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Apple Tests Well in Education
wongaboo writes "Business Week has some interesting insights into Apples in schools. I remember when I was in K-6 an Apple was about the only computer you could find. Then in high school there were some PC's around but it was still mostly Apple. In college is was just the reverse: all PC's and no Apples. Now they are giving kids in high school a laptop when they show up; will it be an Apple? Either way, it makes me want to be a kid again."
They run hardly any software, and once you get into the real world, your Mac skills are worthless because Macs are few and far between out there.
The world is not just first person computer games.
That's not entirely true. With Unix under the hood, the casual user still has access to Unix attributes; namely, Apache. With one click in the System Preferences, even the most naive user can set up an Apache-driven website right from their Macintosh. There's not a lot of other Unixes that make it so easy to set up Apache.
The problem isn't the idea of teaching computing at an early age, it's that of all the teachers in the school, maybe one understands more than how to check their email.
My mother teachers at a k-6 school in a low-income neighborhood. Their text books are ancient, but thanks to a state grant, every room has five top of the line computers (for 20 elementary students). I look at that and say, WONDERFUL. I would have LOVED to have that technology in class.
Then I look at how thick the dust is on them. The kids only use them during play time, or indoor recess to play educational games. The teachers use it for email.. maybe, half the time not even that. To many of them, the concept of double-clicking is as confusing as calculus would be to their students. The teachers don't use the computers to teach anything, especially not computing, and therefore they are a waste.
If schools want to invest money in computers, they should invest something into teacher training and make technology PART OF THE CURRICULUM. Teachers don't know computers because they don't care, and so they don't, won't, and can't teach them. They don't see technology, or in elementary, often even science, as important. And so.. the kids get $1500 game systems that they can use twice a day, and they learn how to click a mouse. Woohoo.
I really do wonder how Michigan schools tech support are going to keep their heads on their bodies after this.
Personal experience tells me; How many students will install Mozilla? Will these computers be running XP? Will they be up to date? Patched? How many of them will click "yes" whenever something comes up as they're surfing the Internet? How much of that software will break the computer? When viruses invade (you know... ones that come in through Outlook that the virus companies haven't quite caught yet) how many computers will break? Spam other computers? How many 6th graders know not to open the attachment? How many would do it anyway?
To each company I will give their own (read: Macs have problems too), but... for as long as I've had a Mac, I haven't had to deal with the above. And for as long as I've given over Windows systems to my parents, I sure as hell have.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Here in Australia, Apple appear to be doing next to nothing to sell computers to schools, colleges and universities.
The other day I went to a poorly advertised "iMall" at our local university. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't this: a few rickety tables, with one iBook and one iMac, both running GarageBand. A lot of leaflets, iPod badges and a free draw to win an iPod. All the signs were scrawled in marker pen on bits of photocopy paper and sellotaped to the desk. A couple of geeky students were there to "sell" the systems, but instead hogged the two machines making music loops. Anyone wandering past would a) think it was a jumble sale and b) would be put off because there wasn't an actual machine to try out. I couldn't see the point of it, and doubt very much if it led to even one sale. I left very disappointed and pretty miffed at Apple for their lack of effort.
This same uni has about a 40% Mac usage among its staff overall. There is a strong Mac following here, but it's totally thanks to staff who are able to specify their own PCs.
The other day I met a lecturer at our local TAFE (further ed college). He teaches film and cinematography. Thanks to his own efforts, he has got two labs installed with Macs, an iMac lab for general still and basic work, and a G5 lab for Final Cut Pro. Where was Apple? Nowhere, he did all of this off his own bat. The rest of the college has PCs for all the courses they run, including desktop publishing and graphics arts courses, where they use Photoshop, Illustrator, et al - all traditional programs that are strong on the Mac. Apple Australia should be convincing TAFEs to use Macs for these courses - it's what many of these students will find in industry after all (well maybe, eventually those students will say, Oh, I used a PC for this at college, let's buy a PC). Get Macs into schools and TAFEs now, and industrial sales will pick up later. I just don't see Apple doing it here.
Another lecturer I know at a university in Sydney recently told me that after a recent policy change, there are now no Macs at all left for general student use in the uni. The only ones remaining are those that particular staff have clung on to because they refuse to have a PC. Even he, a long-time Mac fan, has had to buy a Dell laptop so he can use the same software that his students are using, and he says it's a backward step because he now has far more issues with stuff failing to work, and many projects such as creating QuickTime panoramas and so on has become a lot more long-winded and difficult. Has Apple lifted a finger to slow or reverse this trend? Not according to him, and the evidence speaks for itself.
It seems to me that Apple succeeds in its small way despite itself. It's enthusiastic users who make Apple sales in education, not Apple. At least not in Australia. I'm starting to think that the Apple Australia sales office doesn't exist - or maybe it's like a spidery old dusty corner in a building that no-one has bothered to enter in years. For fuck's sake, it's about time you made an effort guys!