MESSAGE
DATE | 2003-05-19 |
FROM | Marco Scoffier
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SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] Alt schools demo
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> > The reliance on external companies, or web-service portals shocked me > > because the teachers are imputting their entire lesson plans through > > a web form and relying on the continued well being of a distant company > > offering a "free as in beer" service over the net, which seems to me to > > be an incredibly precarious way of running classes. > > Why is it precarious? It's stupid to pay someone to do something every > teach should be able to do themselves...but I hardly can see it as precarious. > > It's just an example of how a lack of training about technology has hindered > the use of technology in the classroom to an effective end point. These > companies are snakeoil salesmen. Let me walk you through what is precarious because there were 4 teachers presenting exactly this:
--teacher wants an easy to update website where the students can respond to questions from home. In the current state of inoperability of software a website with webform slash style discussion is the only option.
--teacher finds "free" service offering this to educators. Server is in California or teacher does not know where the server is.
--teacher inputs all weekly lesson plans over the course of the year into the webforms that put the data on the distant server. Students respond to the lessons, and complete their homework by entering data into webforms, from home or the library.
--the only central place where all the lessons and all the student data is kept is on a distant server not under the control of the teacher.
This is where we are now. Many teachers are in this situation now. They sense so danger, everything is fine, the webforms are so _easy_. I say this is precarious.
When the web service desides it can't offer this service any more, decides to charge. Decides just to cancel the service. Forgot it had been running this and new management cans the project.
One teacher had already lots ALL of last year, and had a ho hum attitude about it. Oh well he is so used to losing data on the computer that losing it on an online service seemed about the same.
This made me want to scream. There are so many things we have to change. Getting the server into the control of the schools technicians is a first obvious step. There is no reason why this could not be implemented extremely cheaply. There was talk that there was a system called blackboard.altschools.org which cost too much and they did not know if they could continue paying for. This while the BoE pays $42 a machine to Microsoft, whether the machine is in use, or works, so that Microsoft wont come do an audit.
-- Marco
Yes and the use of snakeoil in the classroom is preca ____________________________ NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene Fair Use - because it's either fair use or useless.... NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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