While this isn't true of most IT teachers, I must say that there are some real bad ones out there. Mind you, the exam boards aren't much better.
I believe until either this or last year, they didn't accept "Linux" as an answer for "Give an example of an operating system."
In my opinion, computing in the secondary education system teaches children to use a computer - not to understand a computer. Sure, we [and I say we, 'cos I've just entered college] were taught to change font sizes and type [50wpm before the class. Gotta love that.] - but if something went wrong, hardly any of the other kids had any idea what do.
"Miss! How do I save this to disk?"
"Click there... that's it, select that..."
The teacher was telling the kid what to click on - and he was just blindly doing it, and not learning how to *use* a computer. In my opinion, that's the wrong way to go about it.
I urge all computer consumers to BOYCOTT THE PENTIUM 4 and BOYCOTT ALL INTEL PRODUCTS until such time as Intel redesigns their chips to work as advertised...
Sheesh. Looks like someone's got a chip on their shoulder. (Sorry.)
Heh. Trouble is, most school bullies wouldn't have the intelligence to even read this comment, and even if they did, they'd have... hey! What are doing in my computer room? What's with the... OW! AAGH! AAAHHH! No! Not again! I'm sorry!!!
...what would happen if this e-school, for want of a better word, were to fail?
A school like this surely can't have masses of targeted advertising (and if they did, there'd be an outcry from privacy and parent groups), so where is the funding coming from?
Assuming it does get up and running - what if it fails? You have quite a lot of pupils suddenly out of school, some with disabilities and with no other option than an expensive home tutor.
To me, this just sounds... too risky.
Re:3001: Humungous Diamonds
on
Going Up?
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· Score: 1
Sorry about that... it's been a while since I read the Clarke books:-)
Re:What if you get stuck
on
Going Up?
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· Score: 1
Anyone for orbital skydiving?
Seriously, though, that is a consideration - what are the safety implications of a tower that high? If it, for some reason, cracked and fell, you have a large swathe of the Earth being bombarded by flying, red hot, extremely tough debris.
Cheaper and safer, surely, to invest in that antgrav thrust research that someone's carrying out..?
3001: Humungous Diamonds
on
Going Up?
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· Score: 2
Wasn't it the huge diamond at Jupiter's core that gave the 'ring around the earth' the tensile strength required?
All we need to do is find a bloody big diamond, or gain control of matter at the molecular level.
Or Jupiter can blow up. That would work as well...
I must say, I agree with several posters above; you get what you pay for. My domain costs £40 a year for full hosting and site logs etc., plus full e-mail forwarding and quite a few megs of space.
My thoughts are: if you have a free e-mail/web address, get out now! Move on to a pay service while there's still time to monitor your old account with "My e-mail address has changed". Even that's better than a mailreturn when your freemail company goes up the spout.
Exceptions to this rule: Yahoo Mail and Hotmail. But not much else.
According to BBC News (link unavailable, go search the site!), the ISS will be the third brightest object in the night sky, after the Moon and Sirius.
Of course, you can now expect an increase in the number of Goofy UFO Reports...
"In a culture that encourages anonymous communication and the right to speak without responsibility for the content of the utterance, the spoken message and, eventually, language itself are depleted."
I think Slashdot is a prime example of how this is not the case, certainly, ACs may "deplete" the message, but the cream rises to the top. The interesting, insightful stuff on the Internet will be linked to, will get traffic. Pages by the eponymous B1FF will be lost amid the dross.
Of course, there always will be exceptions to this. But the internet is in itself self-regulatory - the good stuff gets more exposure. Dilution? Perhaps. Lost messages? I think not.
Slashdot Mirror
While this isn't true of most IT teachers, I must say that there are some real bad ones out there. Mind you, the exam boards aren't much better.
I believe until either this or last year, they didn't accept "Linux" as an answer for "Give an example of an operating system."
In my opinion, computing in the secondary education system teaches children to use a computer - not to understand a computer. Sure, we [and I say we, 'cos I've just entered college] were taught to change font sizes and type [50wpm before the class. Gotta love that.] - but if something went wrong, hardly any of the other kids had any idea what do.
"Miss! How do I save this to disk?"
"Click there... that's it, select that..."
The teacher was telling the kid what to click on - and he was just blindly doing it, and not learning how to *use* a computer. In my opinion, that's the wrong way to go about it.
I urge all computer consumers to BOYCOTT THE PENTIUM 4 and BOYCOTT ALL INTEL PRODUCTS until such time as Intel redesigns their chips to work as advertised... Sheesh. Looks like someone's got a chip on their shoulder. (Sorry.)
Heh. Trouble is, most school bullies wouldn't have the intelligence to even read this comment, and even if they did, they'd have ... hey! What are doing in my computer room? What's with the... OW! AAGH! AAAHHH! No! Not again! I'm sorry!!!
...what would happen if this e-school, for want of a better word, were to fail?
A school like this surely can't have masses of targeted advertising (and if they did, there'd be an outcry from privacy and parent groups), so where is the funding coming from?
Assuming it does get up and running - what if it fails? You have quite a lot of pupils suddenly out of school, some with disabilities and with no other option than an expensive home tutor.
To me, this just sounds... too risky.
Sorry about that... it's been a while since I read the Clarke books :-)
Anyone for orbital skydiving?
Seriously, though, that is a consideration - what are the safety implications of a tower that high? If it, for some reason, cracked and fell, you have a large swathe of the Earth being bombarded by flying, red hot, extremely tough debris.
Cheaper and safer, surely, to invest in that antgrav thrust research that someone's carrying out..?
Wasn't it the huge diamond at Jupiter's core that gave the 'ring around the earth' the tensile strength required?
All we need to do is find a bloody big diamond, or gain control of matter at the molecular level.
Or Jupiter can blow up. That would work as well...
I must say, I agree with several posters above; you get what you pay for. My domain costs £40 a year for full hosting and site logs etc., plus full e-mail forwarding and quite a few megs of space.
My thoughts are: if you have a free e-mail/web address, get out now!
Move on to a pay service while there's still time to monitor your old account with "My e-mail address has changed". Even that's better than a mailreturn when your freemail company goes up the spout.
Exceptions to this rule: Yahoo Mail and Hotmail. But not much else.
Maybe... BBC Science News ain't exactly the brighest object on the Internet, if you get my meaning... I'm just repeating what I heard
According to BBC News (link unavailable, go search the site!), the ISS will be the third brightest object in the night sky, after the Moon and Sirius. Of course, you can now expect an increase in the number of Goofy UFO Reports...
"In a culture that encourages anonymous communication and the right to speak without responsibility for the content of the utterance, the spoken message and, eventually, language itself are depleted."
I think Slashdot is a prime example of how this is not the case, certainly, ACs may "deplete" the message, but the cream rises to the top. The interesting, insightful stuff on the Internet will be linked to, will get traffic. Pages by the eponymous B1FF will be lost amid the dross.
Of course, there always will be exceptions to this. But the internet is in itself self-regulatory - the good stuff gets more exposure. Dilution? Perhaps. Lost messages? I think not.