“It’s a question of ethical choices,” says Riverdale’s Nelson. “In a school, it’s public money. How should it be spent? Is it ethical to buy software instead of hiring an art teacher? Me, I want an art teacher–not the Microsoft help assistant dancing on every student’s desktop.”
I’ve said for years that what people (educators among them) call “teaching computers” is just teaching applications that will be a dim memory by the time the students reach the workforce. Teach them to think, to learn, whatever tools are at hand, and the rest will take care of itself.
Others understand this.
A provincial German town drops Microsoft for Linux – 03/24/03
“The Spanish province of Extremadura has made linux its official operating system going so far as to create its own regional distribution. Citing linux’s open source, Vazquez de Miguel, the province’s the minister of education, science and technology, said: “We are the future. If Microsoft doesn’t become more open and generous with its code, people will stop using it and it will disappear.”
[Posted with ecto]