Alex Kogon is father of two kids who attended the BBS Primary. His daughter Tilda is still in the 4th grade. Alex is one of the parents who contributed a lot during the lockdown phases, since he was helping the BBS to organise and set up all the Chromebooks that were given out to families who didn't have a computer for their child. Severine Naeve talked to him about his parent work, tech at BBS in general, the importance of and improvement through the Chromebooks at BBS – and his favorite waste of time ;-)
Hi Alex, first of all: can you tell us a bit about yourself and your family?
I come from Seattle in the US, but my kids and their mom were born in Berlin. My son Ben attended BBS from 1st to 4th grade, he is on a Gymnasium now, and my daughter Tilda is in 4th grade at BBS.
How are you all? And how did you and your family get through the challenges of the last two years?
I suppose in the grand scheme of things we are ok; my kids spent quite a lot of time alone and isolated growing up in the Swiss Alps before they started real school so it was kinda like doing that in Berlin for them, and we went to Prague last summer and Italy this summer – and again in October – so we've had some ability to enjoy ourselves still.
What is your "parent work“ job?
I started with moving chairs and then moved on to serving coffee; I did teach the kids about math and computer science in the interim when my kids were in first and second grade, but that changed into helping the school acquire and setup computers when the lockdown started, and that has been plenty to keep me busy since we keep buying more :)
Where do you see the BBS from a technical point of view? Where are we strong? Where do we need more improvement?
I do think we could have put more effort into establishing a more effective method of remote learning after the first lockdown and before the second. There could be maybe a computer club or builder club. But I really don't know what is going on since the last couple of years of lockdown. I would have tried to be more involved in making something like that happen otherwise.
There is also certainly still a lot that can be done with the computers that we bought to teach the kids about math and computer science. But I don't know from what age that is appropriate, or that it isn't already happening at the higher levels.
Regarding the Chromebooks: What did you contribute during lockdown regarding this topic and how would you asses the outcome?
My family got one of the school's older Chromebooks on loan, it was the first time I had used a new Chromebook and I ended up buying a much better Chromebook. And then I told the school that if you spend a little bit more on a Chromebook you get a much better computer, and then started the first of many rounds of buying and setting up Chromebooks.
However I heard that the new Chromebooks were not available for kids to take home, only the older ones that we had originally gotten on loan. Whether or not that is actually true I don't know. I have no idea what happened to the hundreds of Chromebooks we have setup so far!
Hm, good question. We should ask Inga Burgmann about it. Inga, what can you tell us about the Chromebooks? Are they still available for the kids?
Yes, of course. At the moment, we are in school and as such, it is important that all Chromebooks which have been purchased are also staying at school. Each classroom has a set of 12 chromebooks from grade 1 on to the higher grades in secondary school - this means actually more than 200 chromebooks. Only the smaller children (grade 1) work with iPads nowadays in order to get them accustomed to technology. If children are in quarantine, the families can continue to borrow one of the old chromebooks which are still fine to be used.
Thanks, Inga, for clearing that up.
Alex, if you had a ridiculous big budget at hand and could decide where to invest it at the BBS regarding tech: What would you do?
Aside from providing every student with a proper Chromebook and internet access, I would probably build an electrical engineering or electronic music workshop for the younger kids, computer graphics for the older, maker for everyone. I would generally integrate technical education much earlier into the curriculum. But I think the answers to this question are more applicable for the older students.
Do you talk a lot about tech stuff and the internet with your kids?
Yes, since they were born. I've been online since the 1980s and worked in Tech most of my life so they've seen me doing it since they were little.
What are they mostly interested in?
Computer games and blockchain.
Do you have media restrictions at home?
We did until the lockdown; the cat got out of the bag, there's no putting it back in at this point.
What are the favorite apps in your family? Any recommendations for learning apps or creative games for kids?
I don't heavily monitor what my kids are playing or watching, they seem to enjoy Roblox which is also a bit of a Metaverse community and they can hang out with their real friends and make virtual ones. My son used to watch a lot about science on YouTube but somewhere along the line he lost interest and mostly watches older kids playing video games, which is somehow normal but completely bizarre to me.
Which are your personal favorite apps? Or the ones you use the most?
I mostly write and test software so I'm not sure I'm the right candidate. Mostly I use a web browser with a crypto/blockchain wallet – actually a few different ones –, the UNIX terminal, and Microsoft Code.
Do you play games with your kids and which?
Sometimes I play video games with my son but I lost interest in video games decades ago for the most part. We do play real games together, even more when they were younger.
Are you a PC or Mac person? iPhone or Android? And why?
For the first part none of the above. I use UNIX, LINUX mostly, and ChromeOS, which is a version of LINUX running on the Chromebooks, and allows you to run a LINUX Container/VM and runs most LINUX software.
I also use Android, which is also LINUX, and the Mac and iOS are also UNIX based ... I used to use an iPhone before my kids were born. But I think they are overpriced and underfunctional so I switched to Android. But I may switch back as Apple's security is better.
I used to use Mac OS but since Steve Jobs died I have found the quality of Apple's products to be very low and stopped, and the ChromeOS is just as good a desktop UNIX environment as Apple. And LINUX has come a long way in terms of being user friendly; that said I mostly use LINUX on servers and control everything from a Chromebook.
Windows has always been horrible software and has fallen out of favor for quite a while, aside from Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, Outlook – there is no reason I would use Windows unless I had to.
Is there any digital innovation/app/technology in general your life wouldn’t work without anymore?
No, actually I think technology is destroying humanity and society, but anyways.
Your favorite „waste of time“ website or blog or game?
I wasted an enormous amount of my life playing Civilization ;-) And if I do want to play a game I go back to that. I'm not much into blogs but I'm quite into Web3 and the various Blockchains and have been working in the Blockchain art world the last year, so find myself spending a lot of time sifting through all the noise on the NFT sites to try to find good art.
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