Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Chris Kenniburg -
Number of replies: 23
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Visvanath,
Have you ever tried to get 5 year olds - who don't speak the same language and some who cannot even read - to login to a computer with a username and password?
If you did you would change your tune really quick!!! Just a heads up, it can take upwards of 30 minutes just to get everyone logged in to the computers and then logged in again to Moodle.

Then try getting 25-30 of them to do so at the same time. It's pure chaos. This is our life. We live and breathe it every day. We see the kids frustration. We see the teacher frazzled. We also see what role technology plays in our schools and the benefits of having a real LMS like Moodle and not a cheap substitute like G Classroom.

Google and Oauth2 has provided much needed relief for our users. It's not everything but it is part of the puzzle in making Moodle more appealing to attract teacher investment in using it. Making Moodle easier to use, increasing value adds for teachers and students, providing robust teaching and learning opportunities, and most of all... supporting and advocating for the open source community is what we are about.

Not everything Google does is inherently evil. There needs to be balance for everything.
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In reply to Chris Kenniburg

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Marcus Green -
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'Have you ever tried to get 5 year olds - who don't speak the same language and some who cannot even read '
I found it a challenge with 16 year olds who all spoke the same language. Standard conversation
Me: Everyone has the same password, which is the word password
Student: The password doesn't work
Me: let me try (logs them in)
Student: Why did the password work for you and not me
Me: Because I have magic teacher fingers

It could easily take around 10 minutes to get 18 students logged for the first time.

'Not everything Google does is inherently evil'
Most of what they do has an element of surveillance, so most of it is a bit evil'
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Jon Witts -
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My standard response is "computers are stupid; if you put rubbish into them you get rubbish out... So, yes; you typed the password incorrectly!"
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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>> Not everything Google does is inherently evil

> Most of what they do has an element of surveillance, so most of it is a bit evil'

The surveillance part is common knowledge, but how brazen Google is? This appeared today in /.:
https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/14/1453216/google-has-100-for-teachers-who-steer-20-children-to-google-cs-first
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Continental divide

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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The article above, https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/14/1453216/google-has-100-for-teachers-who-steer-20-children-to-google-cs-first, made me realize how deep the continental divide is. On my side that kind of obvious bribery is unthinkable, definitely not up to the ethical standards of teachers.

I remember an incident 15 years ago, in the local town council. It was the time the Microsoft Windows (XP) and Office (2003) licenses were major expenses in the education sector (and also elsewhere) and the availability of Open Source made a new awareness. Long story, but the then education secretary (Schulvorsteherin) introduced a new licensing scheme. One selling argument was that the teachers were allowed to install the software on their home computers free. (Remember, these were PCs, and schools provided them.) She came under heavy criticism for that (for a reason).

For me, that partly explains why Google has won the US K12 sector.
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In reply to Chris Kenniburg

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Colin Fraser -
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You describe my grade 9s perfectly Chris, I didn't know you knew them......smile
@Marcus, it gets really bad when I write it up on a white board and they still can't log in. 
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In reply to Colin Fraser

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Marcus, Jon and Colin

I find your "my kids are dumber than yous" posts disdainful.

Not only that, don't forget, who put them in that position?
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Marcus Green -
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'I find your "my kids are dumber than yous" posts disdainful.'
I would as well, but that is neither the wording nor the intention of what I wrote. The human brain is an ignoring device not a learning device and I would be more likely than an average person to type in a password wrong no matter how simple it was. Its about people following what seem to be simple instructions not about students or 'dumb' students.

The human brain is tuned to ignore most stuff because most stuff doesn't matter, which is an issue which teachers need to deal with. My teaching superpower was that I cannot concentrate well, which means that I assume that students cannot either and so prepared sessions on that basis.
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Colin Fraser -
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@Marcus, agreed.
@Visvanath, I am suggesting that 14-15yr olds have a habit of not listening. They can do amazing things on their laptops if I get out of the way, but they bungle simple instructions. They're growing up, and that is what they do. Some are real good at not listening and take a while to start listening again, others get over it quickly. Remember Mark Twain.

But we're getting off topic
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In reply to Colin Fraser

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Marcus and Colin
Cc Jon

Sorry for my wording. I summarized the combined effect of all three messages, which was unnecessary. The originals are all there in the forum thread.

And that took us off the main track (from my point of view), https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=358911#p1591049. So, a double mistake. Hope, there'll still be useful input.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Jon Witts -
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Certainly not my intention in my message; nor I believe, what it conveyed... It was meant as an amusing anecdote; nothing more. Apologies that you found it disdainful Visvanath.

Jon
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In reply to Jon Witts

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Jon, I'm glad that you didn't take my "strong interpretation" of your comments personally. As I wrote the others, "the combined effect of all three messages" rattled something.

@all, Now I know what that was. All, who teach the youth and young adults (in the digitized world) complain how distracted they are. Rather than being cynical about it we need to seriously search for its cause. This news crossed my radar as it appeared today: Rog Srigley, writer who teaches at Humber College and Laurentian University, offered his students extra credit if they would give him their phones for nine days and write about living without them. "What they wrote was remarkable, and remarkably consistent," he writes.

He is still privileged. His students, in their early 20s, attending a philosophy class, These university students, given the chance to say what they felt, didn't gracefully submit to the tech industry and its devices. Are we less lucky? What can we do about it?

Source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/19/12/27/2136247/i-asked-my-students-to-turn-in-their-cellphones-and-write-about-living-without-them
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In reply to Chris Kenniburg

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Chris

Thanks for providing those details. I went through the whole thread again and realized that our working environments are so different that we could be on two different planets. To count the major ones: cultural - US vs. Continent, level - public school vs. tertiary, size - 20 k upwards vs. institutions with a couple of thousand affiliated persons each and finally - free market vs. mostly state governed. I appreciate that your team has built a respectable eco system based on Free and Open Source Software. But there is this corner, Google to be specific, which is contentious.

I don't know how deep your collaboration with Google is. So I try to make my beliefs "in bullet point form" independently whether they apply to your project or not.

a. Small kids, preschool, school beginners, do not belong to the computer and Internet. Give them a childhood! Not only as a present, but also for their health. Healthy childhood is a condition to become strong adults.

b. In places where you have to make exceptions, no money of (analog) material, pleasant classrooms, etc. use devices and infrastructure of your own. Meaning up to the state level. Don't outsource to the BIG (Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook). Heralding the kids whose responsibility is on you to data kraken is unethical. Those corporations will not release them their whole lives.

Although I managed to narrow down the topics to two, each of them are too big to handle in a hit-and-run type of a forum we are in. Not only too big, anybody plan to just throw what comes to one's mind and continue, that person is not taking it seriously. In any case, you will understand, why I an not keen on continuing the discussion. As I said, there are more positive things in your project, I believe, to waste time in something which can not be changed.

One passing note though: If your project gets funding or other support from Google, please state them for the sake of transparency.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Colin Fraser -
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I have to agree that kids should not be using technology as we are currently using it, but this is more an issue of non-educators making education decisions, something that happens all the time here and ends up badly every time.
Also agree outsourcing to BIG is a longer term disaster in slow motion.

Again, getting off topic here.
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In reply to Colin Fraser

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Marcus Green -
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No Colin you are wrong, the solution to education is giving out more iPads < / humour >
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Top Tech Tools to Build a Learning Platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Humour? What kind of humour? Or is this the elephant in the room?

How classroom technology is holding students back
Educators love digital devices, but there’s little evidence they help children - especially those who most need help.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614893/classroom-technology-holding-students-back-edtech-kids-education/

(found in, where else, on /. today https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/19/168220/how-classroom-technology-is-holding-students-back )
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In reply to Colin Fraser

Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Nothing new to the experienced crowd here. For the others here is a comprehensive report put together by the Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/google-facebook-surveillance-privacy/ watch for the full 60 page report "Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights" https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol30/1404/2019/en/ at the bottom of the article.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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I know, I can't move the staunch googlers here. But this bomb shell dropped withing days, this time on BBC - not in slashdot, I thought of adding that too:
Ex-Google exec Ross LaJeunesse savages firm on human rights 2 January 2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50976764
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Am I the only person concerned here?
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/02/21/0214203/new-mexico-ag-sues-google-for-allegedly-collecting-location-data-contact-lists-from-students
Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said in a statement: "These claims are factually wrong. G Suite for Education allows schools to control account access and requires that schools obtain parental consent when necessary. We do not use personal information from users in primary and secondary schools to target ads. School districts can decide how best to use Google for Education in their classrooms and we are committed to partnering with them."
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Colin Fraser -
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That's interesting Visvanath, and I for one am very sceptical about how big business is "honest and forthright" and "protecting privacy" and how the interplay between big business and a nation's intelligence services seems to always favour the existing establishment. (Look at how various listening stations have been used by the CIA and NSA to make sure the US secured large armaments, construction and shipping contracts since the 1960s. Some of them are well documented and what was missed?) Industrial espionage has always been a feature of national relations, only now, with the advent of the 'Net, it is rapidly becoming the norm. Unfortunately, even if the NM AG proves their case, not a lot is going to happen. Besides, it's all fake news.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Marcus Green -
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'Am I the only person concerned here?'
No
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Paul Raper -
The thread is really interesting since only a couple of weeks back an interesting article was published here in Switzerland entitled "The spy in the classroom".
Essentially they were talking about Google, MS and FaceBook along with Amazon etc.
Basically we have a blanket ban on the use of any cloud service provider, especially those in the US. We have a Swiss based university service which has based its cloud storage system on OwnCloud, and has really tight regulation on other services that are provided such as e-portfolios etc.
For e-assessment the University of Zürich developed the Safe Exam Browser, https://safeexambrowser.org/news_en.html, and our own university developed the learn stick, https://www.imedias.ch/themen/lernstick/index.cfm, both are PC lock-down tools that limit the user to what they can access, and what they can do on their PC.
I'm sorry the Learn-Stick text is in German, but you can probably get the gist through an online translation tool.
Essential though, the Learn-Stick works by having Linux installed on the stick and the requisite tools and settings. A master stick is produced and then the content is duplicated using a special copying bank which allows for up to 20 sticks to be produced from one master.
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In reply to Paul Raper

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Paul

Thanks for your support. I felt like I am telling people what they do not want to hear. Incidentally have an association to almost every topic you mentioned. Just kidding, we work in the same education environment.

On the BIG Four being "The spy in the classroom": They are not really the spies we know from spy novels. Rather huge pimps. They trade human flesh in the analog world, intimate data in the digital world. I know, it sounds egregious, how dare to call such powerful people pimps. But the history learned us, the most powerful in the New World, for example, were the racketeers we know since the God Father the latest.

The cloud service of the Swiss universities, it is the SWITCHdrive https://www.switch.ch/drive/, right? Do you have any numbers of the rel. usage of SWITCHdrive vs. Microsoft OneDrive in the Swiss Universities? I have the feeling, that the BIG have a direct line to the hearts of the academia.

Yes, Moodle, Lernstick and the Safe Exam Browser make a beautiful Open Source trio. One drives the server, the other the client and the third a wrapper over the usual client-server-bridge. In my city, all the public schools use the Lernstick on student computers. Oddly, the software also belongs to political parties. This city Winterthur is socialist/leftist. So the Lernstick survived. In other cities, Solothurn for example, Open Source was thrown out once the power changed hands.

BTW, there is good documentation on Lernstick in english: https://www.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.unibe.ch/services_and_support/lernstick/index_eng.html. Safe Exam Browser https://safeexambrowser.org is better known on moodle.org.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights

by Colin Fraser -
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Hi Visvanath @Paul, the benefit of living in an independent minded nation like Switzerland is obvious, the authorities there are not afraid of making their own decisions. In Oz, we have a long term dependency on Britian and the US that has never matched the perception of indepence we talk about. In short, our political, economic, academic and social leaders are just not interested in anything Australian, it can't possibly be good enough, or we can't compete, or that old standby "why reinvent the wheel?" We could do it, if we wanted to, but we have to develop an entirely different mindset and that just ain't gunna happen.
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