Silicon Valley has sold the idea of tech in classrooms for years, because they get access to lifelong customers and valuable data. But while corporations like Google make billions, student test scores are falling.

  • melfie@lemy.lol
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    19 hours ago

    Is there anything open source that provides the same experience as Google Admin Console where IT admins can manage everything from a single pane of glass? I’d imagine schools use Chromebooks because Google has put a lot of resources into making it a simple and cost effective option for schools, where IT budgets and staffing are usually pretty limited. An open source software suite that provides a similar experience would seemingly be a compelling alternative. I’d imagine there would need to be a company hosting the software for a fee, with the funds used to build on top of existing open source software to make a seamless and unified experience that works well. Barring that, I don’t imagine any school IT admin has sufficient bandwidth to buy a bunch of cheap laptops, install Linux on them, self-host Nextcloud, secure and lock down everything, etc. I know next to nothing about how IT in schools is managed, so this a lot of conjecture that could be wrong.