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If you got to pick a computer model and OS for middle school students what would you pick?
I understand some of the reasons SO many schools choose chromebooks. Low cost, durability..
Drop a macbook it might break. The chromebook works just as well before and after being dropped. Which is to say they work like they have been dropped right out of the box.
Touch pads are unresponsive, touch screen is annoying. I kind of loathe them.
But, designing computers for children isn't glamourous.
Designing computers for children ought to be glamorous, celebrated, You will shape a generation. It's not fun, or easy at all.
Frankly, even more than the software the poor quality of the touch pad, and the jitteriness and hypersensitivity of the touch screens on most models made for school markets are making a whole generation hate laptops.
And when young people hate laptops they become phone only computer users. It's a dead end.
Say mean things about Apple all you want, their input devices have never caused me to notice them. And that is *success* I have never thought about the touch pad on my laptops ONCE.
Oh... and when I say "say mean things about Apple all you want" I mean that, please do say the mean things.
Their laptops are nice, though, and so are the input devices, especially if your boss buys them for you. I'm very happy with me and my HS students learning about unix and getting things done on these machines.
I think the solution is for Apple to just start making plastic laptops again like the old clam shells in candy colors. A few people have suggested this and it just clicks.
But Apple seems to no longer care about their image of being "the education computers"
@futurebird unfortunately in Germany most schools have the kids work with iPads straight off. So many terrible implications…
I'm so glad this idea was rejected at our school. They need to type! And those keyboard cases are NOT the same.
But worse, understanding the file system on an iPad is challenging for *me* it's designed to make you not think about it. I know I sound like an old lady but the youths need to know where their files are!
@futurebird @discoursology Most mobile devices work a little like this. I have been using Android for years now and the file system seems to be intentionally convoluted in modern devices, with every app creating their own directory tree rooted wherever the hell they want. There is no easy, straightforward way to download a podcast from your aggregator and then playing it with VLC, for instance. I don't know where the hell is anything anymore.
@Molondrongo @futurebird @discoursology I find this even on GrapheneOS, which is generally great. When I open the Files app, there's a sidebar item called "Documents." Is that the "Documents" directory on my phone? Nope! Does it show me all my document-type files in one place? Also nope! How does it decide what should be in there? Nobody knows!
@Molondrongo @futurebird @discoursology
The Total Commander app helps a bit with that on Android.
@billiglarper @futurebird @discoursology Noted. Thank you.
@Molondrongo @futurebird @discoursology
if users can't figure out where their files are, they can't switch to an alternative app, can't protect themselves against the app deleting, modifying, or moving their files. Location obfuscation enables companies to have all the benefits of widely used interoperable file formats, but prevents users from using said benefits in ways which might not benefit the company. Whenever you see "intuitive", think about how that concept is used to manipulate people.
@llewelly @futurebird It also makes it hard for users to take effective backups when they don't know where their files are, or don't even understand the concept of files in the first place because it's all obscured. Usually you just have to trust the app/OS to backup things, usually to the cloud. But what exactly is being backed up and later restored? Often it's impossible to tell.
@llewelly @futurebird I think this leads to a lot of problems: You buy a new phone or computer, then immediately fill it with all the junk from the old one. It's like buying a new house, then digging up the old house and dumping it on top of the new house, instead of only moving what you need. You no longer have a new house, but a junk yard.
@futurebird exactly exactly exactly!
Imho, the iPad is designed to take control away from users, and concentrate it at Apple.
It's pretty much impossible to install your own software.
You can't even copy your files from or to an USB stick.
And so on. It's the opposite of empowering your students.
The hardware is no better than other tablets *in that price range*.
They are imho popular because they are easy to set-up and admin for non IT people: They are teacher friendly.
@billiglarper @futurebird All of the above and because Apple have out a lot of effort into marketing themselves as as one-stop solution
@billiglarper @discoursology The pencil is such a god like input device. I have one but I just use it like a big writing tablet. and for games.
@futurebird @discoursology I am an educator/administrator in #HigherEd IT and was just chatting with one of our #college professors about this. He was telling me how he dedicates part of a lecture each semester to #teaching #students just how to find their own files.
Where are my desktop and user directories? What's #OneDrive? What's the difference between "the #cloud," a desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, and virtual desktop?
Even more shocking: What is a FILE anyway?
@DanielMReck @futurebird now that I have @electric_gumball’s image, I can teach it too…
𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌
@DanielMReck @futurebird @discoursology
Yep, a frustrating "feature" of the modern OS is the propensity they have to try and hide details from the user, like where are my files. Remember the good old days when they just used to be in the root directory, unless you yourself specifically went and made a folder for them? 
@futurebird @discoursology A colleague witnessed a graduate student find a file to show him during a meeting. The student simply searched for it. Had no idea where it was residing.
The colleague asked, masking his tremendous unease, whether the student had a filing system. He answered with a collective pronoun - we don't need to anymore when we just search for files...
(You've brought that story back into my head right now, around Halloween, and it may be the scariest story out there...)
@Brad_Rosenheim @futurebird @discoursology
sadly, in my career, I’ve seen a fair amount of scientists who lack a basic understanding of the basic features of how computers work. Kind of like how a lot of people who own and drive cars have little knowledge of how they work
@futurebird @discoursology Our school went to devices in 2020 for remote school and our kiddo in kindergarten got an ipad (with a plastic case!). But the kids 3rd grade and up got chunky pretty physically robust Windows laptops which is what she has now, though it doesn't come home often now.
@futurebird @discoursology TBH ipad or some other more constrained / guided device makes sense for young kids who may not be able to spell or read well yet!
@futurebird @discoursology I thought it was just me who couldn’t find my iPad files!
@futurebird my kids have been working with school iPads for years now, and I don't think they know what a file is.
@limpr @futurebird Maybe worth noting though that the iPad has had a fully featured Files app for a few years now so that's no longer the limitation it once was. It looks very similar to the Mac Finder in visual design and function. I regularly manage hundreds of files on the iPad's internal storage as well as cloud files from 2-3 services and local network files stored on my Mac and attached drives.
@futurebird one bit of complexity that's often overlooked is that “discover which other apps are installed" is both a surprisingly effective way to build a unique advertising identifier for a device, and a surprisingly effective way to detect gay people in places where that's illegal :(
Adding entropy to certain filesystem paths is one of several possible layers of mitigations
@futurebird love my iPad. i can’t imagine trying to use it as my main or only computer. And for kids? Ridiculous.
@futurebird @discoursology i also have complained about this at an iOS developer and she was like "well of course apps just own their own folders in the files app" and uh, sure, i guess, but it confuses me to have random apps listed in the top level view.
i think I'm too old for this shit, i don't think in terms of apps, i think in terms of folders that i organize (or disorganize) myself.
@futurebird still better than android, where apps can only access the filesystem directly if they get a special exemption from Google and otherwise need to go through a generic abstraction layer over "documents"
@leo @futurebird iOS is the same I think except apps can have an app-specific folder that shows in the files app by default
@easrng @futurebird there's a big difference between "making user-accessible files requires a small Info.plist tweak" and "making user-accessible files requires several hundred lines of code around confusingly designed APIs with notoriously abysmal performance"
@leo @futurebird i haven’t directly used either of the the apis but aren’t they both essentially the same idea as the documents xdg-desktop-portal or the web fs access api? like you can just have the user pick a file and then you have access to it?also iirc last time i was on ios there was literally no way to save a file to the device itself unless you were saving it to a specific app’s storage which is… not great ok they did actually fix that one
@easrng @futurebird well yeah that's the idea. the problem is that they decided to avoid encumbering the API design with application-specific concepts like "what is a file, exactly"
@futurebird @leo @easrng
Back in the Newton era I heard someone describe that approach as "data soup".
@futurebird @discoursology *yes*!
for this reason, i feel like there ought to be some use of machines that have visual/audible/tactile feedback for the storage devices.
like... maybe not an apple II (because we do want to be able to run modern software, and that requires minimum hardware requirements in the ballpark of the current gen raspberry pi), but...
@futurebird @discoursology i feel like the fact that we could *see*, *hear*, and *feel* the activity of storage devices in the 80s/90s really helped to cement the idea that all data exists in some *physical location* (and, with the display of folders/directories, also in some metaphorical location)
like, when there's a read-from/write-to the main SSD, there should be:
- an LED that lights up
- a tactile bump
- a quiet audible click
...and a separate LED/clicker for I/O with removable storage
@futurebird @discoursology oh! and i think with a pi you still get a free Mathematica license...?
(...or they just package a free version that works on pi...? Hopefully we can avoid depending on the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the long term.)
@futurebird @discoursology related: every school should have one of these:
https://monster6502.com/
@futurebird @discoursology I run weekend camps teaching kids how to make basic websites, and they, especially those still in primary/grade school, really struggle with typing and mouse dexterity, and we specifically run an early session on file system hierarchy, presumably because they're so used to tablets with different input devices and file metaphors.
There's at *least* a whole blog post in this.
@futurebird Apple has long understood that the computer is a tool and not an end in itself and like any good tool should disappear into its use and become an extension of your hands. “A bicycle for the mind” was how Jobs put it. And not for nothing but they were long big in the education market for precisely the reason of wanting to shape the next generation’s expectations
@futurebird@sauropods.win They had a laptop design once that was perfect for school use. Incredibly robust, fun to look at and well-designed overall (apart from the charging cable which was its weak point).
I basically wept as they discarded the design in favor of the flimsy slim nonsense. Why tf would I want to put my laptop in an envelope? My old tangerine iBook survived all kinds of treks, festivals, bumps, falls and whatnot in my backback and the outdoors. One time it got doused in beer and all that was needed to have it run again was a replacement keyboard. Try this with one of these fragile tablet-wannabes.
I really loved that it had some heft to it too. Man, that was a good design.
Genius and madness certainly are close by at Apple. It just seems that madness gets to decide more often than not.
@bjc@tines.spork.org @futurebird@sauropods.win well, that's only if you don't have a charging dock. :P
also, it's on there for like a few minutes then it runs for days without another recharge. so if this is your prime concern with the design, I think they're doing pretty well.
srsly, if you wanted to look for something really insane you could have gone with the mouse that had its charging port of its underside. that was stupid as hell.
this is completely fine.
i think (between this and someone complaining about Discourse reinventing the wheel) we're at this awful stage of tech where most things are actually pretty much mature tech but all industry is dominated by regressive pinheads who can't learn or adapt but only know from the 90s and oughts (i.e., the times that gave us such dreadful nonsense like "Moore's Law") that "innovation" = good so now all we get is the "innovation" of things being done poorly, awkwardly and wrong
@futurebird
The Touch Bar wasn't exactly a roaring success. And my wife got so fed up with the mouse that can't be used while charging that she's now just using a third party wired mouse instead.
@futurebird Whenever I'm faced with an Apple device of any type, I invariably find myself staring at it with a dumb look thinking "how the FUCK do I interact with this?" Nothing about them is remotely intuitive. Keyboards don't have the keys I expect. Touchpads are always too slow, requiring one to gesture like an Italian to make anything happen. The mice are just weird. Republican weird.
@futurebird Did you ever use the circular iMac mouse? It was ridiculous.
@futurebird Promise you their text-to-speech works and I promise you Android's never ever will.
I've always hated Apple but you know if I got to give them $100 for a phone cable so be it. At least it works.
@futurebird
I've taught Computer Science where some students had Apple devices, and the whole experience was horrible, especially the iPads. We ended up telling parents they were no longer allowed for Computer Science. They're just not designed for power-users - they're locked down against users changing much at all really. Couldn't even do something basic like write a HTML file in a text editor then display it in your local browser (restrictions on renaming from .txt to .html, etc.).
@futurebird That's one of the things I really like about the OS. My first computer was a C64 and besides popping in game cartridges or disks there was this blinking 
. It asked for something to be typed in. A command. Maybe more than just LOAD "*",8,1.
Having a computer with a console you can type in stuff that it then executes gives its users agency. Instead of just Basic we now have a variety of language options to choose from. But first and foremost, we have this door. The blinking ＿
@nblr @futurebird I hated those days – whatever I typed in just resulted in errors
@u0421793 @futurebird If you’re happy and you know it…
SYNTAX ERROR.
@futurebird Apple is, first and foremost, the iPhone company now
@dayglojago @futurebird The aren't even an iPhone company. They are a "get people to upgrade by making life difficult if they don't" company, and an "extract rent from software developers" company and a "prevent customers from doing unapproved things like buying competitors products" company and a "make it difficult to unsubscribe" company. Unfortunately, so are most other tech companies like Microsoft and Google and Amazon.
@futurebird I fear that they wouldn't be able to square a plastic mac with their sustainability commmitments too.