Wow, where do I start with how insane this is?

Those aren’t ‘services’, those are personal privacy intrusions. For PROFIT. There is no way this could happen without the school’s cooperation. AFTER they got the parent’s permission, that’s not good enough. They ought not only to have that permission (not to mention spelling it out for each student), but also know exactly what data is gathered, every place it is sent to, what privacy protections are in place, and what is done with it once it’s “evaluated”, In detail, per student, 24/7.

“student communications monitoring” 24-7 and/or outside of school is SPYING. There is NO legal OR educational OR ethical mandate for this collecting.

If the kids don’t know about unknown adults prying into their personal lives, AND KEEPING RECORDS ABOUT IT, that’s not necessarily their fault. If the parents don’t know about it, that’s the school’s fault for not getting their knowing permission. AND guarantee their physical and mental safety. (Which is impossible, because as we hear about all the time, hospitals, banks, companies, etc. are constantly leaking personal information or getting hit by ransomware attacks.

If I was the parent of one of those students and wasn’t told about it, I’d sue that school into a coma.

It was already starting to predict what Web 2.0 would become!

Usenet wuz bitchin’. I remember getting a couple of layers deep in the rock heirarchy (was it rock.history.50s-60s? ) and some great discussions, fact- and story- trading with peeps who went deep. Feedback was NOT instant, and so patience and quality were rewarded.

Then those brats with their binaries came along and bye-bye.

It was mostly there for windmills. One of the first big US windmills was built by Charles Brush … one of the early NYC electricity pioneers … over a century earlier. Dependency on oil (political) kept people from realizing how much free energy (fuel) the Sun sends us. WAY more than we can use.

He’s not in a position to know (much, including) how many investors have put their money on green. A few months to put up a low/no-waste solar or windmill farm (he hates how they look) and start profiting … 10 years (at least) to build a high-waste nuke (and decades of paying interest on those expensive long-term loans)

LeGuin is a treasure.

Of course -corporate- social media can’t be fixed … it already works exactly they way they want it to…

Sure they can. Almost every time I try one, I wind up with a lower opinion of what they’re good for (apart from auto-generating convincing bullshit)

Ah well. They got the ‘artificial’ part working.

OK FC, come at me! But be warned, I’ve been armed by Hancock! AND Pink Floyd!

Lots of wannabe authoritarians out there in educationland.

All those decades that the schools just -couldn’t afford- more (well-educated) teachers and smaller class sizes. Lots of low-end look-good.

And then along came tech, and lo-and-behold, IT was going to be the savior. Let’s buy into that! We may not be able to teach them to read, write or think, but they can learn to kneel!