[Offtopic] GIMP

[Mark Scott]

Not just Publisher but PowerPoint as well.

Both are an utter waste of space in an educational setting.

They both detract from learning and add nothing.

And as for SMARTboards; what a waste of time. Just another way of
teachers teaching and ignoring student learning.

...and whiteboard markers.  Just a clever way of forcing change on
schools and forcing them to spend money.

Bring back good old chalk I say.

Mark Scott

(I won't start on laptop computers...)


-----Original Message-----
From: offtopic-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:offtopic-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Jim Maunder
Sent: Thursday, 8 March 2007 10:02 AM
To: Information Technology Teachers' Offtopic Mailing List
Subject: RE: [Offtopic] GIMP

At 09:31 AM 8/03/2007, you wrote:

>This has been an issue in every school I have worked in.
>
>Still don't know what the solution is?
>
>Shoot them all, maybe?
>
>Mark
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: offtopic-bounces at edulists.com.au
>[mailto:offtopic-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Jim Maunder
>Sent: Thursday, 8 March 2007 9:25 AM
>To: Information Technology Teachers' Offtopic Mailing List
>Subject: RE: [Offtopic] GIMP
>
>Now all you've got to do is stop them wingeing about not having Macs.

Look at it the other way - if it was an all-Mac school the IT 
teaching staff would winge about not having PCs. I think it's about 
what the users perceive is the standard for their industry. The 
reality is that Macs and PCs are functionally interchangeable. It's 
just that PCs are easier to look after.

Now about MS Publisher - you teachers need to think about what you 
are teaching/fostering - is it DTP skills, or subject research 
skills. I'm sure that when I was in primary school doing a 'project' 
the main purpose of the task was not learning to cut out pictures and 
glue them onto cardboard. However, there are probably useful skills 
to be gained from laying out text and pictures on a mark-up board, 
working out how to centre text without using the 'justify' button etc.

On a similar vein there are plenty of bookkeepers and accountants who 
were drawn to their professions because they loved the physical 
process of writing numbers in columns and adding them up in their 
heads, and plenty of Engineers and Architects who love drawing plans 
with pencil and tracing paper. (I was one of these in a previous 
life) They have had these processes removed from their lives by 
computers, and while some have taken to the new way of working, 
others still like the old way. So it is with publishing.

Just this old fart's waffle - now get back to work!

rgds
Jim




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Ruyton Girls School
Melbourne, Australia


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