On 12/17/06, norman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, 2006-12-17 at 14:23 +0100, Olivier Lecarme wrote: > > Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion: > > < snip > > > > > Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is > > an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as > > a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I > > think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using > > Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, > > and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer > > to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any > > so-called standard without discussion and thought. > > Surely, it is most important to teach students the principals involved > in a subject so that, at a later stage, they are better informed when it > comes to choosing in which direction to proceed. It is the > responsibility of Industry, not universities, to provide the training > needed for its employees to do the jobs required of them. The new > graduate should be able to bring fresh ideas to the world of work not > perpetuate the status quo and, thereby, help to ensure that we all > benefit from progress and change. I could go on but this is probably not > the place to do so. > > Norman
As a career development student I'd have to agree that it's more important to learn general ideas and concepts, vs. the nitty gritty of one particular application/language, unless you want to learn that specific level of detail in an application. My wife teaches Gimp to her Jr. High computer class, about 90 students a quarter...she wasn't teaching any advanced graphic editor at all until I showed her Gimp and how it was just as good if not better than the "industry standard" Photoshop, which is around $600+ for one license (there probably is a "school edition", but you get my point). Her students and school would never be able to afford that (nor should they in my opinion) when there is a competing product that is open source and available to all. Also, the "industry standard" is subjective at best and from my perspective limited simply by choice. Take for excample programming - what would you say is the "industry standard" language? There are so many choices it's impossible to say. -- Anthony Ettinger phone: 408-656-2473 resume: http://chovy.dyndns.org/resume.html Currently available for contract work blog: http://www.chovy.com _______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
