Re: [LUG] GNU/Linux in schools

["Ben Goodger" <goodgerster@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 16/10/06, Neil Williams <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 16/10/06 23:28:08, Eion MacDonald wrote:
> Dear Folks, 20061016

(Welcome to the list, BTW)

> One major problem if trained only in MS office/Windows, is total
> inability to work with major organisations who use other software as
> the backbone of all systems,e.g.SAP
> I work in office of a 46,000 odd desktop worldwide company and all
> info is done through SAP.
>
> Schools training in "IT" is abysmal.
> We mainly have to tell newcomers how to forget their school training,
> do it our way

Reminds me of previous discussions on how IT should be taught using the
Universal Computer - not the computer that happens to be on the desk
today. The little 'experience' I had of computers at school was looking
at the back of a Commodore Pet from a distance of about 20 feet (no
pupils were allowed in the same room as 'it'), a BBC micro (excellent
machine) that my mother obtained on loan as a teacher and the wonders
of a ZX81. Variety, that's part of the answer.
:-)

I despair when I hear of IT being taught as "how to use Excel" not "how
to use a spreadsheet".

It's absolutely no use instructing people in solving problems with M$
machines, there needs to be an awareness of other systems, other
solutions.

The "easy" methods of teaching people to follow pictures in tutorials
like robots who get confused as soon as the icon theme is tweaked are
the stuff of nightmares. It's pointless teaching people how to use XP
or Vista, teach them how to use a computer so that when something
replaces Vista they are still able to use the thing!

Same principle applies to technicians.

One day, I'm going to produce a LaTeX-typeset version of all your wonderfully concise summings-up of the entire industry's problems, such as this one. I think it'd make a good "holy book" for certain groups of people, and at least doing this as opposed to Stallman's works removes the almost 100% certainty that in 1300 years someone will blow themselves up over a depiction of the GNU as a marijuana-smoking cow (as opposed to a recorder-playing gnu.)

(The above is, for once, completely unsarcastic, and I utterly agree. I am incredibly frustrated to hear the librarians at College piping Hotmail as not only apparently The Webmail Provider(tm) (gmail, yahoo etc don't exist as they don't have a butterfly, adverts or IE-only user agent checkers) but also The Way To Get Rid Of Virii And Spam(tm) (emails are, self-evidently, the only way to get virii, and Hotmail's virus scanner is infallible - never mind any of those standalone ones, LOL!!), and it's annoying to be unable to actually program because our Computing "coursework" is actually just copying some buggy VB from the board - we never actually learn, and invariably the programs don't work because of incorrect capitalisation of _keywords_, or VB crashes. I'm not even permitted to run a Python executable on the college network in the name of security (IE6 is also the only available browser) which is even more annoying as I can't ignore the MS advertising and just get on with the work.)

FROM: /dev/socialism

-- 
Ben Goodger
#391382
---------------------

Mi admiras religiajn; ili estas fine ebliĝinta solvi la maljunegan demandon "kiel oni povas vivi sencerbe?".
It is well-known that I am blunt and unsophisticated. It's largely your fault if you object to this.
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