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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: 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.