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> The platform is a complex system that’s made up of three different parts, containing 18 individual modules that are maintained by five external companies. The
by locallost 5y ago
> The platform is a complex system that’s made up of three different parts, containing 18 individual modules that are maintained by five external companies. The sprawling system is used by 600 preschools and 177 schools, with separate logins for every teacher, student, and parent. The only problem? It doesn’t work.
> The Skolplattform, which has cost more than 1 billion Swedish Krona, SEK, ($117 million), has failed to match its initial ambition.
So JIRA for Schools failed. It's a top down system, where people on top decide to solve problems for all people below, without really knowing how to solve it, or what the problem even is. And then contractors get involved.
People are willing to put up with this if you can press them, e.g. they are at work, they are in the army etc. so they have to put up with it, but it's not going to work for anything else. It attempts to solve everything for everyone, where it's questionable if most of these things are even worth solving. E.g. from the article, what is somebody's child doing in school, what do they need in gym class. You might just ask them, no? There are quarterly or so meetings with the teacher to discuss things, progress, problems? The problem is not that the menus are convoluted, but that maybe most of this stuff is not worth categorizing, not worth having an UI other than a piece of paper.
- dangerface 5y agoIts difficult to evaluate the value of the info, if no one can find it because its buried in menus then yes it is useless but that doesn't mean it cant be useful, in general if its worth printing its worth putting on your website. I don't get the point of non web apps because usually they are just a subset of the website.
- chasil 5y agoWhat is particularly insulting is the needless API/URL changes made in the official app in order to sabotage the efforts of the parents. The Google Play listing should have had a "Mismanagement Count" prominently displayed that incremented every time this happened. The log, and the time spent, should be in court. The parents decided to build this front end for free. They did not decide to play hide and seek with the interfaces, and for this they deserve compensation.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoYeah, it's like they go out of their way to break compatibility with anyone trying to integrate with their services out of spite. What a pain.
- Entalpi 5y agoRather its that the goverment funded development resulted in a bad product. People reimplementing it in a their spare time resulted in an even better product.
- wahlis 5y agoMore likely the MVP covered all the basics that the platform should do. Then all the rest of the legal requirements had to be implemented and that broke it. Support for secret identities, all the special needs, support for non employees, legal guardians and a million other things which is important for the last 5%. It would probably be cheaper to give those with special requirements personal support than to write the code for it
- namdnay 5y agoSo an app for schoolkids is a really good idea. In France the app is built by the (semi-public) post office, it's called "kidscare". teachers can upload photos live, you can set who is allowed to pick up your kids, you can send a notification if your kid is sick etc... not the slickest or most stable app, but miles better than using whatsapp
- Disruptive_Dave 5y agoWe have many of these in the US. I've used two in daycare. One was amazing, the other is pretty good. Both fall short because of poor use by teachers and faculty.
- chrisweekly 5y agoKidScare is how I first read that.
- bsagdiyev 5y agoOur sons preschool (a Montessori school) has something similar. It is really nice. Daily updates on what he did, pictures of him throughout the day doing things, it’s amazing.