Re: Apple Computers-collector's items?

[john@huiac.apana.org.au (John Pearson)]

gabrielr@ucla.edu (Gabriel Rossman) writes:

[original post & reply trimmed]

>I don't care if its flamebait, I stick to my opinions and here's why.
>The "getting the job done" idea might work except that computer education
>is an end, not a mean, as schools don't have sufficient computers to use
>them for every subject. The fact is that a kid who knows that it takes 10
>minutes to initialize a disk, writes fluent BASIC, doesn't know what a
>hard drive is, and has never heard of MS Word or Excel is going to find
>that the skills he learned in school have little to no use in the real
>world.
>Just as it would be idiotic for UC Davis to teach it's students to do
>everything with a hoe, when they'll be using combines, airplanes, and
>trucks in real life agriculture, its stupid to teach kids BASIC and
>appleworks when they'll be using Windows, Mac, or Unix and GUI suite
>software in the real world.

You know, this typifies what I think is wrong with the way that
computers are being used in schools today.  Students are being taught
how to use (e.g.) MS Works on a PC, under the guise of learning "about
computers" or (worse) "about information technology".  Ten years ago, 
the very best schools might have been teaching their accounting students
VisiCalc; how useful are those skills now?  How useful will knowing MS
Works be in 10 years time?  I'd much rather that schools focussed on
principles rather than specifics, especially when to do otherwise amounts 
to indulging in unmarked product promotions in school time.  This education
stuff is supposed to last for a lifetime, not just the next product cycle.

>There are only two practical uses for apple IIs in an education environment;
>a) overcoming technophobia
>b) learning to type

Perhaps you should reflect on the deeper implications of that statement.

>Besides, most kids spend more time on an apple II with Artillery, strip
>poker, and swashbuckler than they do with oregon trail.

They do say that users follow applications...

Followups set,

John P.

"A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will
 lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this ...will
 you awake to the truth of Zen." -- Huang Po, to the prefect of Wan Ling
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