sidebar my way, and all the extensions are located in one place, just like for firefox. The only thing I have not found yet (or maybe its not there yet) is a way to have my RSS feeds onto the bar, but Ill find out soon enough) That said, google is probably the only company who could pull off such a product, as I think that if M$ or any other company were to try it, it would not come off as polished, customizable, and user friendly. I also think that the sidebar and all its features wont be for everyone. Its probably only gonna appeal to ~50% of users, because the other half wont want the 'clutter' it brings, or to lose precious desktop real estate.
As for replacing your webbrowser.... I think not at all. it makes surfing the webv easier in some ways, such as not having to access your gmail web pages, rather u can just look to the sidebar, but it definitley cant replace my daily browsing activities. Although, I think that the next logical step would be for google to take firefox and the sidebar, plus some google genious ideas and features, and make the google browser. With the 4 billion they now have, I could see that happening very easily.
In a limited scope, I think its actually the private schools that degrade the public school system. Havin spent all of my educationaly career up to this point in a private school, and having a mother as a teacher, public school teachers get paid more(at least compared to the parochial school I wen to). The majority of people who taught me during grade school didnt teach for the paycheck, they taught because that was their goal in life, their passion. I've seen the bad teachers, they work for the money, they dont care about the students.
The only problem is that the system, while obsolete, can't be changed. One person above mentioned a solution for which students after 6th grade get seperated based on intelligence, which isnt quite fair, as some people are more recpetive to some things than others. Additioanlly, you could not have overl6y specialized highschools that focus on one career path because while, efficient, thats basically forcing a 13 year old to choose their job right then and there, which isnt practical or fair. Admitted there are some people. who have know what they are going to do for a living since they were 5, but a lot of people don't know really what they're gonna end up doing when they're applying for college.
There's also the continual push for more to be put into the curriculum. Honestly, what percentage of the work force is going to use high level calculus? If you know how to add, subtact, multiply, divide, you can generally figure out the rest or find the formulas needed for your specific problem, and then solve it. English is essential if only because we are in a time of great infromational flux and revolution. students are reading as many books, but they ARE reading web pages and what not. Whether this is right or good, who can really say at this point?
Ultimatley, Bill is right on this one, and I dont think its fair for him to be attacked because he doesnt present a solution, only a problem. We're a fairly large community, but I have yet to see a concrete solution to this problem from us, so why expect it from one man?
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After Trying it out for a bit and perusing their available add ons, I have to say I am extremely impressed, even for Google. First off, they dont try to shove the sidebar down your throat, as u can still just use it like before and not have problems. Second, they took a page from Firefox's book and make it completely customizable. With all these first party extensions from day one, I have my sidebar my way, and all the extensions are located in one place, just like for firefox. The only thing I have not found yet (or maybe its not there yet) is a way to have my RSS feeds onto the bar, but Ill find out soon enough) That said, google is probably the only company who could pull off such a product, as I think that if M$ or any other company were to try it, it would not come off as polished, customizable, and user friendly. I also think that the sidebar and all its features wont be for everyone. Its probably only gonna appeal to ~50% of users, because the other half wont want the 'clutter' it brings, or to lose precious desktop real estate. As for replacing your webbrowser.... I think not at all. it makes surfing the webv easier in some ways, such as not having to access your gmail web pages, rather u can just look to the sidebar, but it definitley cant replace my daily browsing activities. Although, I think that the next logical step would be for google to take firefox and the sidebar, plus some google genious ideas and features, and make the google browser. With the 4 billion they now have, I could see that happening very easily.
In a limited scope, I think its actually the private schools that degrade the public school system. Havin spent all of my educationaly career up to this point in a private school, and having a mother as a teacher, public school teachers get paid more(at least compared to the parochial school I wen to). The majority of people who taught me during grade school didnt teach for the paycheck, they taught because that was their goal in life, their passion. I've seen the bad teachers, they work for the money, they dont care about the students. The only problem is that the system, while obsolete, can't be changed. One person above mentioned a solution for which students after 6th grade get seperated based on intelligence, which isnt quite fair, as some people are more recpetive to some things than others. Additioanlly, you could not have overl6y specialized highschools that focus on one career path because while, efficient, thats basically forcing a 13 year old to choose their job right then and there, which isnt practical or fair. Admitted there are some people. who have know what they are going to do for a living since they were 5, but a lot of people don't know really what they're gonna end up doing when they're applying for college. There's also the continual push for more to be put into the curriculum. Honestly, what percentage of the work force is going to use high level calculus? If you know how to add, subtact, multiply, divide, you can generally figure out the rest or find the formulas needed for your specific problem, and then solve it. English is essential if only because we are in a time of great infromational flux and revolution. students are reading as many books, but they ARE reading web pages and what not. Whether this is right or good, who can really say at this point? Ultimatley, Bill is right on this one, and I dont think its fair for him to be attacked because he doesnt present a solution, only a problem. We're a fairly large community, but I have yet to see a concrete solution to this problem from us, so why expect it from one man?