[LINK] Open source USB key to $2bn laptop plan

[Paul Brooks]

Carl Makin wrote:
> On 12/12/2008, at 8:46 AM, Paul Brooks wrote:
>
>   
>> No problem Bill - we can also fit in  Exchange, to make sure the  
>> little
>> Aussie kiddies are fully prepared for entering the workforce, and
>> probably squeeze in Powerpoint as well.
>>     
>
> Yeah they need PowerPoint as well.  One of the parent/teacher  
> conferences we had last year for my 10 yr old (at the time) was him  
> giving us a powerpoint presentation of his accomplishments during the  
> year.
>   
...which I am sure he could have given to you at home, allowing the 
parent/teacher time to be used for joint planning of your childs 
education between parent and (gasp) teacher. Sounds like the teacher 
didn't want to be left alone in a room with a serial conga-line of 
parents - or was there an opportunity for that interaction as well?

To bring this thread back on topic, our (public) primary school just 
decided to purchase 2 year old Mac laptops - 80 of them, with 1 year 
remaining warranty - for $550 to bring Year 6 almost to 1:1 ratio of 
laptops to students, courtesy of another school that is turning over 
their laptop fleet bought new.

Several parents at that P&C meeting were certain that the federal 
government's $500 laptop for high schools was going to be a Mac, others 
had heard they would be Dells (and by implication Windows, but didn't 
have the background to be able to distinguish between the badge on the 
front and the OS running inside). Nobody knew anything about the actual 
process still in train.

Predictably, most of the meeting was taken over by moaning about the 
school being a Mac school, the majority of the world runs Windows, the 
majority of families have Windows at home and so the students can't 
transfer their school projects to work on at home and vice versa, and 
why don't we dump all the Macs and buy Windows laptops instead   - until 
I stood up and told them to get over it, either way its a graphical 
screen with a mouse, people move the mouse over the icons and click in 
both systems, and kids are much more adept at moving seamlessly between 
the two operating systems than their parents.

Cheers,
    Paul.