5 ms·

Could you go into more detail on why you think this?

by castis 5y ago

wyager 5y ago
Not him, but I can take a guess: 99% of apps suck and are horrible to work with. Government apps are probably worse than average. Interacting with the government shouldn’t require the use of any particular tech device. It sounds like in this case there is no alternative. Schools have managed for hundreds of years without this additional complexity, so there’s probably not a good justification to start adding this complexity now. Usually school/government initiatives like this are just driven by hype/someone wanting to make an “impact”/nepotistic job provision/etc.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "Schools have managed for hundreds of years without this additional complexity" Thats why they managed so well when COVID came along and remote schooling became nessesary.
em500 5y ago
I'm not the OP, and not so opinionated. But (as the parent of an elementary school kid) I can see where the sentiment is coming from. I'm not familiar at all with this Swedish Skolplattform, but from the description in the article, it sounds to me like a solution (or maybe a city budget) in search of a problem. It's pretty unclear what the purpose and scope of this Skolplattform is. The article description of the open-source alternative reads > The app shows school calendars and events such as music concerts, a daily schedule for pupils, notifications from teachers that link out to grades and news updates, food that’s being served in cafeterias, and an option to report if children are sick. Apart from privacy sensitive student specific stuff like grade reports (which our school does on paper), it seems all this stuff can be published just as well on the school website, email lists and/or paper brochures. I really don't see the need for a separate phone app here. Our school does have a school-specific app for some limited school <-> parent and parent <-> parent messaging, and scheduling the occasional parent-teacher meetings. In my experience it doesn't do anything better than plain old email.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  > school website Developing a website isn't much different from an app these days with the React monstrosities being created > email lists Where everything gets caught in spam filters > paper brochures Which get lost My kids' daycare switched from paper-and-telephone to an app and it's been all positive. The idea isn't bad.

Could you go into more detail on why you think this?

by castis 5y ago

Could you go into more detail on why you think this?

Not him, but I can take a guess: 99% of apps suck and are horrible to work with. Government apps are probably worse than average. Interacting with the government shouldn’t require the use of any particular tech device. It sounds like in this case there is no alternative. Schools have managed for hundreds of years without this additional complexity, so there’s probably not a good justification to start adding this complexity now. Usually school/government initiatives like this are just driven by hype/someone wanting to make an “impact”/nepotistic job provision/etc.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"Schools have managed for hundreds of years without this additional complexity" Thats why they managed so well when COVID came along and remote schooling became nessesary.

em500 5y ago

I'm not the OP, and not so opinionated. But (as the parent of an elementary school kid) I can see where the sentiment is coming from. I'm not familiar at all with this Swedish Skolplattform, but from the description in the article, it sounds to me like a solution (or maybe a city budget) in search of a problem. It's pretty unclear what the purpose and scope of this Skolplattform is. The article description of the open-source alternative reads > The app shows school calendars and events such as music concerts, a daily schedule for pupils, notifications from teachers that link out to grades and news updates, food that’s being served in cafeterias, and an option to report if children are sick. Apart from privacy sensitive student specific stuff like grade reports (which our school does on paper), it seems all this stuff can be published just as well on the school website, email lists and/or paper brochures. I really don't see the need for a separate phone app here. Our school does have a school-specific app for some limited school <-> parent and parent <-> parent messaging, and scheduling the occasional parent-teacher meetings. In my experience it doesn't do anything better than plain old email.

kalleboo 5y ago
> school website Developing a website isn't much different from an app these days with the React monstrosities being created > email lists Where everything gets caught in spam filters > paper brochures Which get lost My kids' daycare switched from paper-and-telephone to an app and it's been all positive. The idea isn't bad.