Please excuse the following ramble. It doesn't have much to do with your tute, but some of what you wrote triggered these thoughts.
Perhaps I'm spoiled in my part of the world but in the Australian state that I live in, our Dept of Education (DoE) has a huge network with all staff and students assigned DoE network storage space as well as email addresses (with web browser or Outlook access). These features then follow you around while you are attached to the DoE (ie employed or enrolled) regardless of which school etc. This is available as soon as you are employed or enrolled (although young children aren't educated about it until a bit later).
So in that regard we are pretty lucky. As for teaching 'tech' though I must concur. Some of your comments cement some of my other concerns. I think we do our children a disservice by only showing them and teaching them the 'mainstream' software and operating systems. I worry that spreadsheets may become 'Excells', slideshow presentations are already pretty much "PowerPoints' and you often don't edit a photo, you 'PhotoShop it'. I'm not arguing that kids shouldn't learn to use these tools or the power they have, but I also think they should learn some of the other options. Especially the easily and freely available ones. I realise that you can't teach the full breadth and give them the full depth, but I do think you can give some balance. Besides if you want to truely engage kids, you'll want them to play with the ideas and concepts at home. Most children have computers at home these days, but very few have parents with a spare few hundred bucks so they can buy the proprietry software they are using at school. The result is often that many of the clever ones just learn how to pirate.
I think we do our children such a diservice having homogenous computer labs with either (Win) 'PCs' or Macs. Computer manufacturers aren't silly and along with many other marketers, they realise that children develop brand awareness relatively young and often the influence will be lifelong. Besides I think huge amounts of money is wasted on proprietry products. MS have my State Govt tied up with a long term supply contract so everything is MS. Its the ultimate deal for MS really as its complete vendor lockin. MS licencing has to be paid on all hardware owned by DoE so why wouldn't you use it? This results in all the IT techs only knowing MS, all the staff are only trained in MS but most importantly (for MS) all the kids are only trained in MS. As I said before the children become very brand aware and many assume that computers mean Windows.
So its not just about money. Its about equity and access, its also about truely educationg children about tech. Teaching them about whats out there, what its useful for. Its a bit like that cliche analogy about giving a person fish and feed them for a day, vs teaching them to fish and feed them for a lifetime. I think teaching kids how to use specific OS platforms and software packages is a bit like giving them fish! Whereas teaching them the underlaying themes and the breadth of what is available goes beyond teaching them to be consumers of technology.
Very nice tutorial Steve
And you raise some good points.
Please excuse the following ramble. It doesn't have much to do with your tute, but some of what you wrote triggered these thoughts.
Perhaps I'm spoiled in my part of the world but in the Australian state that I live in, our Dept of Education (DoE) has a huge network with all staff and students assigned DoE network storage space as well as email addresses (with web browser or Outlook access). These features then follow you around while you are attached to the DoE (ie employed or enrolled) regardless of which school etc. This is available as soon as you are employed or enrolled (although young children aren't educated about it until a bit later).
So in that regard we are pretty lucky. As for teaching 'tech' though I must concur. Some of your comments cement some of my other concerns. I think we do our children a disservice by only showing them and teaching them the 'mainstream' software and operating systems. I worry that spreadsheets may become 'Excells', slideshow presentations are already pretty much "PowerPoints' and you often don't edit a photo, you 'PhotoShop it'. I'm not arguing that kids shouldn't learn to use these tools or the power they have, but I also think they should learn some of the other options. Especially the easily and freely available ones. I realise that you can't teach the full breadth and give them the full depth, but I do think you can give some balance. Besides if you want to truely engage kids, you'll want them to play with the ideas and concepts at home. Most children have computers at home these days, but very few have parents with a spare few hundred bucks so they can buy the proprietry software they are using at school. The result is often that many of the clever ones just learn how to pirate.
I think we do our children such a diservice having homogenous computer labs with either (Win) 'PCs' or Macs. Computer manufacturers aren't silly and along with many other marketers, they realise that children develop brand awareness relatively young and often the influence will be lifelong. Besides I think huge amounts of money is wasted on proprietry products. MS have my State Govt tied up with a long term supply contract so everything is MS. Its the ultimate deal for MS really as its complete vendor lockin. MS licencing has to be paid on all hardware owned by DoE so why wouldn't you use it? This results in all the IT techs only knowing MS, all the staff are only trained in MS but most importantly (for MS) all the kids are only trained in MS. As I said before the children become very brand aware and many assume that computers mean Windows.
So its not just about money. Its about equity and access, its also about truely educationg children about tech. Teaching them about whats out there, what its useful for. Its a bit like that cliche analogy about giving a person fish and feed them for a day, vs teaching them to fish and feed them for a lifetime. I think teaching kids how to use specific OS platforms and software packages is a bit like giving them fish! Whereas teaching them the underlaying themes and the breadth of what is available goes beyond teaching them to be consumers of technology.