Ubuntu blues

[Matt Oquist]

> I don't think so. They should learn the most useful enviroment. This
> is like learning, I don't know.. Russian instead of French or Spanish
> at school.
> At the moment, Windows is the most useful enviroment at 95%+ of
> businesses use it on their desktops, and therefore that's going to be
> the one they are going to experience when they are older.

Sorry, I can't let that one go by.  That is a standard MS party-line based
entirely on condescention ("The kids aren't smart enough to learn to click
different buttons if they need to.") and bad logic.

Here's a snippet I received recently in an email written by a K-12 computer
teacher in Maine, USA:

> Let me provide an illustration for this example....in our school (I arrived
> in 1999)....the current 8th graders were 3rd graders the year I began in
> Vassalboro.  At that time the school was using nearly all Apple LC 580's and LC
> II's.  The LC 580's ran System 7.63 and the LC II's ran System 7.1.  As the
> first year progressed I managed to swap out a large number of those machines
> for Win 98 machines.  If you stop and think about it....during those 5 to 6
> short years....the computers and the OS's (as well as most of the apps) that
> these kids were working on in 3rd grade are now totally obsolete!  It's
> absolutely amazing how fast our computer world changes when you look at it the
> span of a child's school years.  When the 8th graders of today first began
> kindergarten....Windows 95 was still a relatively young OS....Linux on the
> desktop was a far-fetched dream....and Apple still had quite a ways to go
> before OS X would debut with its Unix underpinnings.  CD-R's were for the most
> part scarce and considered a luxury item....laptops shipped without CD-ROM
> drives....(you loaded Win95 with a bunch of floppies)....networks in schools
> were primitive or non-existent....the Internet was still largely
> untapped....email was just getting underway....etc...etc...etc.  Now CD-R's and
> DVD's are commonplace and cheap....floppy drives are a thing of the past....USB
> keys are chic....Win95 no longer exists....Win98 is no longer supported...WinME
> never should have been released....and WinXP is on it's second servive pack.
> Linux on the desktop is becoming more common and there are large deployments
> worldwide.  Apple is slowly regaining some market share.  The internet is
> widely used and commonplace....email is now used by nearly everyone....even on
> cell phones. Schools are networked....many are wireless...many have gigabit
> backbones and T1 or greater access... And the list goes on....  All this in a
> span of 8 to 9 years (or the time it has taken our current 8th graders to move
> from being kindergarteners to where they are now)  Wow!  And to think many of
> us invest our energies in teaching a certain program or OS....how silly!
> 
> David N. Trask
> Technology Teacher/Coordinator
> Vassalboro Community School

Sorry for the huge paragraph form, that's how he sent it.  :-o

Dave, BTW, is really pushing Linux and the K12LTSP in his own and surrounding
school districts, as well as coming down into New Hampshire (where I am).
Great guy.

I'm not calling into question Martin's intentions, but when MS spouts
this sort of garbage it's the worst kind of FUD.  How insulting it is
to our educational system(s) and children, to think they can't figure
out Word and Windoze if they've been brought up on OpenOffice and
Gnome.

--matt