OH YEAH! That's right... Ad-Aware detected this as spyware on my computer and labelled it as advertisment and site tracking before quarantining (holy crap that looks like it's spelled wrong). Alexa was then spanked for being naughty.
:: Incoming Heavily Opinionated Soapbox/Spewsession. If you read this, thanks for reading. It's also somewhat jumpy, because this topic just sets me off and I can't type in anything but clipped sentence fragments.::
Oh, America definitely has a choice.
Participate in the education of your children. That's your choice.
In no particular order...
Problem the first: Parents treat schools less like learning institutions and more like daycare. They drop their kids off at this thing called a "school" and then they go to work/home/whatever. This is not necessarily a reflection of the nature of the attitudes of the parents, but parents who did this often were the ones wondering why their kid was regularly in detention. Then I'd hear this one: "I don't have time for that!" What a tragedy. I had one parent, a single mom, who worked three jobs (1 FT, 2 PT) which included a graveyard EMT shift. So she took a day off work to come and meet me after school, despite the fact that she receives no pay for missed days. Her reason? "My daughter is everything in the world to me and I have to support her." Sit down with them and help them with homework. Ask them what they learned. Quiz them. Provide them additional information. You're all experts in something, so why not encourage the same thing in your kids?
Problem the second: Discipline. If you don't want your child disciplined in schools by people that you don't trust, discipline them at home. Teach them to listen and teach them to respect the education process. Let me state that again: you do not have to like/respect the teacher, but please respect the school environment. In other words: if you have a problem with the teacher, take it up with your parent and/or school administrator, rather than disrupting the class. At my school, when a parent said "I don't like this teacher, and I don't think they're good for my kid," we switched the kid into another class. Done. If the kid became destructive and disruptive, very little attention and/or credit was given to the parent's request, because the child's disruptive behavior was blamed. This doesn't mean we completely disregarded the parent's complaint, mind you; I promise you that we didn't. Look at it this way: who are you more likely to believe and/or work with; the person who comes in and makes a clear, calm argument or someone who comes in yelling and screaming?
Problem the third: (this is the most opinionated portion; I have no supporting facts here) The Education Curriculum. Apologies if any of you were responsible for the national writing thereof, and a second apology for my language, but the curriculum is horse shit. My reason behind saying that: The curriculum that works for Orange County, California, will not work for Lincoln, Maine. Two completely different cultures, financial statuses, upbringings, whatever; there are too many factors and learning styles are diverse. To tell teachers in both of these counties that they are to teach the same material is useless! Not because of the intelligence of the learners, but, in my opinion, because of what the students and parents perceive as being necessary to learn. I've taught plenty of kids who have said "I don't need (subject,) I'm going to be a (insert collar-type)." Besides, consider standardized testing and your children. They attend the best school in the state, don't they! So their class gets an average of 95% on the test! Awesome.... Well, what about the county? Okay, factor in all the scores for the county (the best in the state!) and your school system has an average of 85%. Hey, not bad... well, let's factor in the region... (it's a good region, one of the best!) okay, now we're at 75% average score for the region; at least it's passing. Wait, we forgot the state! 50% now! Guess that means your state is performing below average; it must be the teachers in the region doing a bad job.
1/2 Score and 10 billion crashes ago, our programmers brought forth on this server a "new" program, conceived in PARC and dedidcated to the proposition that all software can be ripped off.
I'm too lazy to complete the joke and I think you get it by now anyway.;)
Someone may've already addressed this (so I apologize for not reading through...)
So who's paying for the technology? I mean, donated stuff is great, but then there's the software for computers, the upkeep & upgrades, the cost of replacing the broken stuff later (who am I kidding, technology don't break!), then the cost of security and network policing... theft, damage... irresponsible teachers...
Being a former teacher, I have plenty of frustration with the school system that I could soapbox about. Regarding this issue, though, my opinion is that computers are being used as a crutch in classrooms; teachers are letting the program teach the kids. Teachers are becoming hardware babysitters (software if you include the kids.)
Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be better to teach a kid to think about how to solve and/or do (write, draw, etc) something and then apply it to the computer?
(I was a music teacher, by the way. My program was cut due to lack of funding, but that's another story.)
I've had Macs forever, since my father wouldn't allow anything in the house. (God bless him for that, hehe...)
I also lamented the world of Mac games, but here are some that I played and enjoyed thoroughly. Some, true, were ports to Mac, but they still qualify (unlike Half-Life, which I really wish had been ported). Let's see how many of you recall these titles...
Space Rogue - This was one of the earlier color games that sticks out in my mind. This was something along the lines of what Escape Velocity: Nova is today, with one notable exception (graphics aren't being discussed for obvious reasons) -- The combat screen wasn't a top-down third-person perspective; it was first-person, much along the lines of old SpectreVR, and you could operate in all three dimensions. All the while you hauled cargo (I could never get the cargo on Basruti...) and killed pirates, etc. Fantastic game.
Spaceship Warlock - Another color game, one of the first CD games that I rememeber for the Mac (ran on Pop's 4x CD drive - lol). Another pirate adventure starting you out in the brig of the Warlock. It's great fun.
Cosmic Osmo - I imagine there was probably one person out there who just freaked out at the mention of this game. Remember Hypercard (of course you do, this is the Mac forum...)? It was a hypercard based video game and it was insanely fun. I barely even remember anything about playing it but I remember playing it often. It was something of a puzzle-adventure; think Myst, but filtered for 99.9% of graphics and story. It was just entertaining.
Bolo - Tanks. Destruction. Networking. I don't know how old this one is/was, but it's one I miss. Bolo was a -great- game.
Spectre VR - Already mentioned, of course. LOVED it.
Also consider...
Dark Castle
Beyond Dark Castle
Scarab of Ra
The Colony
Apologies if any of these were already posted, but I love games; always found games to play on the old Macs.
See, the problem wasn't the -lack- of Mac games, it's that every Mac gamer had 100 friends with PC games... they felt left out. IMO, anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent post, and a pleasure to read. Thanks for contributing. I made a smiliar attempt but I got a little out of hand. :)
Alexa... Alexa... why do I know this name?
OH YEAH! That's right... Ad-Aware detected this as spyware on my computer and labelled it as advertisment and site tracking before quarantining (holy crap that looks like it's spelled wrong). Alexa was then spanked for being naughty.
Can someone clear this up for me?
:: Incoming Heavily Opinionated Soapbox/Spewsession. If you read this, thanks for reading. It's also somewhat jumpy, because this topic just sets me off and I can't type in anything but clipped sentence fragments. ::
Oh, America definitely has a choice.
Participate in the education of your children. That's your choice.
In no particular order...
Problem the first: Parents treat schools less like learning institutions and more like daycare. They drop their kids off at this thing called a "school" and then they go to work/home/whatever. This is not necessarily a reflection of the nature of the attitudes of the parents, but parents who did this often were the ones wondering why their kid was regularly in detention. Then I'd hear this one: "I don't have time for that!" What a tragedy. I had one parent, a single mom, who worked three jobs (1 FT, 2 PT) which included a graveyard EMT shift. So she took a day off work to come and meet me after school, despite the fact that she receives no pay for missed days. Her reason? "My daughter is everything in the world to me and I have to support her." Sit down with them and help them with homework. Ask them what they learned. Quiz them. Provide them additional information. You're all experts in something, so why not encourage the same thing in your kids?
Problem the second: Discipline. If you don't want your child disciplined in schools by people that you don't trust, discipline them at home. Teach them to listen and teach them to respect the education process. Let me state that again: you do not have to like/respect the teacher, but please respect the school environment. In other words: if you have a problem with the teacher, take it up with your parent and/or school administrator, rather than disrupting the class. At my school, when a parent said "I don't like this teacher, and I don't think they're good for my kid," we switched the kid into another class. Done. If the kid became destructive and disruptive, very little attention and/or credit was given to the parent's request, because the child's disruptive behavior was blamed. This doesn't mean we completely disregarded the parent's complaint, mind you; I promise you that we didn't. Look at it this way: who are you more likely to believe and/or work with; the person who comes in and makes a clear, calm argument or someone who comes in yelling and screaming?
Problem the third: (this is the most opinionated portion; I have no supporting facts here) The Education Curriculum. Apologies if any of you were responsible for the national writing thereof, and a second apology for my language, but the curriculum is horse shit. My reason behind saying that: The curriculum that works for Orange County, California, will not work for Lincoln, Maine. Two completely different cultures, financial statuses, upbringings, whatever; there are too many factors and learning styles are diverse. To tell teachers in both of these counties that they are to teach the same material is useless! Not because of the intelligence of the learners, but, in my opinion, because of what the students and parents perceive as being necessary to learn. I've taught plenty of kids who have said "I don't need (subject,) I'm going to be a (insert collar-type)." Besides, consider standardized testing and your children. They attend the best school in the state, don't they! So their class gets an average of 95% on the test! Awesome.... Well, what about the county? Okay, factor in all the scores for the county (the best in the state!) and your school system has an average of 85%. Hey, not bad... well, let's factor in the region... (it's a good region, one of the best!) okay, now we're at 75% average score for the region; at least it's passing. Wait, we forgot the state! 50% now! Guess that means your state is performing below average; it must be the teachers in the region doing a bad job.
Billy's Windowzberg Address:
;)
1/2 Score and 10 billion crashes ago, our programmers brought forth on this server a "new" program, conceived in PARC and dedidcated to the proposition that all software can be ripped off.
I'm too lazy to complete the joke and I think you get it by now anyway.
THIS IS A GREAT IDEA! When it links with maps.google, then you really can drive to someone's house and choke them for talking!
Someone may've already addressed this (so I apologize for not reading through...)
So who's paying for the technology? I mean, donated stuff is great, but then there's the software for computers, the upkeep & upgrades, the cost of replacing the broken stuff later (who am I kidding, technology don't break!), then the cost of security and network policing... theft, damage... irresponsible teachers...
Being a former teacher, I have plenty of frustration with the school system that I could soapbox about. Regarding this issue, though, my opinion is that computers are being used as a crutch in classrooms; teachers are letting the program teach the kids. Teachers are becoming hardware babysitters (software if you include the kids.)
Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be better to teach a kid to think about how to solve and/or do (write, draw, etc) something and then apply it to the computer?
(I was a music teacher, by the way. My program was cut due to lack of funding, but that's another story.)
One corp to rule them all,
One corp to bind them;
One corp to bring them all...
And in the darkness spam them.
(seemed appropriate for N.Z.)
I've had Macs forever, since my father wouldn't allow anything in the house. (God bless him for that, hehe...)
I also lamented the world of Mac games, but here are some that I played and enjoyed thoroughly. Some, true, were ports to Mac, but they still qualify (unlike Half-Life, which I really wish had been ported). Let's see how many of you recall these titles...
Space Rogue - This was one of the earlier color games that sticks out in my mind. This was something along the lines of what Escape Velocity: Nova is today, with one notable exception (graphics aren't being discussed for obvious reasons) -- The combat screen wasn't a top-down third-person perspective; it was first-person, much along the lines of old SpectreVR, and you could operate in all three dimensions. All the while you hauled cargo (I could never get the cargo on Basruti...) and killed pirates, etc. Fantastic game.
Spaceship Warlock - Another color game, one of the first CD games that I rememeber for the Mac (ran on Pop's 4x CD drive - lol). Another pirate adventure starting you out in the brig of the Warlock. It's great fun.
Cosmic Osmo - I imagine there was probably one person out there who just freaked out at the mention of this game. Remember Hypercard (of course you do, this is the Mac forum...)? It was a hypercard based video game and it was insanely fun. I barely even remember anything about playing it but I remember playing it often. It was something of a puzzle-adventure; think Myst, but filtered for 99.9% of graphics and story. It was just entertaining.
Bolo - Tanks. Destruction. Networking. I don't know how old this one is/was, but it's one I miss. Bolo was a -great- game.
Spectre VR - Already mentioned, of course. LOVED it.
Also consider...
Dark Castle
Beyond Dark Castle
Scarab of Ra
The Colony
Apologies if any of these were already posted, but I love games; always found games to play on the old Macs.
See, the problem wasn't the -lack- of Mac games, it's that every Mac gamer had 100 friends with PC games... they felt left out. IMO, anyway.