MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Great take.

"It still moves!"

I somewhat agree with MDN. I don't think that they should be dismissed out of hand, but any teacher who puts up unreasoning resistance to a new proposal should be immediately subject to a performance review. Hidebound educators who are unwilling to explore new initiatives without reasonable objections, are a danger to students.

The teacher quoted is pathetic. Great take, MDN.

These teachers are setting great examples for their students. Aren't students encouraged to have open minds? Flip it around to "I don't want to learn calculus because everybody I know uses simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division" and see what the response of the teachers would be.

How can people in the education system be so narrow minded?
Not wanting to learn a new OS?? I agree with your statement that they should be fired! These are people that are supposed to hep kids broaden their minds and explore new things.

And the statement that mixing the 2 platforms will be imcompatable is pure garbage. They are looking for an excuse to not change and continue to spew more garbage to their students.

finally a take that made me smile. its been a while.

I'm getting my masters in education. i hear this stuff all the time. i just laugh it off. i'll tell you one thing, there is no way im using a windows pc. they can give me whatever dell or hp piece of shit they want, im still gonna use my trusty ibook.

Most teachers I have had and I went to good schools were border line social deviants. Very selfish people who enjoyed pushing kids around. The last thing they cared about was what was best for the students. Just like the real world, most everybody's just out for themselves.

Stupid teacher, but not wholly wrong. There are lots of compatibility issues between MacOS and Windows. If they're not taking a long look at how the machines will want to interact with the existing infrastructure and determining whether they're gonna play nice, they are dolts.

Not doing it just to avoid learning something new is in fact retarded, but there COULD BE legitimate reasons not to mix OSes.

If there are any regular posters here from the vicinity of Cobb County.. it might help the cause to show these uninformed people the truth about Macs....

Bring an iBook to a meeting, hook it up to the WinBloze network and show them there is nothing to worry about !

Then... let them know that they would be virtually immune to the malware problems accociated with running that virus magnet OS ...WinDoze ..

Also .. to drive home the point... there is even a "kids" Browser available which can block access to questionable sites called ..Kids Go Go Go ... which can be found at macupdate.com and versiontracker.com ....

Someone needs to inform the uninformed ..... remember... Knowledge is Power !

It's always something... the unwashed masses..

First Macs are too slow. Apple addresses that. Then it's Macs are too expensive, Apple addresses that. Now they're going after compatibility when I guarantee you not a single one, if pressed, could explain exactly what they mean by compatibility or where such problems exist. My guess is that this is politics.

Teachers. Bah. Privitize all education. If I had a kid, I'd want someone teaching them who felt their job depended on performance, not union dues.

Compatibility issues? The only thing that has to be compatible is the file format, and even that is minor. Education, for the most part is not intended to be a collaborative effort. What will they do? Have 50 students write 1 paragraph each of a 10-page report, passing the file from student to student, school to school, till it gets done.

Sometimes I wish the Macs were just forced on them and they had to learn it. Then reason sets in and I know that they would probably just end up resenting them. They're all just infected with FUD. Now there's a virus that needs eradicating!!!

MW "building" a better tomorrow...on a Mac.

The question about compatibility should be asked about what software is being used. Is it MS office? Filemaker? A web based solution? But other "compatibility questions are null and void such as Internet Connectivity or security. The Teacher knows not what he is asking and should get a "D" for putting no effort into asking a real question!

And hey, lets not try somthing new, by all means it is a school, when was the last time they added something new that did not involve sports

Magic Word "standard" I hate that word

And people wonder why the American education system is so bad.

Letting the residents of Cobb county know that iBooks are made of a bullet-proof material would probably sway their decision toward the Mac...

http://asbointl.org/member/MembersOnly/newsletter/index.asp?bid=310

Salient quote from above linked article:

"Arasi, a former principal at Walton High School in east Cobb, remembers when tornadoes and school fires were the focus of emergency procedures. Now, under a state-mandated safety plan, each school has a plan for responding to shooting incidents—including designating staff within the school who will coordinate traffic and evacuation of students."

"Public schools have had a century and a half to prove themselves. From the start, they have been making excuses for why they have been unable to get the job done."

I used to cover the local school board meetings when I was a cameraman. If you want to see a genuine hotbed of sanctimonious ignorance, then for the love of god go watch a bunch of public school teachers "discuss" an "issue." Wonder why public education is crumbling? Because the 99% of the people who run it are complete idiots.

Beatsme, I agree with you. But shouldn't your comment read something like this.

"If you want to see a genuine hotbed of sanctimonious ignorance, Look no further than the american public."

Oh God... more of the same from MDN and its sheep.

> MacDailyNews Take: Teachers who don't want to learn new things should be fired immediately.

What a simplistic, and idiotic, thing to say. What if a PE teacher refuses to learn to ride horseback? What if a English teacher refuses to learn to split atoms?

Or hmmm... what if teachers are already bogged down with teaching your kids that adding any more of burden makes them less efficient and successful in their work?

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That being said, I'm trying to convince my sister to switch to a Mac. Her son - my nephew - adds so much to their computer that it constantly has problems.

I just happen to hate stupid reviews and commentary on this site and all the sheepish opinions that follow.

M&PCG;,

Can NEA union members be any less efficient and more unsuccessful in their work?

>MDN also wrote: Perhaps it's time America tried something else, something that's actually effective and improves the nation's public school system?

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A more effective approach that has worked for my family:

Turn off the TV. Sit down with your kids and study with them. They're your kids; they're your responsibility!

The American culture is great at pointing fingers at someone else. We blame race. We blame biased tests. We blame the public school system.

The primary fix to education - a more active and involved family.

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Good computers would be helpful, but not a core solution.

Carl Carlson-

Those teachers are refusing to use a new platform when it's forced upon them.

You would refuse to use a new platform when it's forced upon you.

Of course, the difference is that you already know how to operate Windows (I assume) and therefore your objection is based on usability considerations and other rational criteria, whereas the teachers are medievally avoiding new experiences. Which is utterly stupid, and makes me sad that I spent my kindergarten year in the control of the public school system. At least I escaped relatively unscathed (although they did change me from left handed to right handed, and I'm still trying to recover use of my natural hand).

Anyway, between this story and the Symantec and Gartner Group shenanigans... makes it seem like everyone's out to get the Mac. Maybe someone should do a study and find out how many Christians use Macs vs PCs, or maybe how many Mac users supported Kerry, or the U.N., or the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, vs PC users. That would stir up some mud - no matter the results.

Oh God... more of the same from MDN and its sheep.

> MacDailyNews Take: Teachers who don't want to learn new things should be fired immediately.

What a simplistic, and idiotic, thing to say. What if a PE teacher refuses to learn to ride horseback? What if a English teacher refuses to learn to split atoms?

Or hmmm... what if teachers are already bogged down with teaching your kids that adding any more of burden makes them less efficient and successful in their work?

---

That being said, I'm trying to convince my sister to switch to a Mac. Her son - my nephew - adds so much to their computer that it constantly has problems.

I just happen to hate stupid reviews and commentary on this site and all the sheepish opinions that follow.

Its using an OS, not rocket science. And one that uses a relatively simple GUI to boot. Teacher crying compatability issues may have some valid points but it shouldnt stop them from being able to be a user on a system. No one is asking them to become Mac certified techs. I kind of agree that these so called teachers have an obligation to continue to learn so they can teach effectively. Altering you examples so they actually fit, a gym teacher should learn about new exercise techniques and incorperate new nutrition findings in his class. An English teacher must be willing to examine and use changes in the language, and new techniques and standards for writing.

Comment regarding compatibility:

I agree there will be compatibility problems between Windows and MacOS. The teachers should welcome these problems. It is opportunity for the students to learn about the incompatibility and figure out how to over come these problems. In fact they should include Linux in the mix, so the students can learn more. Remember diversity is good thing.

Thelonias wrote: "Teachers. Bah. Privitize all education. If I had a kid, I'd want someone teaching them who felt their job depended on performance, not union dues."

Yeah, fsck the poor. Who gives a shit about people born into circumstances where they can't afford private schools. All I can ever think about is me, and the six inches in front of my face.

In a school system which is struggling to teach elementary skills, making troubleshooting computer problems part of the students' everyday life is probably not going to be helpful.

The teachers are partly right. With budget cuts and too many students per teacher in most schools, it's hard to take on even more responsibilites.

How many of you people have sent a memo to your boss saying, "I don't have enough work to do, please add to my load."

I didn't think there'd be man of you.

And that's my point. If you support such initiatives in schools, you should also be pushing (at least for the short term until computers are more integrated into student/teacher workflow) for more money being spent on teacher salaries and better student/teacher ratios.

Then the teachers will have the time to actually learn how to make computers an education tool, and not just another gizmo to gum up the works that is the mess our school systems are in.

It's not an easy question, and the answers certainly are not simple. But computers CAN make schools work better. But changes have to be made.

Does America want to compete in the world market? Then they better get on the stick.

"The American culture is great at pointing fingers at someone else. We blame race. We blame biased tests. We blame the public school system."

And teachers and ed admin blame parents.

Another reason to homeschool.

Yes MDN. Imagine if the government decided to (gasp) properly fund the educational system in the USA. But of course that would mean there would be less money for really helpful things like prisons, the war on drugs and funding the ever so popular and effective abstinance sex education program. Come to think of it we'd better cut another $50 billion out of the education budget.

Brought to you by "daily", as in daily the educatiional system in the USA gets worse and worse.

>Ed wrote: And teachers and ed admin blame parents.

Great way to bring my point full-circle. Parents are ultimately responsible for their kids. They need to be more active and involved.

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>maddrjeffe wrote: No one is asking them to become Mac certified techs.

But in their capacity as teachers, that may come with the territory. If they were teaching computer science or some sort of information technology, then I think it would be positive to include Macs in the mix.

Windows is so pervasive, that switching to a "superior" platform may not be worthwhile or even possible.

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>Altering you examples so they actually fit, a gym teacher should learn about new exercise techniques and incorperate new nutrition findings in his class. An English teacher must be willing to examine and use changes in the language, and new techniques and standards for writing.

Since we're all about altering examples so they can fit, how does switching to Macs make PE teachers better PE teachers? English teachers better English teachers? Math teachers better math teachers?

Windows Excel does as great a job at computing grades as Mac Excel does. Does Mac Excel jump higher? Does Mac Excel enunciate proper english better than Windows Excel?

Jeez lighten up people, a computer is just a tool. I would be more interested in discovering just what is the intended purpose of the machines, other than just because.

Spend money on lab equipment, research materials, after school activities, library books, teacher education, field trips, guest lecturers, etc.

I am not convinced that every teacher/student having his or her own laptop makes for a better student/school system.

But I guess my opinion is in the minority. (Mac & PC guy is 100% dead on on this one.)

It's funny, reading through the posts, you can almost pick out the parents of school aged kids.

Zac

What PERCENTAGE of teachers were worried about adding Macs? Unless you know this, comments about "teachers" as though they represent some uniform type are pointless. Well, perhaps not completely pointless. Many of you seem to have used this an excuse for a knee-jerk venting about the education system and teachers in general. Feel better?

I also find it ironic that the supposedly republican (small "r") US is so enamored of private education, the bastion of the privileged and powerful.

Teachers and their Unions/Associations have been the 'tail wagging the dog' for a very long time now. The taxpayers OWN the schools, are the parents of the students, are ultimately responsible for the education of their children, elect the school board, and are the employers of the teachers.
It's about time the 'professional educators' had a moment of mental clarity and realized who they really work for. Their job is to take the tools and facilities provided and apply their skills toward that end... period. Their job is not to run the schools, be the agent for social change, interfere with a student's personal political or theological beliefs, etc.
I work in medicine and we are constantly required to learn new technologies, procedures, and equipment. We are required, by law, to attend and complete CE programs in order to stay current with 'Best practices', current laws & regulation & the evolving policies of our workplace. That comes with the job. Maybe someone forgot to tell them that.

That is why it is called "education" because it is about "learning" which applys to both teachers and students.

>Great way to bring my point full-circle. Parents are ultimately responsible for their kids. They need to be more active and involved.

I think I liked what you were getting at before: sloppy, simplistic generalizations are non-productive, or even counter-productive in these sorts of discussions. I know plenty of parents who are very active and involved, as well as many teachers who are not up to the job and who are probably having a negative educational effect on their students. These are complex problems, and they require solutions equally complex.

Also, I don't think you fully grasp the concept of a circle. There is no ultimate end or beginning to a circle. In this particular metaphor, all parties have a shared responsibility in educating young people, and that includes the educational establishment.

More spending... blah blah

"properly fund education"... blah blah


The U.S. spends more per student than any other industrialized country -- far more in most cases--- and those countries all do much better on standardized tests. The public education system has major failings, and all they can say is, "we need more money."



Well, see the chart here:
http://www1.oecd.org/els/pisa/knowledge/chap3/f3_7.htm


or the article here:
http://www.worldandi.com/subscribers/feature_detail.asp?num=23934


I found both with a quick scan of Google. There are tons more.


I teach computers at a small Catholic school-- 400 kids grades k-8-- for $24,000 year. I make almost as much (and make ends meet for my family) fixing computers (mostly Windows problems) nights, weekends, and in the summer. I have worked in industry, and I have a master's degree in business, but this was a calling, and I get satisfaction from the job. There are teachers here who have taught for 30 years and will retire making about $35k/year. We have one principal and two part-time office staff. And our kids devastate the local public schools in test scores.

More money for public schools? Blah blah...

maczac -

yes, computers are just tools. but learning how to use those tools is extremely important. whether or not children end up using a computer in their professional life, they should be taught how - it's part of a proper education. living with a computer is a good way to learn about one. you can figure out some stuff reading a book on the Unix CLI, for example, and try out the commands for an hour a day or so at a time in a lab. but, you'll learn CLI much faster if you work in it every day (for example).

Here! Here! theloniusMac.

Maybe they mean not compatible with all the malware that runs under WinBlow$.

My sister lives in the vicinity of these knuckleheads. She almost convinced me a few years ago to move there. After spending a good two months there, I declined her invite. There was just something very unsettling about the vibes I got from the place.

These bonehead "teachers" should be flogged (then of course fired).

Note to self: Trust your intuition more

Michael, so what is your point? How is your post relevant to the OP that every teacher and student must have a macintosh computer, or even be exposed to it? It's a tool, learn to use the tool, fine, does it matter if the tool is red or green? Does every student and every teacher need to know how to use the tool, and not just the generic form of the tool, but every variation of that tool?

Zac

BTW folks don't loose site of the fact that you are treating a computer as an end, as opposed to a means to an end. It is a tool, used to accomplish a task. I realize for some of us it is an end, but for most it is just a tool.

Zac

maczac -

my post was about computers in general, as i thought your post was.

and my point was that there is an increased value in having the computer owned by the student and used many more times per day than a lab machine would be. i also think that exposure and proficiency on windows is also a requirement from any educational institution in the united states today. it would be inexcuasble to arrive in a clerical job and say "oh, sorry, i only know macs". conversely, the students will probably get a lot more done on macs than pcs, so it's up to the school administration to make the call and weigh the pros and cons - as it should be.

all -

in regards to spending, $60,000 US for pre K through 8th grade isn't that much. i just graduated from a first rate high school where the cost of education for each student was about $55,000 per student per year. much of that was paid from endowment, so the tuition was only about $29,000 per student per year. seems l ike a small boost in funding couldn't hurt.

-Michael

are still only PART of the community being served. Of those 8000, less than one-third responded to the survey at all. Of THOSE 2500, only about half included comments. And of THOSE--about 15% of all the teachers--only SOME were negative comments. Of THOSE, only SOME were against the Mac (rather than against laptops in general). What % are we taking now? 10%? 5%?

Given that we ALREADY know the Mac is the minority platform, what about this is news?

You may as well say that 95% of teachers have made NO objection to Macs. They have their ignorant assumptions but they haven't bothered to force them on others. The minority that have should surprise nobody. What they say is just FUD.

Of course we all know that America raises children to be sheep these days. Thinking for yourself is a sin.

" it would be inexcuasble to arrive in a clerical job and say "oh, sorry, i only know macs".

Good point, since we're raising kids to do only clerical work, and since Microsoft Office doesn't exist for Mac

Besides, why teach people Windows XP? They won't be using it on the job! Tiger is probably a lot closer to Longhorn that Windows XP is. They'll be much more prepared for the FUTURE by learning MORE than one OS.

Learning on a Mac doesn't mean "I only know Macs." And nobody walks into a job interview and says that. Furthermore, how many people using Macs in school truly have ZERO exposure to Windows?

Silliness.

Re: Me -

hmm good points. i didn't think about windows being upgraded. i also agree that learning more than one os is a fantastic idea. my friend's kid is going to have exposure to at least ten oses from my collection, which is a great way to learn computing. i was originally going to write something about how they'd get to their job, try to use windows, and become horrified and dismayed.

[little story] i switched from win2k to mac when win2k was quite new. there was no real threat of viruses (i didn't steal music, just browsed the internet, no downloads except from download.com, etc.). then i bought an old thinkpad 600x when i started collecting computers last year, and figured - hey, i'll install xp, all the kids are doing it. so i get some spyware and a worm within twenty minutes of playing solitare/browsing for various programs. i had some icons that i couldn't delete, etc. etc. i had to trash the windows install immediately thereafter.[/little story]

not that this would happen to everyone who forgot about windows, but it happened to me, and most people don't count me stupid.

so i'm not sure - is the windows mentality something that needs to be learned? how much exposure to windows can you garuntee kids would get? is it enough? is learning mac os enough?

before i pass judgement on this program, i'd want to know much more about the school's commitment to IT in general. in fact, i'm feeling less and less qualified the more i think about it.

-Michael

When will people figure out that the operating system is not what the end-user is interested in? People use APPLICATIONS- not operating systems. Maybe Windoze people think that hand-holding an OS is a given when using a computer.
In a public school environment almost any software one could imagine is available for the Mac OS.
Word Processing-
Abi Word, Open Office/Neo Office J are freeware
AppleWorks comes with consumer/student Macs
MarinerWrite, Mellel, Pages and Microsoft Word are all available for purchase.
Accounting-
It starts with Quicken and goes on.
Spreadsheet/Database-
FileMaker, Excel, OpenOffice and many others. AppleWorks is installed.
Presentation Graphics-
Keynote, PowerPoint, OpenOffice and others. AppleWorks is included.
Browsers-
Safari, FireFox, Camino, Mozilla, Opera, IE and others.
Mail Apps-
Mail, Entourage, Thunderbird, Outlook/Outlook Express (Classic), tons of others.
IM-
iChat AV, AOL, Yahoo, MSN clients and tons of 3rd party stuff.
Digital Photography-
iPhoto, Photoshop & PS Elements, Photoline and others.
Music Creation-
Garage Band, and an OMG-long list of others. Composers can use Finale and Sibelius among others.
Video Production-
Final Cut Pro/DVD Studio Pro, apps from AVID and Adobe and a ton of other apps.
Illustration-
Just ask a Graphic Artist- it's all here.
Encyclopedia-
World Book And Britannica among others.

Can anybody say X-11 or Fink?
Can anybody say Yellow Dog LINUX?

There's more, but I think you get the point. It's alll FUD.

> maczac wrote: Jeez lighten up people, a computer is just a tool.

Zac, I think you pointed out the key difference between yourself and most people on this board.

To you it's a tool - used to do work and complete an objective. To others, it's Apple - and because it's an Apple, it is better than everything else even when it's not really.

Thanks for the post. It's nice to see people on this board who actually make great sense.

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>Ed wrote: Also, I don't think you fully grasp the concept of a circle. There is no ultimate end or beginning to a circle.

If I agreed with what you said, because you agreed with what I said... would you then say I know what a circle is?

Thanks for the posts Ed. T'was fun.

Computing fundamentals my dear Watson, computing fundamentals.

Let's not pick on the whole NEA.....

Nearly all of the teachers I know would be thrilled to have our students with their own laptops, regardless of the platform! Yes! Even I, a Mac advocate, would play along if the district were to supply machines to all of my students - even Windows boxes!

As it stands, I think this site might keep in mind that some of the strongest Mac advocates are and have been teachers - and NEA members!

Windows pushers in schools tend to be the IT geeks, business managers, and administrators.

I think the real problem is that this is a southern school. These are the same teachers that are trying to ban the teaching of evolution. All around southerners are going to be knee-jerk conservative, whether it's rejecting new ideas about the origin of the universe or new ideas about technology.

OOOHHH, I guess I must be a bad parent, because when my kid comes home, he works on a mac, as PC's are forbidden in our house. Please don't have him taken away and placed in the evil PC World. PPLLLEEAASSEEEEE