[LINK] Interesting quote from Steve Jobs...

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 08:26:03PM +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> Craig writes,
> 
> > On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 12:44:49PM +1100, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> >
> > > I probably should know but don't - what was revolutionary about the
> > > Apple II?
> > 
> > the Apple II[1] was one of the first mass-market personal computers,
> 
> Yes, and certainly the Apple lle was an 'instant hit' with schools all
> over the world. All of a sudden it became a must-have technology which
> was 'cleverly' fuelled by Apple marketing.  Linkers might remember the 
> Apples-for-schools campaign which enabled quite a significant discount 
> for these computers for school communities which collected supermarket
> receipts. 

i don't think that marketing campaign happened until much later, at
least the mid- or late- 1980s.


> etc) and, enabled Aussie education to be in the vanguard of technology.
> A position we still hold specially compared with many European schools.

without naming any names, I've done a lot of work with computers in
education. in the 80s and even up to the early 90s, there was a lot of
work done (by enthusiastic teachers) on using computers as teaching ads,
to deliver course content, revision tests, and so on.

AFAICT, that's pretty much non-existant now.  Lots of schools have much
better technology, and many even make a fetish of how amazingly good and
expensive their computers and network are, but the teachers just aren't
using it or are only using it in the most basic manner.

I'm quite surprised by how it's turned out...I would have thought that
all that energy developing courseware in BASIC programs and hypercard
stacks and so on would have translated instantly to the web - but it
just doesn't seem to have happened or be happening.

even with LMS programs like moodle and studywiz and blackboard etc,
courseware development seems to be a fringe activity, with very few
teachers actively involved or aware of - or even interested in - the
possibilities that they offer.

having the equipment, the tools isn't enough.  someone has to actually
use them constructively.

IMO, while individual schools and teachers should be doing more on
this, the responsibility is with the State and Federal governments.
there really should be support and funding (and, above all vision) from
State and Federal Education Depts with teams of programmers and course
developers converting the standard curriculum for various subjects into
content for moodle (or some other open source LMS - it *has* to be open
source so that 1. ALL schools can afford it, 2. parents can afford to
run it at home, and 3. to avoid lock-in to proprietary sytems and data
formats).

if they can spend hundreds of millions on equipment, surely they
can spend a few million annually to hire developers to make good
use of that equipment?


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>