School won’t say how much gadgets cost the university
College Fix: A private university in Missouri that fired over 100 staff members amid budget woes in 2017 is now outfitting all of students residential spaces with personal smart speakers, and the school is refusing to say just how much it spent on the gadgets.
Saint Louis University in Missouri is outfitting all of its more than 2,300 student rooms with Amazon Echo Dots. The Echo Dot is “a voice-controlled speaker” that uses the virtual assistant Alexa to “play music, control smart home devices, make calls, answer questions, set timers and alarms, and more,” according to Amazon.
“Every minute we can save our students from having to search for the information they need online is another minute that they can spend focused on what matters most: their education,” Saint Louis University’s Vice President David Hakanson said in an announcement.
The deployment of the Amazon devices comes after significant layoffs at the university last year. According to Fox 2 Saint Louis, in March of 2017, along with “massive budget cuts,” Saint Louis University eliminated approximately 120 staff and administrative positions and removed 130 vacant positions. The cuts came following a $16 million deficit in the operating budget over the prior fiscal year. more
Why don’t they just cut to the chase and tell the kids they’re 100% spying on them?
Amazon probably gave them the gadgets for free. Get the kids hooked so they will want one after they graduate. The uni gets a cut of whatever the kid buys using it.
They’re buying them for the students? More likely they’re buying them to monitor (spying) the students. You have to be nuts to have one of those.
Screw that, learn card catalog and micro fiche. “don’t want to waste time..” gee, I wonder why kids have ADD.
It’s for the children, who shall remain malleable and Pavlovian forevermore.
Yup, Like Cynic and Joe say. Amazon will provide the echoes and gather data on college age kids so Bezos can become a richer evil prick!
How much did the U pay? Did they get ’em for free?
Pfft. For that kind of user/usage data population, Bezos would have paid THEM to take the damned things.
I always thought that learning to research your own information was part of the educational process. If they REALLY want to save their students time, why not hand out exams with the answers already filled in? Or better yet, just pass out diplomas at the end of Freshman orientation? That would save them TONS of time, and considering the state of American colleges today, they’d probably be just as qualified as if they had attended for the entire four years. Maybe MORE qualified, actually.
Why not just buy them a lifetime subscription to a diaper service and be done with it.
“Every minute we can save our students from having to search for the information they need online is another minute that they can spend focused on what matters most: their education,”
I graduated from college (Whassamata U). Before PCs and the internet “searching for information” was a skill that has helped me immensely to this day.
I’m curious if it is mandatory to have one.
And at the same time, google is giving chrome books to k – 12 students, and fully acknowledges they will track data. It is ‘for the children.’
A long time ago we evolved enough to have the age of fire.
Then we got to the bronze age.
Working ever onward and upward, we got to the iron age.
And now- welcome to the chrome age.
And ‘big brother’ will be listening.
Imagine a comedy club in the future.
A guy tells a joke, the audience looks up the reference on their phone, then they laugh, somewhat in unison.
@LBS – No need to tell the joke, just say its reference number.
Hey, we got rid of all those deadbeat staff and now there is more moolah for us!
So let’s be generous and give some crumbs to those poor dumb students who were too stupid to leave!
@Uncle AL-
There was a young man who did something wrong and found himself sitting in jail. Everyone was just sitting around and one of them would call out a number and everyone would laugh. The kid asked what was going on and he was told “Well, we have a joke book and everyone has heard the jokes so much, we just call out the number and then laugh.” The kid replies that he really likes jokes, and could he try one? They consent and give him the book, which he looks through and chooses a good one- 18. He calls out 18 and no one laughs. The kid is perplexed and asks why no one laughed, to which he is told- “well kid, some people can tell them, and some people can’t.”
sorry
Free porn for the staff.
Oh Oh Alexa stop please stop. Yea right.
Do you think they will turn in any of the staff for taking advantage of the students?
Buffy farts in her sleep, what the hell.
Lawsuit waiting to happen.
“Free porn for the staff.” “Buffy farts in her sleep, what the hell.”
Sets these students up for blackmail
Piping in subliminal messages during sleep. “Capitalism is bad socialism is good”
I am old
1 of my biggest frustrations in grad school was finding a book I needed for research in th Card Catalogue(who knows what these were?) , going to the stacks(same question) to find someone already checked it ut!
Must have done it over 100 times.
Never happens with the net.
So I would be happy(?) to be a google pawn.
I am talking hundred of wasted hours here!
Hand-held calculators weren’t yet invented when I was in grade school.
When I got to High School we had to learn to use a slide rule.
Socrates considered that writing would diminish memory.
It seems that the more technologically advanced we are, the dumber we become.
Movable type is only 1000 years old, or so; so, in a very real sense, we are infants as far as technology is concerned. Our dependence upon electronics will only last until the first EMP exchange – then we’ll have to re-discover pencils, paper, oxcarts, wooden wheels, and cotton picking.
Fits and starts. Two steps forward, one step back.
Let the Universities turn the minds of their charges to mush. Most of them will extinguish at the first instance of adversity.
izlamo delenda est …
@Tim September 17, 2018 at 9:47 am
> Our dependence upon electronics will only last until the first EMP exchange – then we’ll have to re-discover pencils, paper, oxcarts, wooden wheels, and cotton picking.
Oh no, @Tim! Being smart, and en-titled, after the electronics fail, I will teach others to pick my cotton.