[DM-MUG] Register's piece on laptops in DM Schools.... and others?

[Tony LaFemina]

John Turnage wrote:

>"Enlisted" is a poor choice of words.  Maybe out of necessity.  And when you
>make the remark "it's a shame" when referring to teachers and their lack of
>expertise when it comes to Macs, those are "fightin' words".  Back off.  Our
>tech is next to useless.
>
>
Hi John

Without trying to add fuel to the fire, the group I belong to has a few 
teachers in it, and the ones I've met (2 or 3) left a lot to be desired. 
As a matter of fact, I once tried to give an AppleWorks demonstration at 
a meeting. I specialize in spreadsheets and figured I'd open with one. 
It was something I designed, to teach little kids simple arithmetic and 
introduce them to the computer at the same time. The spreadsheet uses a 
macro so all anyone has to do to make it work is enter numbers and press 
the Return key.

To make a long story short, my demo ended with that spreadsheet. I was 
bombarded with questions and couldn't move on to the other stuff I had 
planned. The first person to approach me was a teacher, and her question 
was, "How does it work?". I replied, "Basic arithmetic and a macro" 
which wasn't enough to satisfy her (and probably a bunch of others as 
well). Judging by the direction of the conversation, I think she wanted 
me to take her step-by-step through the design process.

Another thing I thought was odd, about teachers in general, that is. 
Many of them have a tendency to use the phrase, "I'm trying to do/make a 
simple... when referring to a process or software program. I don't have 
the heart to tell them it's only simple when you can do it.

By the way! If anyone is curious about the spreadsheet I mentioned, you 
can download it from here. 
ftp://members.aol.com/easyapps/psslib/math.sit but you need a version of 
AppleWorks that supports macros.

-- 
Tony LaFemina
When you want to do more than just buy software
http://hometown.aol.com/visitmacland/index.html
mailto:remacs@optonline.net