Because Google noticing what you clicked is the same as google
owning you. Did I get that right?
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You understand that youâre the commodity, not the client, right?
Because Google does.
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Me too. Itâs entirely routine; I donât even think about it, never mind finding it onerous.
Maybe Iâm misunderstanding this, but arenât these school-provided Chromebooks for school purposes? What are they logging into multiple times each day? Facebook? Wouldnât it be a good learning outcome to discourage such personal browsing on a âworkâ computer, and encourage students to compartmentalise their private activity to hardware they (nominally!) control?
And I donât have a smartphone. 
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I generally like most of what you post but this⌠Umm no, this is totally wrong. It actually makes your experience a lot better to be in control of it.
I never stored passwords in my browser (they donât belong there, they belong in the password manager) and since I set my systems to drop all garbage when I close the browser, itâs a lot easier. Iâm much more in control. If Iâm logged in, itâs because I logged in, and if thereâs state in a cookie, itâs because Iâm doing something that created that state.
If you leave all your passwords and random cookies laying around, you will have problems. Itâs a âwhenâ, not âifâ, and how will you deal with it? You expect kids to resolve problems where professional programmers couldnât figure out stateless vs stateful request issues?
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âŚalso, leverage the incognito mode in the browser.
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Can ChromeOS take chrome plug-ins?
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Iâm a trifle surprised by the inclusion of the two items you mention; but only because they also go through disabling the âsynchronize everything with the mothershipâ settings.
Unless Google is being rather sneaky, if you turn off the âAdvanced Sync Settingsâ stuff, all stored credentials will remain local to the device; which is certainly no more invasive than any other computer with a browser(and, in practice, ChromeOS is probably more secure than average).
As for cookie retention, Iâm less phased by that, if you allow credential saving, since the logging back in process will be automatic and assorted more-persistent-than-necessary cruft will be cleaned out.
As for the behavior of the school district in this case, Iâm surprised that they were so willing to drag their feet even on ceremonial stuff(like meeting with the guy); but Iâm far less surprised that they are unhappy about the prospect of cooperating:
If they are âdoing chromebooksâ, itâs because theyâve decided that they like certain features; and, while âcheap, with keyboardâ is almost certainly one of those features, Iâd bet nontrivial money that Google Docs and/or Classroom is another. If this were just about a typing and browser box, letting kiddo use whatever hardware and software they want would be comparatively easy. If the standard is going to be âteachers handing out assignments and collecting them via Googleâ, accommodating that without an entire parallel workflow is going to get ugly.
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Which have been shown to do at least as much intrusive monitoring as web pages.
Privacy and Google donât seem to be doing well together.
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I really think to a degree this is a non-story.
I have both âend userâ and corporate Google accounts, and I do not get advertising of any kind on my commercial account. I thought that was the whole point - education and commercial use you pay for, end user use is free but you agree to accept targeted advertising and for anonymised data to be stored. The British Cabinet Office (a government department) has decided that commercial Google docs is secure enough for lower level government work, and they arenât idiots.
If you compare a Chromebook to either a smartphone or a Windows desktop, you will find the Chromebook does a lot less phoning home. I run very, very few âappsâ on my smartphone because so many of them turn out to be privacy invading (even non-manufacturer flashlight apps, ffs).
It would be nice to think that setting up all a schoolâs computers with Mint and locking the firewall solid would do something for privacy, but I suspect all it would do in practice is drive up admin cost and cause teacher frustration at all the things that would be blocked.
I am, however, more generally shocked at parent ignorance. They allow kids to use Facebook and Whatsapp. Once youâve done that, you might just as well hang out a sign saying âcreepy paedos welcome.â
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The simplest policy would be for the parents to teach the child that the school computer is only for school use. Just like you should only use a work issued computer for work use.
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Came here to say this too.
Thatâs one of the things Iâve taught my kids: donât have or do everything on every device. Sensitive stuff should only be on a device you have a lot of control over and security in place.
If my kidsâ schools were to give them devices like this, the first rule would be to do ONLY schoolwork on the device. Have your personal device right next to it for surfing, texting, etc. Donât mix the two.
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All that right there. But I agree with the rest of your post as well. I mean if you are that concerned about Google seeing where youâve gone and then spewing ads at youâŚthen you certainly donât consume any other media do you? Even watching a movie puts you at risk of seeing product placement, you know because we are sheeple to be monetized.
I think teaching kids how to be smart when online is far more important than giving them a tool that accesses that same environment in a clean suit. At some point you wonât be using a system that has all those safety things added on and you might actually have to use your brain and not click on that sketchy looking link.
(Not saying you should forego all those safety programs, but an ounce of commonsense is worth more than a pound of prevention.)
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Iâll offer this, as someone thatâs worked with schools and technology quite a bit:
The childâs login to Google Apps for Education should be a Student ID number-based email- not something that has their name attached to it. Those student IDâs are not assignable to a specific student- they are internally used only. Any information collected, then, is attached to an anonymous email address- so, while the student is technically âgiving away their data,â that data isnât actually attached to the student. In some ways, itâs closer to an ideal situation than many people use normally.
Chromebooks will use plugins- the school may limit that somewhat.
The chromebooks are for school work- so Iâd guess that a significant amount of time would be spent in Google Doc/Sheets/Classroom etc.
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I agree with @codinghorror on this one, if you make it a pain in the ass to do even basic things on the web then you are basically pulling kids from their computer screen to an alternate tablet or phone screen.
As adults these convictions make sense but outside blind obedience there is no way the current crop of children who have grown up with big brother already in place will understand the gravity of their decisions until it is too late. Itâs a noble cause, and one worth fighting for, but I would rather have my child learn as much as she can about the technology as well as why privacy is important from personal experience.
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If by hellish one means âmildly inconvenient.â I have heard the word used this way many times.
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I donât know if youâre able to add browser extensions, but those school-issued laptops are often impossible to add or download stuff to. My daughterâs high school issues Lenovo ThinkPads. With IE installed and no option to use or download a different browser. Which means sheâs locked out of some things like Google Docs, because that just doesnât work in IE.
The keyboard bit is underestimated by a lot of educators. So many schools have issued iPads, perhaps because they didnât realise that tablets can be more than textbook replacements.
How fast can you type on an iPad? For the slow kids, glass keyboard typing speeds may be tolerable. For the fast ones, the ability to bash out 65wpm or more on a ârealâ keyboard is very valuable. I would go mad if I was forced to use an iPad to write, and my normal typing speed is no more than 80wpm, which is not fast.
The main special use case of glass keyboards is for language teaching - other than Latin obviously - and that is a bit of a corner case in most ordinary schools, especially as when learning a language writing by hand is very valuable for retention.
i have 3 kids at the each level (high school, middle school, and elementary). They all have a district issued Chrome Book. It is fantastic for getting work done without them fighting for time on the home laptop I provide for their use. They are small, lightweight, durable, and incredibly convenient.
This saidâŚthey are for school work only. I do NOT allow them to use them in any personal capacity. The two older kids have iPhones, and the youngest uses an iPad for surfing and YouTube watching etc. No personal use!
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Yeah, Iâm somewhat slower on a glass keyboard than on a mechanical one-
But.
Students that have less invested time on a mechanical keyboard seem to not have this same handicap. Iâve watched students touch-type at speed on an iPad with no trouble. I suspect the 30-odd years of mechanical keyboard time Iâve got logged is working against me here.
Also: the convention of keyboards is dying. Because weâre not bound to a single layout anymore, thereâs less reason to keep the QWERTY thing going. Indeed, may students will bust out a first draft of a paper by dictating it to the device. Iâm cool with that.
Turning an iPad (or whatever other tabletâŚ) into a musical instrument or art implement is easy- doing that with a laptop-shaped thing? Less so. Adults often have a perception that a tablet is a âtoyâ and a laptop-shaped-thing is a âreal computerâ but thatâs not a bias students have.
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