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Re:Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (... by Balgair on Thursday March 30, 2017 @05:32PM (#13999063)
I'll echo as well. My wife's classrooms use chromebooks. Due to 'security issues', the computers can only run a hand-full of java applications for the few labs where they do in fact need the computers. These are, if I'm generous, a decade out of date and 'clunky'. Additionally, they are required to login to the central district server before they can use the chromebook (student ID #, etc). Trouble is, there are 35+ students in the classroom, and the wireless routers only can support ~15 chromebooks. The kids end up in a cycle of booting each other off the wireless routers. That is only for one classroom, typically there are ~7 classrooms in the range of that single router which kids can try to log into with their cellphone, further increasing the issues. Also, for the entire school, there is only a single 4GB line out to the central district server for ~2000 kids and associated staff, and that central server has been under DDoS attack from the IoT take-overs from October. State mandated testing of only the freshmen (~700 students), via these chromebooks, is scheduled to take 6 weeks due to these issues and they are not expecting the student to be able to submit these computerized tests even still. Effectively, their school is still in ~1992 with some dilapidated chomebooks and 'smart-boards' stuck in closets like neo-Luddites. Oh, and the voters decided to cut a further 30% from the budget, so now its looking like ~52 kids per classroom next year. We are, obviously, changing districts.

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