I suppose I shouldn’t really be arguing either way since in reality I’m quite happy with Dropbox, although I only use the free tier, and have no plans to download or run Google Drive (but I do use Google Docs).

Another piece that’s causing me to be distrustful of Google is the fact that I’m not their customer. At the core, they, like Facebook and others, are an advertising company whose first concern is the advertiser. I’d rather pay for a service and have some leverage (however small).

For example, with ought the permission to create derivative works, Google can’t show thumbnails of your photos to you because that is a modification. In fact that article’s interpretation is that while Dropbox’s language is much more casual, the permissions it retains from the user are actually far more reaching. In any case I seem to remember reading something about Terms of Service only being enforceable within the constraints of common sense (ie. Google can’t hide a magic service charge in a TOS and expect it to be legal). I try to take it all with a grain of salt.

On a smaller issue, that of differentiated instruction, I’m going to push back. Differentiated instruction doesn’t have to have anything to do with learning styles. Kids need differentiated instruction because they are all at different points in their learning. It’s unfortunate that differentiated instruction has come to be so closely linked with learning styles. (Do you think there’s any way I could throw the phrase differentiated instruction in here a few more times?)

The observation that 1 to 1 may not be the right ratio is interesting. I think that you need enough devices so that you have access to a 1 to 1 ratio when you need it, but that you should often have students work in situations where they share computers, for the reasons cited above. Sugra Mitra’s “hole in the wall project” would not have worked if he had provided enough computers for each child, I suspect.