Robert Pogson reports:
Recent news about the popularity of Chromebooks with schools may seem puzzling.
Schools in Hillsborough, New Jersey decided to make an experiment out of its own program. Beginning in 2012, 200 students were given iPads and 200 students were given Chromebooks. After receiving feedback from both students and teachers, the schools sold off their iPads and bought 4,600 Chromebooks.
After all, a keyboard is a great input device and writing is one of the three "Rs" but why not just [buy] a notebook PC? The answer is that the high cost of maintaining the legacy PC is too great. Keeping content on the server makes the job easier and with Chromebooks, schools don't even need to own the server.
...then there's the malware, the slowing down, the re-re-rebooting with that other OS.
That makes the ChromeBook a winner in education and probably a lot of organizations large and small, even consumers. Of course, they could get those benefits with GNU/Linux but it would take more technical knowledge. Again Chromebooks win.
See iPad vs. Chromebook For Students
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:53AM
The three "Rs"? Could anyone please explain?
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:57AM
Reading, Righting, Rithmetic
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:59AM
It's really the four 'R's:
Reading, Righting, Rithmetic and Rhyming.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Shijiyaku on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:28PM
Reboot, Reformat, Re-Install.
Welcome Citizen!
Born too late for sail;too early for space
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:35PM
Reading, Righting, Rithmetic
I really wish one of those R's was spelling!
(Score: 1) by VLM on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:45PM
Reddit, fouR chan, and Roblox
(Score: 3, Informative) by dcollins on Wednesday August 13 2014, @03:15PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_R%27s [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:57AM
Why is this even a question? A tablet, iPad/Android/whatever, is primarily a device to consume content. Any laptop, including Chromebooks, is far more capable of creating content. For student use the laptop wins hands down. The administrators who thought this was worthy of their time and trouble need some education in the practical application of technology.
I'm not disparaging tablets; I have an iPad and an Android tablet. I also have a Chromebook and an LG Chromebase (among many other computers).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:05PM
Can teach administrators knowlodge but hardly teach them a clue .. ;)
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:23PM
Ummm... Most school administrators everywhere need some education in the practical application of technology. Not that I should be picking on them. Most people everywhere need some education in the practical application of technology.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:39PM
People without an education in the practical application of technology should not be administrators..
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Thursday August 14 2014, @03:31PM
Sure but that's not really a school specific problem is it?
"People without an education in the practical application of technology should not be:"
in government
decision making executives
in tech support
in sales (at technology companies)
...
trying to get by in the modern world (outside of Amish country)
And yet they are doing all of those things aren't they?
I see no reason to single out school administrators for this!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 14 2014, @07:32PM
School administrators (flawed) decisions are important for the kids in order to get a proper education. And they are (supposedly) adults but deals with kids that can't walk away or stand up to them. So the power balance is asymmetrical.
Thus if these power people make stupid decisions, they should suffer the consequences. Since the other profession arenas you mention get their people from this kind of environment.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TK on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:32PM
We* know that tablets are only for content consumption, just like we** know that Linux*** is the superior**** operating system. However, school administrators are not the typical Soylent/other site/tech news website reader/commenter/content creator. They have to make decisions based on what the information they're given, most of which is from sales types.
I think this is fantastic because instead of blindly following the sales mouthpiece of one company and then going all in, they did a trial period and determined which one they preferred. This is critical thinking, and it's a good thing.
*For some values of 'we'.
**For some values of 'we'.
***For some value of Linux.
****For some values of 'superior'.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Thursday August 14 2014, @02:08AM
You don't need technical knowledge to know that a physical keyboard is more appropriate for writing text than a touch screen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:05PM
Depends what _type_ of content creation you are trying to do, which depends on what you are trying to do with the device and how you are trying to teach. My kids' school went with iPads. I remain somewhat sceptical, but it is early days yet, and seeing how they are trying to use them, the choice of a tablet form factor actually makes sense.
A keyboard is (at least for the next few years IMO) always going to be better for creating _text_ content - but you _can_ usually add a bluetooth keyboard to a tablet, and I know IT Pros who have worked with that combination as a laptop replacement for several years. Text isn't the only content form though, and it may be becoming less important.
A laptop is definitely less useful than a tablet for many other types of content creation. You can't take a picture of the diagram on the board, or your science experiment, and annotate it, using a laptop (you can with a laptop _and_ a phone - and I do at work - but the kids are banned from using phones in school, something which I agree with). You can't use a laptop to get video feedback in sports coaching - in my kids' school, the tablets have replaced separate video cameras that the PE classes used to fight over, now every student has a device that can do that. Trackpads are also hopeless for image editing, whilst there are some very good tablet-touchscreen apps and impressive artists using them - on a real laptop that isn't a problem, plug in your favourite digitizer and use that, but can you plug an Intuos into a chromebook and run e.g. photoshop, somehow I doubt it ? I don't know about video and audio editing - haven't done enough to know if touchscreen or trackpad is better, or what is available on each platform in the way of software, though I suspect a chromebook will have less available than a real laptop and possibly less than on iOS. My kids' school iPads are also in ruggedized cases and I suspect will be used for off site fieldwork as well as PE - not sure the chromebook is even functional offline, let alone rugged ?
What they _should_ be doing hasn't changed:
- know what you are trying to achieve, know your tools
- select the right tool for the job
- don't blame a functional tool for your own inability to use it
Maybe they are trying to replace paper and pen for all content and say bye bye to handing-your-book-in for marking, etc. - my kids' school is not doing that (I guess they may eventually, but it is last on the list), they are using tablets to supplement and enhance the pen-and-paper - in which case the decision to use a keyboarded device may make sense. But, you can always add keyboard to tablet later if you need it.
Other parts of TFA make me think the administrators (or maybe TFA) actually _don't_ have a clue - for a start they seem to think that remote backup (to "cloud") and remote administration / app-deployment are exclusive chromebook features. Since my kids' school just rolled out an iPad programme including both of those, I have to grudgingly admit that maybe they knew what they were doing, at least more than the admins in TFA.
On another note, any admin who thinks that putting everything in "the cloud" with a single service provider (or a single network connection to it) constitutes a resilient or redundant solution, needs to get a different job. I also hope they do have a proper backup plan for working without a connection to their cloud applications, but I suspect the plan might involve "school's closed". Me and my mates never managed to get snow-cloud-making-machine working to get school shut, but I reckon some of today's kids will be quite capable of disrupting their school's internet connection if they had sufficient incentive...
(Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:33PM
You definitely raise some worthwhile points about the tablet form factor. Personally, the idea of sending kids running around with laptops seems like an idea that was always doomed to failure anyway. When I was in school, people were already going nuts about how heavy the backpacks were kids were walking around with...care to throw in a laptop with that stack of textbooks? And compared with tablets, they're not exactly known for being particularly rugged.
I'm not sure I agree with text being any less important now than ever (we as a species seem to only be churning it out faster and faster, with the only trend in the other direction perhaps being Twitterization). Doubly in schools, where afaik, nobody has yet suggested that we do away with essays. Keyboards are vital, and should be for some time to come. Perhaps at some point they can be replaced by a futuristic input device, but it won't be voice to text, or likely anything we've yet seen other than perhaps the sub-vocal microphone tattooed on input device that I believe it was Motorola who prototyped. Even that seems a bit of a stretch. Bluetooth keyboards should be adequate, but it is absolutely crucial that these be supplied along with the tablets to keep the playing field level. Expecting the kid with the luddite parents to keep up on his touch screen while his classmates are typing away on a keyboard would be pretty cruel to say the least.
Personally, as much as it might be a bit unpopular to say here (I swear I'm typing this only my Slackware 14.1 computer with Firefox), I'd like to see Microsoft bring some competition to Google and Apple with the Surface tablets. Being able to run Office natively certainly wouldn't hurt, and in a school, the minimal app (read: distraction) support is closer to being a feature than a bug. The form factor seems to meet all the pluses of both tablets and notebook/chromebooks, without the drawbacks that come with either option. While I've got plenty of issues with the rest of the way Microsoft does things, it hardly seems worth being willing to sacrifice educational value over (especially for the likes of either Apple or Google). Of course it'd be nice to see a more open system in place with the form factor, but given what we have to pick from these days, it seems at least as good as the other options. Except on price, where it, along with the iPad fail pretty miserably compared to the mid-range Chromebooks. But any of these companies sitting around charging schools full price despite it being fantastic advertising would be foolish, and indeed, that's usually not the case anyway. If nothing else, it'd give Microsoft somewhere to empty the stagnant warehouses full of computers nobody wants to pay for anyway.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:28PM
heavy[...]backpacks[...]throw in a laptop with that stack of textbooks
Properly done, the dead tree stuff will be gone and the texts will be digitized.
Perfectly done, the texts will also be Open Knowledge content, [google.com] developed by a non-profit org.
.
Being able to run Office natively
...is completely unnecessary--unless your intent is to indoctrinate the kids in the fine points of the payware upgrade treadmill.
M$ file formats are purposely fragile and don't even survive from 1 version of M$'s junk to another.
The standard remedy is to open a non-compatible file with LibreOffice and do a Save As.
(The smart people will save as OpenDocument Format; the incompatibility problem goes away permanently--especially if you continue to stick with the $0 FOSS app.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by cykros on Tuesday August 26 2014, @05:52PM
While I'd love to see open standards more, I'm not sure that it's worth gambling with the education of schoolchildren to bring them about, when not having a background in industry standard software as universal as MS Office can sometimes be enough to lose an edge in an interview.
I'm definitely not against educating children on open standards, but it may be best to at least offer both side by side (and let them compare and make their own decisions about the matter, seeing the issues that arise from proprietary software firsthand, as well as the difficulties with keeping community driven software feature-complete), effectively giving MORE of an edge to students this way, rather than withholding the industry standard proprietary software as a sort of ideological crusade (even if I do agree with the ideology).
Though it all does sound a little bit silly, especially when MS does things like entirely overhaul the UI, so that despite growing up using MS Office, I was only one year out of college before opening up a new version of Office left me spending a good 15 minutes on finding so much as a menu to click on... When it comes to the basics, Libre/Open-Office are probably more than good enough, and easier to mandate kids use at home than MS Office, but if you're going to get into the use of macros or other MS Office specific tasks, it's probably best to at least expose them to the systems they're more likely to encounter professionally. As a bonus, teaching multiple suites alongside helps abstract the method of learning to use software, as opposed to just knowing how to use a particular program. A skill far more useful than any program-specific expertise. Only downside here is that at least in this day in age, it's probably a lot harder to find teachers for this method, due to their all being brought up the old way...
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:49PM
wouldnt this be more due to the OS running on them than the hardware itself? iOS especially is made just for consumption within a sandbox, and from what i understand android is basically the same way just with a bigger sandbox. tablets themselves arent a hindrance to creation and are especially useful for things like art.
for schools, the surface would probably be the best choice if they're set on the idea of tablets (assuming the OS running on the surface is the basically the same as regular windows, i dont know anything about them)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:57AM
With Chromebook-Pads-Smartphones all kids preferences and habits will belong to the profiling grid before they are even aware of being cautious about such detrimental arrangements. Perfect to spot detractors early and keep people in check for rest of their life. Builtin filters will ensure users are not exposed to wrong thoughts and semantic detection will initiate re-education for those that express a hint of a thought crime.
Don't ever learn to program, install an operating system of your choice, finding out the dirty secrets of the human society, having a life outside the spotlight of people that knows what's good for you..
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Lagg on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:32PM
What kills me is that we're starting this whole loop all over again. People thinking mainframes are godly without realizing the fact that in being a thin client you're offloading control to whoever has the server. This shit is why we deprecated them in the first place. But now some asshats are propagating a new name for it: "The Cloud (TM)".
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:01PM
Perhaps we should have a closer look at the proponents of cloud stuff.
"Hey I have a new cloud server..! it's so small it fits in inside this magic stick. I think it's called USB memory.." ;)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:40PM
Lameframe-type thin client setups (can you tell I've used these?) are far easier to administer, but are quite crippled. Full-blown thick client computers are hard to administer. Using a thick client that has reduced capabilities (which both the ChromeBook and the iPad are, natively) is a nice compromise. The Chromebook would tend to be better for any task requiring creation of content, and the form factor is also better for long term use.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @03:33PM
Very much. I have a cluster of diskless systems that get their whole system and configuration as LTSP 'thick' clients. I maintain one system image. Anytime I can afford to expand the cluster, I only have to plug it in: DHCP tells it everything it needs to know. Same thing with MythTV clients at home. You only need to make sure you have the bandwidth to support it.
Which, I think is one of the big things contributing to the first death of the mainframe - people started wanting pretty graphical displays, and the network just wouldn't handle it. It'll be interesting to see what happens when all of those chromebooks start trying to watch the podcast of the lecture they're sitting in.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 14 2014, @01:07AM
Thin client setups are great. When they are used for a specified purpose and all participant has a choice in the matter. Like switching employer or doing private stuff on another computer because you know the implications. Kids don't get these implications.
The major issue here is that Chromebooks is in essence tied to a nationwide mainframe. That's a whole another ballgame than an in-house mainframe where you actually may meet and dine with the systems administrator.
Before students are let on to these data-collection-laptoys. They should be given a sufficient introduction into that they can't trust others with their private data ever. And that these devices store everything in a way that's available to most people around them and future employers and fucked up governments. And that too many people just can't handle actions or thoughts of others they don't personally approve of. Should they want to be private, they must be told to only use secure devices that are in their total control.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:29PM
Controlling your own machine was fine when most computer users had some expertise. When desktops became common IT staff quickly realized that users were incapable of looking after themselves, so they started taking back control by locking things down and re-imaging machines every night. They also centralized things like file storage and backup, because users never backup.
For most users the centralized "cloud" model is a benefit, as long as the person in control can be trusted. In a corporation or school that isn't too much of an issue. Where it matters is with things like Facebook where the people in control really can't be trusted and don't have the user's best interests in mind.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:50PM
What kills me is that we're starting this whole loop all over again. People thinking mainframes are godly without realizing the fact that in being a thin client you're offloading control to whoever has the server. This shit is why we deprecated them in the first place.
I think you are begging the question about whether mainframes are actually worse.
Did we get rid of them because they were worse in general. Or, did we get rid of them because local computing resources became much less expensive than networked computing resources.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday August 13 2014, @09:43PM
Both really. Thin clients became pointless and the cost of mainframes was no longer worth it as well as the fact that thick clients are simply easier to deal with for specialized tasks, they're technically and economically superior. They still are too since even chromebooks have been proven to not need "The Cloud" and run just fine given a decent linux distro or even Windows. This Cloud nonsense is mainframes without the technical or economical advantage. It's stupid marketing for stupid people, and yet it's being bought into.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Insightful) by morgauxo on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:44PM
"all kids preferences and habits will belong to the profiling grid"
Yup, but this is just a story about a move from iPad to Chromebook. It's one profiling grid entry point to another. I agree, it sucks but I don't see how moving from iPad to Chromebook makes it any worse.
"Don't ever learn to program"
Meh.. I think there are more possiblities for a kid to learn to program now than there ever was. I was a child in the 80s. I remember those 8-bit computers that people get nostalgic about now. Sure, most of them had some sort of BASIC available if not built right into their ROMs. If you ever have a time machine try getting ahold of a compiler back then! If anything I thought those BASIC interpereters discouraged programming. You could work so hard to write some kiler program but had no hope of ever being relevant. Normal people wouldn't use anything you wrote. They would never learn to start BASIC, LOAD the program and RUN it! You needed to produce an executable! I remember looking at C compilers in software catalogs and they wanted hundreds of 1980s dollars!
Today even with a Chromebook or even an iPad a kid could write HTML5 applications. Things would be much better yet if they would switch to Android. Did you know that you can get a full Android development environment/IDE from the Play Store? There is even an Arduino development environment although I have found that it often takes several tries to upload a sketch succesfully. Yes, there's BASIC too. I don't think it is a true BASIC compiler but it wraps your code in a copy of the interpereter to make an executable that may be distributed.
Ok, moving to Android does usually mean losing the keyboard which could make coding harder. I use a Motorolla Lapdock for this but I can hardly recommend that to schools since those have been discontinued. That's not so bad though you can still use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. With many devices you can even use USB! If I were to buy an Android tablet I would get one of those cases with a built in keyboard that fold out like a netbook and call it good. Do give the kids USB host too though. It would be great to see them programming Arduinos in an ELECTIVE class!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:02PM
It's the walled garden tied as a thin client to the corporate mainframe that makes programming so out of touch. You don't really get the feeling of controlling your actual physical hardware.
And those Bluetooth keyboards leak passwords and usage patterns. USB btw provide opportunities for resident malware that will survive complete re-installs.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:58PM
"feeling of controlling your actual physical hardware? I only need to know if Sandy really did sleep with Jason"
A bit removed from school realities, are we?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:46PM
It's a bit like the difference between theoretical workout and actually doing it. And programming doesn't involve sex drama.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Thursday August 14 2014, @03:23PM
"It's the walled garden tied as a thin client to the corporate mainframe that makes programming so out of touch. You don't really get the feeling of controlling your actual physical hardware."
No, not programming HTML5 apps on Chromebooks. You could use something like Phonegap on Android or iOS to get more hardware access. For iOS you would need a Mac to do the coding on though. Of course, in either of those you can also just code natively so it kind of loses the point.
Does having Chromebooks somehow make kids less likely to learn to code though? I think the fact they can actually do something with what they write, maybe publish an app that goes viral or at least share with their less technically inclined friends more than makes up for this loss of hardware access. It provides motivation. A kid who gets into writing HTML5 apps has a good gateway into learning something deeper. Still making those 1980s comparisons, I don't remember a whole lot of hardware access then either. I remember using LPRINT to send ASCII directly to a printer but that was about as far as it went. Sure, there was PEEK and POKE but that is so painful! Any kid who learned about hardware through those would have a 'real' computer today regardless of a school-assigned Chromebook. And... the kid would probably root the Chromebook too!
"And those Bluetooth keyboards leak passwords and usage patterns."
Are there really that many cases of people sniffing bluetooth keystrokes? Is it really happening in the schools? I thought bluetooth was encrypted? I don't consider myself an expert so if I was wrong then please tell. Whatever the case, technology moves on and people really do like their peripherals wireless. If bluetooth is an insecure protocol then I hardly think it is uniquely the schools' fault for chosing tablets/chromebooks that have it. It's the industry's fault for settling on a crappy protocol plus consumers' (in all walks of life, not just schools) for buying it.
"USB btw provide opportunities for resident malware that will survive complete re-installs."
Ok. Again, not really a unique problem for kids being issued things by schools. USB is everywhere. What would you issue to kids that would not have USB? The only things I can think of are older, cheaper tablets that didn't have USB host capability. That's not exactly getting you out of the walled garden!
So what about USB makes in insecure anyway? Are you talking about just using USB keyboards, mice and maybe an occasional Arduino? That's what I was talking about. Is there some kind of flash built into every USB device that is prone to storing malware infections or something? Or are you just talking about infected USB storage devices? If the latter, how is that different from any other kind of storage device? Would you somehow give kids a less locked-down machine that doesn't keep them in the walled garden while at the same time doesn't allow external storage? How does that work?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 15 2014, @03:30AM
Phonegap is just a toy to build applications for mobile devices using JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3. There's no hardware access to even think about.
Some 1980s computer could go "10 Graphics mode" and then "20 Circle 80,90,150" without any networking whatsoever. And if you needed physical I/O there was always peek & poke to handle it. Assembler was also an option.
Prior to Bluetooth v2.1, encryption is not required and can be turned off at any time. Security is shaky at best. Sending password over links like this is a really bad idea. When Bluetooth security sucks. School shall not require or default to its use. Instead offer USB based alternatives (USB sucks tos, but is better).
USB devices may be reprogrammed to be evil [soylentnews.org]. In essence many of them have a microcontroller and they are connected to a computer bus that lacks strict access control. This means any USB device has the potential to become an attack device.
One way to reduce the USB threat vector is to not require more USB devices than absolutely needed. And those that needs to be used could be screened to make sure they use one-time-programmable (OTP) microcontrollers (MCU).
What we have now is a an operating system that spies on the user connected to a mainframe that logs your every action for eternity and is also connected to other devices that may turn out to evil. And the user is uninformed and can't really use the machine as a real physical independent platform. Seems you need to be better updated on these issues.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:47PM
Don't ever learn to program
Here [reddit.com] are at least nine ways to program on a ChromeBook.
-
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:01PM
From the first comment.. "It would be nice if you also were able to mention which ones support offline mode on Chromebooks."
Point is that the Chromebook is extremely dependent on the good will and workings of Google and their NSL trolls.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:31PM
Which is the better gaming platform? That one? OK buy the other or else the kids will never get anything done.
(Score: 1) by GWRedDragon on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:53PM
The best device for work (or in this case school) is the one that is NOT cool and sexy. When you have something that is cool and sexy, it is a toy and your brain thinks of using it as a game. When something is built purely on functionality and is a little boring and blah, it is a tool. Your mode of thought changes based on how you perceive the device you are using.
This effect will naturally cause students to be more apt to goof off when using IPads, all else being equal.
[Insert witty message here]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:51PM
As a tech in a school district, I've been anti-ipad in schools ever since they came out. Outside of very small groups, like special needs or learning disabilities, I've yet to see a single success story with them. Thankfully my boss has put his foot down and has said we're not supporting ipads in any organized fashion. They get access to our wifi, and that's it. Thankfully, most of our teachers have come around to these stories and realized that a consumption-only device has limitations and isn't going to revolutionize education. A few still push for large sets, but that group is shrinking.
I think the best thing my boss has done when asked for ipads, is ask "what are you going to do with them?" And to date, not one has given a satisfactory answer. At best, the answers given are done vastly better by other devices, at a much more cost effective rate.
Google apps and chromebooks have been increasingly popular over the last year in the neighboring districts. We've trialed google apps at one school so far, and results are overall positive. I've got my hands on a couple of chromebooks to test over the summer, and they're pretty amazing. I'm not happy with throwing into an outside infrastructure, especially one as datamine heavy as google, but their shit works. There's no way for $300 I can get a solid laptop that boots in 12 seconds that can run the google suite as well as this. I was actually surprised and impressed at how well the low end ones I picked up run, and their far better (at what they do) than a laptop double the price.
I no way do I want to replace our entire laptop fleet with chromebooks. Having windows devices around gives us far more opportunities to run things like the adobe suite, robotics labs, programming, etc. But for regular internet access and document processing, I find them impossible to beat.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:11PM
Having windows devices around gives us far more opportunities
Pogson already covered that.
the malware, the slowing down, the re-re-rebooting
to run things like the adobe suite,
Adobe == Malware. Adobe knows NOTHING about security.
robotics labs, programming, etc.
Much of the the robotics stuff is being done with FOSS these days.
There are many programmers who never touch a Windoze box.
Pogson was a teacher. His kids ran -only- Linux.
They didn't have the problems you seem to think exist.
The Public school system of Brazil runs -only- Linux
(the world's largest Linux deployment at 500,000 seats).
They don't have a problem with the limitations you seem to think exist.
The only reason to run Windoze is to indoctrinate kids into using EULAware.
It's NOT a necessary thing. [mrpogson.com]
Can you say "FUD"? I knew you could.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:39PM
Congrats on the shitty reading comprehension. I didn't by any stretch write that only windows devices were usable, just that they're more flexible than chromebooks - an undeniable fact. I never said that Linux devices were missing any capabilities - only that I wouldn't replace my existing windows infrastructure.
And Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and other industry standard graphics and design software are malware. You all heard it here first folks.
I also don't really give a crap about what Brazil uses. I'm part of some of the highest worldwide ranked education systems. It seems like we're doing something right.
Can you take the zealotry back to Slashdot, or better yet a dumpster?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14 2014, @01:38AM
This just in: No one gives a shit what Robert Pogson says or thinks.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday August 14 2014, @01:39AM
If there is _one_ thing I've taken from my learning experiences with computers, from school kid, through college student, programmer and guy-who-hires-programmers, it is that learning _only_ _one_ of pretty much _anything_ in computing (but particularly platform, OS, and programming language) is a really spectacularly BAD idea - and it does not matter _which_ one it is. It is incredibly short sighted, breeds an insular inflexible outlook, inability to appreciate strengths and weaknesses of different solutions, and means that you cannot demonstrate to future employers an ability to adapt and learn something new.
In 30 years college + commercial experience I've used (as end user, developer or admin) at least 10 major different OSes (that I can remember), so that's changing about once every 3yrs on average (of course in reality, some overlapped). Note: that is _not_ counting OS versions, not counting mobile, not counting embedded / custom OSes for particular projects, and not counting OSes I only played with or tried out - only ones that I used significantly for at least a year. For programming languages, text editors and compilers, multiply that number up by a few (I've lost count).
I've been to job interviews where I had never used the target OS, or compiler/toolchain, and barely knew the target language. I was successful, in the interview and the job, those that hired me knew that I could do it because of what _else_ I knew. Similarly if I am hiring have a candidate who knows one language, the one for the project, and one who knows ten but not the one for the project, who will I favour ? Maybe that makes me strange in the world of HR-droids asking for 5yrs experience in a language that has only existed for 3, but it hasn't failed me yet, and when the PHB wants the next project done in buzzword-lange-du-jour, I know I have a team that will cope.
If my kids' school system is short sighted enough to _only_ teach them one OS, then I will ensure they learn about, and to use, others (note the plural). Anything else is just failing to prepare them for the future - because it _will_ be different, and it _will_ involve change.
But, you go ahead and teach kids just the one true language on the one true OS - just so long as you understand that that is Fortran 77 on VAX/VMS (first job - "learn this right, it's all you'll ever need"...).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14 2014, @06:07AM
I amend my statement:
The oldest/earliest of his students probably -had- used Windoze.
When Pogson got to his first teaching assignment, he had a bunch of Lose95 boxes that were infected to the gunwales and were laying idle.
With the M$ OS those were running, he couldn't keep the boxes he had up very long and the amount of time he wasted on de-crapping boxes drove him to Linux.
...then there were the licensing restrictions (specifically, networking).
.
Schools should teach CONCEPTS.
Once the kids have those, they should be able to extrapolate.
Teaching where to click in a particular app is just silly.
("Industry standard apps" have been mentioned in this thread.
Think of the kids who were taught that it was useful to memorize menu locations in M$Office just before "The Ribbon" was introduced.)
If a language|app|protocol isn't cross-platform, I question the utility of that something.
Again: Teach CONCEPTS.
...and if you didn't read my post about Pogson in a previous thread:
He was in the Great White North working with First Nation kids.
They didn't have a pot to piss in.
The freight charge to fly something in added significantly to the purchase price.
Pogson discovered that having Linux Just Work(tm) on his old gear allowed his kids do computing with modern, supported software without wasting a dime on that software.
That was another good lesson for the kids to learn.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:59PM
It is definitely the wrong choice if you want a physical keyboard, and insist on a favorable value proposition. Apple's education discount is laughable whereas Chromebooks are capable and cost-effective from the start.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:09PM
Well, we're back to the mainframe-terminal model, though at least with this iteration there's a bit more that can be done on our modern "terminals".
Frankly, for educational use, it makes perfectly good sense. No point tying up human resources maintaining independent laptops/desktops when they're all aiming to be roughly identical anyway, without the need for software being installed directly on them in nearly all cases. I can't say I'm thrilled with the behemoth data-mining operation that is Google being handed our schoolchildren's data as a matter of school curriculum, but I think the minority that really cares is too small to be recognized.
The only other concern I could really see is that Chromebooks are not what the average person runs into in the office once they've left school and entered the workforce, but then again, I can't say I've run into much Windows 98 in the workforce myself either. Or Microsoft Word 97. But at least the interface...oh, right... That, and even if Microsoft decided not to ever change their interfaces, if anything, it's probably a better long term strategy to train kids to use a variety of interfaces, so that they learn to learn so use software, rather than just learn a specific set of tools and scream for help as soon as they're expected to use anything else.
It would be interesting to see school's given an option (perhaps by Google), to run their own centralized platform for the Chromebooks to use as opposed to the general Chrome store approach. Might open the door to interesting innovation in educational computing, not to mention assuage some privacy concerns. Bonus points for whoever beats Google to the punch and takes their lunch.
In any case, compared to there being iPads in schools, this is fantastic from every angle. That this was ever the case shows a severe deficiency with technologically literate educators in our school system. Throw that in the mix with inadequate Home Economics education, as well as Civics, and I think the real message we get from our institutions is "you're probably better off breeding in Europe".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:56PM
I had no problem with the thin client setup there, and I have no problem with Chromebooks being used to the same effect, what I do have a problem with is the implication that because Chromebooks make good mobile thin clients for schools, we should all line up at the giant Borg cube for assimilation. I demand a real operating system with on-drive, no-net-required desktop apps. Anything else is a dangerous abomination for desktop users. The cloud has scared me since people started bitching about it back in 2008. At least back then, I simply was able to declare it a stupid idea and laugh it off.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:37PM
That has been done with Chromebooks many times before. [google.com]
There is no need to keep Googleware on these if it is not desired.
-- gewg_