On Thu, Jan 02, 2003, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote about "Re: Edu in linux": > terms of both production tools and training. Also, many of the academic > community who plan the content want to use features that Msoft offers > that are not standard technologies in order to get maximum visual effect - > things that you can't do in HTML or even in Java. We are a long, long way > from providing the tools that they need to make cuting edge educational > content.
This thread is really making me sad. Is that what the teaching-software people really think? That Linux (or whatever non-Microsoft solution) doesn't have enough "features" to help kids? Does a kid who still cannot read as well as his class need super-fancy Windows-specific features to practice the alphabet? Does a kid who can't remember the multiplication table need features not available in Windows for the "maximum visual effect"? Is Linux really a "long long way" from being able to tutor kids who are having trouble with their English, Algebra, Arabic, or whatever? Will a kid whose parents cannot afford buying him expensive books (like dictionaries and encyclopedias) care if Matach produced their dictionary or whatever on Windows or Linux? And if we're not talking about tutoring other subjects, but rather learning computers per se, I argued in a previous email that the Linux experience will be just as good (or more, obviously :)) as Windows experience. In any case, when the kids need to use that experience in the work place - perhaps 5 or 10 years after they studied it - the specific Windows techniques they learned will have become obsolete. I remember very clearly a discussion I had with a friend 11 years ago when I was in the 11th grade. We were studying then Turbo Pascal on DOS and also using Windows (3.1) at school, and I told him about C and Unix, which were virtually unknown (especially in Israel) at the time. He said that Turbo Pascal was the wave of the future, and C was a relic of the past (I admitted to him that C had been invented 15 years earlier). I claimed this was wrong, that C and Unix were technically superior and they shall inherit the earth :) I think the more years that have passed, the closer my claim gets to reality. Unix (in the form of Linux) is getting more and more common, and C (and C++) have become the lingua franca of the entire industry, and Turbo Pascal is barely remembered (in the form of Delphi). This friend of mine, on the other hand, can now do absolutely nothing with his knowledge of Turbo Pascal and DOS, and yelling "But these were the most common software when I studied!" will not help him one iota. -- Nadav Har'El | Thursday, Jan 2 2003, 28 Tevet 5763 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Cat rule #2: Bite the hand that won't http://nadav.harel.org.il |feed you fast enough. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
