Wait until we find out that the school-assigned devices are always listening, and everything is being scanned for keywords by the NSA, and they’re taking action based on what they hear, arresting and deporting people.
It sounds insane, but this is MAGAmerica. If this was the top story tomorrow, I wouldn’t be surprised, at all. Think of this when the Administration says they are going to give a free laptop or tablet to every American schoolchild.
A bigger problem is school sponsored spyware on the devices. Weird how they don’t mention that:
https://www.eff.org/wp/school-issued-devices-and-student-privacy
https://time.com/7275031/spy-high-true-story-prime-video/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/19/schools-spied-on-students-webcams
I’m not sure how that’s a surprise to anyone. Keep your personal stuff off hardware that doesn’t belong to you.
They used the onboard cameras to take pictures of kids in their bedrooms.
That is a problem, but usage monitoring software should be expected.
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Right, because it’s only supposed to be used for school purposes.
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I can’t answer that with the limited information you’ve provided.
Dude, don’t normalise this bullshit. Wtf.
What bullshit, making sure kids use school property only for school?
Or did you mistakenly think I was suggesting that accessing the webcam was a part of usage monitoring software?
The school elected to enable TheftTrack to allow school district employees to secretly and remotely activate the standard webcam featured in all Apple laptops since 2006.[17][25][26][27] That allowed school officials to secretly take photographs through the webcam, of whatever was in front of it and in its line of sight, and send the photographs to the school’s server.[9][17] The system took and sent a new photograph every 15 minutes when the laptop was on, and TheftTrack was activated, though school employees could adjust the timeframe to as low as one-minute intervals.[9][28][29] LANrev disabled the webcams for all other uses (e.g., students were unable to use Photo Booth or video chat), so most students mistakenly believed that their webcams did not work at all.[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District
And? I wasn’t talking about remote webcam monitoring software.
Then keep it fucking at school.
It shouldn’t be in homes. Its a constitutional violation. Schools are state sponsored and tax funded.
They shouldn’t be legally allowed to record shit in a private home with out a warrant.
There should be 1 class for computer and tech. The rest of school can be done with pencil, paper, and a ruler.
Districts should stop playing the marketing game and spend money repairing buildings, buying up to date textbooks, and fucking paying teachers more.
Pay teachers more, free breakfast and lunch for every child. These two things are the only things that you can just throw money at to improve outcomes that can be replicated everywhere.
As a generalization, they don’t need more money for textbooks, they don’t need more tech, they don’t need building upgrades, they don’t need whatever the latest software scam is, etc.
I run the makerspace of a school, and totally agree with this!
I saw somewhere that general tech in schools makes students worse overall by 2/3 of a standard deviation. A class on it is an great approach, and the constant live experimentation on our youth education needs to stop. The pain of learning isn’t optional, I say.
A proper typing and general computer useage class. With optional digital arts and coding classes. That way kids can learn to use a computer and have chances to actually put that general knowledge to the test and then expand on the skill.
Heaven knows my digital art class in high school actually taught me loads of things about how to use computers efficiently, manage back ups and storage, and other skills. It wasn’t JUST learn how to use Photoshop.
Tech shouldn’t be allowed in the classroom until high school.
Kids need to learn how to think, use their hands, eye hand coordination, basic reading and most importantly … have a freakin ATTENTION SPAN!!!
The modern computer, internet culture and social media are all designed to shorten a person’s attention span as much possible to turn their brain into pudding and market anything to them.
One of the greatest skills in life in being able to think for yourself, to wonder, to imagine and to question the world with just your own mind rather than in occupying every waking moment to a digital device.
Not sure if joking/trolling, but school computers don’t generally ALLOW social media or chat apps like Discord and such, as well as harshly limit internet usage with guardrails. They’re pretty locked down and even when at home monitor network usage.
I don’t like laptops and such in schools, but kids ARE going to need to know how to use them to be successful and that’s something a lot of parents can’t teach.
When I was growing up, we had to learn how to type, how to use the Dewey Decimal System and library terminals to look up where books were for research and such. Later, we had Computer Labs to do this work and write reports and such… This is no different. Don’t confuse a smartphone internet experience and its constant advertising and social aspects with what kids get on these laptops.
I don’t like laptops and such in schools, but kids ARE going to need to know how to use them to be successful and that’s something a lot of parents can’t teach.
they won’t learn from a chromebook how to use computers. They’ll only learn how to be a good slave in google’s cloud based walled garden. those devices are too locked down to be used for teaching computers.
I’d argue that they can still learn typing, researching, google docs (which, lets be honest, are close enough to microsoft, open or libre office to count), navigating the web, learning how to detect scams, AI and things like that… even on a Chromebook.
That said, my kid is about to go to college and hasn’t used a chromebook since 6th grade. I don’t currently know anyone whose kid has either. They’re just not used for schools much anymore. Their huge selling point was simplifying the OS support and battery life, but her current Lenovo lasts all day already as do most normal laptops at this point and GPO’s and AD are a things.
I’d argue that they can still learn typing
most chromebooks are touch screen only
google docs
indoctrination to the rent seeking and privacy invading lifetime cloud scam
navigating the web
with chrome, teaching them to accept all the forms of enshittification are normal that the chrome browser does not protect against but even support
That said, my kid is about to go to college and hasn’t used a chromebook since 6th grade. I don’t currently know anyone whose kid has either. They’re just not used for schools much anymore. Their huge selling point was simplifying the OS support and battery life, but her current Lenovo lasts all day already as do most normal laptops at this point and GPO’s and AD are a things.
didn’t know that, interesting
I think this is one of the biggest missed opportunities in education.
We put “technology” in front of students, but mostly in the form of locked-down devices, prescribed apps, and step-by-step workflows. That teaches compliance, not understanding.
There’s a huge difference between using software and understanding how it works, how to break it, fix it, or build your own.
Basic exposure to things like Linux, hardware setup, networking, and programming would give kids agency instead of just familiarity. Even if they don’t pursue tech careers, they’d come out far more capable of navigating (and questioning) the systems around them.
Digital safety is a big one. Not just “don’t click bad links” but actual operational awareness: privacy, tracking, permissions, data ownership. The stuff that matters in reality.
I get that there are constraints like funding, vendor lock-in, teacher workload, curriculum pressure. But the current model feels like it’s optimised to produce competent consumer users of systems, not people who can shape them.
Feels like a massive wasted opportunity.
Na the kids need a basic ass machine with only a command line like we did growing up on apple IIs
“Sorry Billy, you need to get your X Windows environment up or you’re just not getting YouTube on here. Look at your younger brother, he’s already experimenting with Wayland. I’m very disappointed in you Billy.”
Exactly!! – kid is gonna go home cry and wake up at 1AM and figure out how to get wine running so he can play roblox with his friends
My first computer ran DOS
You’re partly right. Did you read the article? One of the chief complaints is that in fact the devices aren’t locked down and kids are using them for things like games and youtube.
You’re in a Lemmy echo-chamber for the rest of it. The average user isn’t us.
As for the rest, schools teach to the lowest common denominator. The article itself plainly shows that the people “in charge” haven’t a clue how to effectively monitor, limit, and control usage of these basic devices. So throwing more at them isn’t the solution when they can’t even manage what they’ve got.
How can one become a tech nerd without tinkering with things though?
The problem is they can’t control Chromebooks. Give them a Linux laptop with a purposeful distro that doesn’t allow them to play Minecraft. Boom, problem solved.
Chromebooks are basically designed to be easy to lock down and be remotely administrator controlled. It seems like schools in this article just… aren’t doing that for some reason? Maybe they just don’t have the time or technical knowledge.
The problem is there is no compelling data that these devices are superior for learning. They are distractions and expense with no proven benefit.
There’s some benefit… my daughter was assigned a Window 11 Lenovo the last two tears and now hates Microsoft AND Windows.
Her personal laptop runs linux.
In my son’s fifth grade class last year, it was fucking Cookie Clicker. 🙄
Why would the fuck Cookie Clicker? They hot?
He ain’t a bad looking dude tbh
