A rant: Technology and Vendors in the Schools, anyone else hate it?

[Anonymous]

Too many emails!!!!

3 fcps emails today already, plus texts.
Then surely the Principal will send something today too.
Then on Sunday, some activities news.

Sure i can unsubscribe, but they don't tell you what pieces of info you're subscribing to. The Activities news is all sports. Why isn't it called sports news? And yes, i already complained to the school, who said they'll add other stuff in.. which they did, one time.

Thank.goodness I will graduate from all this and will
Celebrate by unsubscribing this Spring!

[Anonymous]

And sure enough, as soon as I hit send here, the Principal email.comes in.. which more or less has the sane info from the other 3 emails from this morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, dinosaur, it's not just for collaboration. I don’t accept anything unless it's a doc. That way I can see the history, the time involved, revisions, and apparent plagiarism. If it is collaborative, I can see who contributed what, and when. Then these docs are saved in files for me and for them.

You just don't understand how to use it.
Kids are hardly illiterate. I work in many schools all over the DMV, and I am not seeing that.

Being a janitor doesn’t count buddy.

Reading and Literacy Specialist, K-12, Adult Ed, Post Secondary
Graduate Professor in Education, Special Education

I think I have a handle on it.

DP. Multiple teacher posters have said that "collaboration" on a doc is not working to teach children what they should know. Multiple parents have also said that, from their perspective.

It just hides the weaknesses of the individual students, and means those kids who need more re-inforcement don't get it.

Literally, IT EXPOSES the weakness of others, not hide it. People here don't understand collaborative documents.

Why even post if you don't know what you are talking about?

Do you work in a modern workplace, because if you did, you would know about who gets credited with things, and how workflows are organized.

When you collaborate, the person who enters the text into a document, may or may not be the person who originated the thought or the research. If you are going purely off timestamps and logged data, then you're relying on the tool to do your work for you.

Again, it hides the weaknesses and such a system is easily gamed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too many emails!!!!

3 fcps emails today already, plus texts.
Then surely the Principal will send something today too.
Then on Sunday, some activities news.

Sure i can unsubscribe, but they don't tell you what pieces of info you're subscribing to. The Activities news is all sports. Why isn't it called sports news? And yes, i already complained to the school, who said they'll add other stuff in.. which they did, one time.

Thank.goodness I will graduate from all this and will
Celebrate by unsubscribing this Spring!

The activities office is sports, clubs and extracurriculars, so calling it “sports” is incorrect.

The funny thing is, if they ease up on messages, you’ll be on here complaining how you never hear anything or know what’s going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, dinosaur, it's not just for collaboration. I don’t accept anything unless it's a doc. That way I can see the history, the time involved, revisions, and apparent plagiarism. If it is collaborative, I can see who contributed what, and when. Then these docs are saved in files for me and for them.

You just don't understand how to use it.
Kids are hardly illiterate. I work in many schools all over the DMV, and I am not seeing that.

Being a janitor doesn’t count buddy.

Reading and Literacy Specialist, K-12, Adult Ed, Post Secondary
Graduate Professor in Education, Special Education

I think I have a handle on it.

DP. Multiple teacher posters have said that "collaboration" on a doc is not working to teach children what they should know. Multiple parents have also said that, from their perspective.

It just hides the weaknesses of the individual students, and means those kids who need more re-inforcement don't get it.

Literally, IT EXPOSES the weakness of others, not hide it. People here don't understand collaborative documents.

Why even post if you don't know what you are talking about?

Do you work in a modern workplace, because if you did, you would know about who gets credited with things, and how workflows are organized.

When you collaborate, the person who enters the text into a document, may or may not be the person who originated the thought or the research. If you are going purely off timestamps and logged data, then you're relying on the tool to do your work for you.

Again, it hides the weaknesses and such a system is easily gamed.

1. Ok, no. The collaborators are all delineated. There's no unlabeled posting. What on earth are you referring to?
2. As a teacher, most of the docs have nothing to do with group projects. I insist on docs to see the work, the timing, the revisions, etc. I am the only collaborator with the student. If there is a group document it is entirely clear who is contributing.

I think you really don’t understand Google Docs. You keep saying the same thing that has no meaning. You don't use it, you don't know how it works. There's no "gaming a system." Good grief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, dinosaur, it's not just for collaboration. I don’t accept anything unless it's a doc. That way I can see the history, the time involved, revisions, and apparent plagiarism. If it is collaborative, I can see who contributed what, and when. Then these docs are saved in files for me and for them.

You just don't understand how to use it.
Kids are hardly illiterate. I work in many schools all over the DMV, and I am not seeing that.

Being a janitor doesn’t count buddy.

Reading and Literacy Specialist, K-12, Adult Ed, Post Secondary
Graduate Professor in Education, Special Education

I think I have a handle on it.

DP. Multiple teacher posters have said that "collaboration" on a doc is not working to teach children what they should know. Multiple parents have also said that, from their perspective.

It just hides the weaknesses of the individual students, and means those kids who need more re-inforcement don't get it.

It hides nothing. In fact, I can see who wrote what, and when, and how it was entered ( disclosing original work or not) all revisions. It actually highlights all the things you say it does not.

And you haven't discussed what kind of assignment either. It's not a worksheet.
I accept nothing except a Google doc, and they aren't even collaborative for all those reasons. Docs aren't just for collaboration. Sometimes, mostly, I am the collaborator (!), not other students. I teach how to research with docs.

Your problem now is AI, not anything else.

This is just clueless. The problem is that kids aren't learning. Cheating is a separate issue.

They are learning much more using a Google doc than they ever would having to handwrite it. Stick to your own job- you have no experience with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, dinosaur, it's not just for collaboration. I don’t accept anything unless it's a doc. That way I can see the history, the time involved, revisions, and apparent plagiarism. If it is collaborative, I can see who contributed what, and when. Then these docs are saved in files for me and for them.

You just don't understand how to use it.
Kids are hardly illiterate. I work in many schools all over the DMV, and I am not seeing that.

Being a janitor doesn’t count buddy.

Reading and Literacy Specialist, K-12, Adult Ed, Post Secondary
Graduate Professor in Education, Special Education

I think I have a handle on it.

DP. Multiple teacher posters have said that "collaboration" on a doc is not working to teach children what they should know. Multiple parents have also said that, from their perspective.

Because they do not understand any of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many emails!!!!

3 fcps emails today already, plus texts.
Then surely the Principal will send something today too.
Then on Sunday, some activities news.

Sure i can unsubscribe, but they don't tell you what pieces of info you're subscribing to. The Activities news is all sports. Why isn't it called sports news? And yes, i already complained to the school, who said they'll add other stuff in.. which they did, one time.

Thank.goodness I will graduate from all this and will
Celebrate by unsubscribing this Spring!

The activities office is sports, clubs and extracurriculars, so calling it “sports” is incorrect.

The funny thing is, if they ease up on messages, you’ll be on here complaining how you never hear anything or know what’s going on.

There are no other "extra curriculars" in the Activities News- I did ask the school if they had any academic clubs that they can provide news for. The school said it's easier for them to get sports news because the staff are paid.. rather than academic clubs where the sponsors are volunteer teachers or parents.

I was mainly asking them to fit the name of their newsletter to what the content actually covers, or fit their content to the title. This will help in deciding whether I should click another email.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, dinosaur, it's not just for collaboration. I don’t accept anything unless it's a doc. That way I can see the history, the time involved, revisions, and apparent plagiarism. If it is collaborative, I can see who contributed what, and when. Then these docs are saved in files for me and for them.

You just don't understand how to use it.
Kids are hardly illiterate. I work in many schools all over the DMV, and I am not seeing that.

Being a janitor doesn’t count buddy.

Reading and Literacy Specialist, K-12, Adult Ed, Post Secondary
Graduate Professor in Education, Special Education

I think I have a handle on it.

DP. Multiple teacher posters have said that "collaboration" on a doc is not working to teach children what they should know. Multiple parents have also said that, from their perspective.

Because they do not understand any of this.

Sure, parents don't understand whether their kids can write, reason, or do math. Are you saying that teachers don't know either? Only you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, dinosaur, it's not just for collaboration. I don’t accept anything unless it's a doc. That way I can see the history, the time involved, revisions, and apparent plagiarism. If it is collaborative, I can see who contributed what, and when. Then these docs are saved in files for me and for them.

You just don't understand how to use it.
Kids are hardly illiterate. I work in many schools all over the DMV, and I am not seeing that.

Being a janitor doesn’t count buddy.

Reading and Literacy Specialist, K-12, Adult Ed, Post Secondary
Graduate Professor in Education, Special Education

I think I have a handle on it.

DP. Multiple teacher posters have said that "collaboration" on a doc is not working to teach children what they should know. Multiple parents have also said that, from their perspective.

Because they do not understand any of this.

Looks around at the number of peers spending cash on outside tutoring services which use traditional methods.

Notices which demographics are succeeding.

Ducks head.

[Anonymous]

I’m with you OP. We have kids aged middle school to first grade, and it has grown substantially worse since my middle schooler was in first… the constant tech and games and not requiring the kids to build the or patience, ability to focus, etc., but also the behavior. It is so, so bad, like parents have just given up, and many of the kids are out of control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m with you OP. We have kids aged middle school to first grade, and it has grown substantially worse since my middle schooler was in first… the constant tech and games and not requiring the kids to build the or patience, ability to focus, etc., but also the behavior. It is so, so bad, like parents have just given up, and many of the kids are out of control.

Yeah, just your kids. Mine are fine and technology literate. Learn how to use it and stop demonizing what you can't understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many emails!!!!

3 fcps emails today already, plus texts.
Then surely the Principal will send something today too.
Then on Sunday, some activities news.

Sure i can unsubscribe, but they don't tell you what pieces of info you're subscribing to. The Activities news is all sports. Why isn't it called sports news? And yes, i already complained to the school, who said they'll add other stuff in.. which they did, one time.

Thank.goodness I will graduate from all this and will
Celebrate by unsubscribing this Spring!

The activities office is sports, clubs and extracurriculars, so calling it “sports” is incorrect.

The funny thing is, if they ease up on messages, you’ll be on here complaining how you never hear anything or know what’s going on.

There are no other "extra curriculars" in the Activities News- I did ask the school if they had any academic clubs that they can provide news for. The school said it's easier for them to get sports news because the staff are paid.. rather than academic clubs where the sponsors are volunteer teachers or parents.

I was mainly asking them to fit the name of their newsletter to what the content actually covers, or fit their content to the title. This will help in deciding whether I should click another email.

The Activities office is Athletics/Sports. It is not extracurriculars or clubs.

Why don't families set up an email account for all the FCPS emails?

Agreed, FCPS bombards families with non-information emails, so it's hard to figure out what is really needed and what is important. If the whole family is reading the same emails, ideally one person will glean the important piece of info.