4 ms·

Not sure I understand this - if a school so desperately wants ad-free search, just deploy an adblock plugin to the school's browsers? It's a very strange thing

by RyanZAG 13y ago

Not sure I understand this - if a school so desperately wants ad-free search, just deploy an adblock plugin to the school's browsers? It's a very strange thing to 'give away' as an incentive.

brudgers 13y ago
Microsoft is providing an institutional scaled solution to solve institutional scale problems. Students don't just search on school computers. They search from home, and often their school's website serves as an entry portal - eg. the student fires up the browser on their home computer with a link to a school or class web page. This provides a familiar starting point for continuing the lesson from home. Why? Well that's a reasonably safe way for parents to allow computer use with less supervision. It's not quite a walled garden, but at least there's a shared interest among the adults. In other words, Microsoft is helping school districts solve the problem of solving problems for parents - and without having to stipulate which browser people use at home or in the classroom - many mobile browsers do not allow plugins.
- aroch 13y ago
  But does it matter that much...Most schools are using Win7 (or, sadly, Vista) at this point and I would wager most set IE as the default browser. As most educational networked software targets IE. Many of the 'secured' browser based exam companies base their model around IE. And most schools don't allow you to change the default browser (at least in a way that persists across logins)
  - brudgers 13y ago
    At home, kids use iPads and Android phones, etc. Schools often provide a portal and children use that portal both out of habit and at the direction of their parents. And as public institutions [under the US system] parents look to the schools both to provide proper resources for completing out of school assignments and are willing to assign blame for technological issues which are for practical matter beyond the school's control - i.e what comes across the student's browser while sitting at the kitchen table. Outside the bubble, most people are not that tech savvy and the trend is toward passive use of browsing devices not managing plug-ins and maintaining browser side scripts. And outside the bubble, people use school websites as portals - the schools are setting them up that way. Microsoft is marketing something simple - if you get advertizing you clicked on the wrong link. That can be explained to the principal, the teacher in the classroom, the student, their dad, and the president of the school board - and without much more than those literal words.
SilasX 13y ago
You haven't worked with a public school IT department, have you?

by RyanZAG 13y ago

Not sure I understand this - if a school so desperately wants ad-free search, just deploy an adblock plugin to the school's browsers? It's a very strange thing to 'give away' as an incentive.

brudgers 13y ago

Microsoft is providing an institutional scaled solution to solve institutional scale problems. Students don't just search on school computers. They search from home, and often their school's website serves as an entry portal - eg. the student fires up the browser on their home computer with a link to a school or class web page. This provides a familiar starting point for continuing the lesson from home. Why? Well that's a reasonably safe way for parents to allow computer use with less supervision. It's not quite a walled garden, but at least there's a shared interest among the adults. In other words, Microsoft is helping school districts solve the problem of solving problems for parents - and without having to stipulate which browser people use at home or in the classroom - many mobile browsers do not allow plugins.

aroch 13y ago
But does it matter that much...Most schools are using Win7 (or, sadly, Vista) at this point and I would wager most set IE as the default browser. As most educational networked software targets IE. Many of the 'secured' browser based exam companies base their model around IE. And most schools don't allow you to change the default browser (at least in a way that persists across logins)
- brudgers 13y ago
  At home, kids use iPads and Android phones, etc. Schools often provide a portal and children use that portal both out of habit and at the direction of their parents. And as public institutions [under the US system] parents look to the schools both to provide proper resources for completing out of school assignments and are willing to assign blame for technological issues which are for practical matter beyond the school's control - i.e what comes across the student's browser while sitting at the kitchen table. Outside the bubble, most people are not that tech savvy and the trend is toward passive use of browsing devices not managing plug-ins and maintaining browser side scripts. And outside the bubble, people use school websites as portals - the schools are setting them up that way. Microsoft is marketing something simple - if you get advertizing you clicked on the wrong link. That can be explained to the principal, the teacher in the classroom, the student, their dad, and the president of the school board - and without much more than those literal words.

SilasX 13y ago

You haven't worked with a public school IT department, have you?