[PLUG] RE: Steve Duin's column of 5/21/02

[Matt Alexander]

There's that pesky chicken-n-egg situation again...


On Wed, 29 May 2002, Greg Long wrote:

> I have to respond quickly to say as a returning student in his early
> 30's at OIT Klamath Falls, I think Neil hits the nail pretty much head
> on here.
>
> We're *JUST* starting KLUG in our spare time. We haven't even officially
> announced it at OIT yet (it is independent of OIT, though we will form a
> Linux-Unix "Club" in the fall if all goes well).  Part of what we are
> hoping to acheive is a middle ground, bridging the gap between the
> Microsoft bashing and Microsoft dominance.  OIT's main focus uses
> Microsoft technology - and for good reason since the curriculum focus is
> hands-on skills useful in today's market.  Microsoft, regardless of
> whether they are some evil empire or not, employs a lot of very talented
> people that produce a lot of good software, albeit not without security,
> bloat, and other numerous issues as discussed in many forums.  I *would*
> like to see more Linux/Unix exposure and even a class on MacOS X - since
> I hear they still very much rock as a multimedia machine - they sure
> have a dedicated following.
>
> My gut feeling is projects such as at www.k12ltsp.org which I'm starting
> to get involved with, would stretch a given school budget allowing labs
> with more low-cost workstations to give more kids exposure to the basics
> of simply using a computer/gui, the concept of a directory tree and
> saving a file, etc.  With the money saved, a hypothetical school could
> afford a few more proprietary OS workstations, plus a handful of really
> high end boxes, or something along those lines.
>
> Greg Long
> Klamath Linux-Unix Group
> http://www.maneuveringspeed.com/klug/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Anuskiewicz [mailto:neil at pacifier.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 8:08 AM
> To: PLUG
> Cc: Eric Harrison; Greg Long; KLUG; pdx-freebsd at toybox.placo.com;
> Steveduin at aol.com
> Subject: RE: [PLUG] RE: Steve Duin's column of 5/21/02
>
>
>
> The education system is no place for dogma for open source nor for
> proprietary software.
>
> When I graduated from college in the early nineties, Macintoshes
> dominated the education system. I used a Macintosh every day. When I
> went into the work world -- well after travelling around for awhile :-)
> -- I found that PCs running Microsoft DOS/Windows were dominant in the
> business/orginization world. I don't think it was a good idea to have
> one OS so dominant in the schools -- while at the same time another OS
> was completely dominant in the business/organization world.
>
> Part of the purpose of schools is to prepare students for the real
> world. In the real world Microsoft OS's and software play a very
> important role in business and you are doing a disservice to kids if
> they do not get at least some exposure to Microsoft software in school.
> Of course, it would be ideal if the specific OS and software were
> irrelevant and kids just learned the principles but the reality is that
> many jobs do require specific software knowledge.
>
> An accountant might be required to know Quickbooks, Access, Excel, and
> Word; an editor might be required to know a specific page layout
> package; a clerk might be required to have a working knowledge of
> Windows and all the Office software packages.
>
> The point is that schools should provide a heterogeneous learning
> environment. Yes, there should be plenty of open source software. But
> also there should be some proprietary software available as well. It
> should be somewhat like what is available in the real world. Students
> should come out of school having learned on both open source and
> proprietary systems.
>
> We, as responsible citizens, should not say to the schools, "thou shalt
> use only open source" any more than we should say, "thou shalt use
> proprietary software". The schools should strive to create the best
> computing environment that they can with the resources they have
> available, which is what I think they are doing. They have dedicated
> people like Paul Nelson and Eric Harrison working on the problem. :-)
>
>
> --
> Neil Anuskiewicz
> neil at pacifier.com
>
>
>
>
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