On Tue, 2002-07-23 at 12:04, nate at refried.org wrote: > On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 11:28:08AM -0500, Dan Rue wrote: > > You can start going to open source a little at a time, without hiring a > > new IT staff. For instance, you can save that 50-75K by running open > > office on existing windows systems. Open source software is nice enough > > now to start running certain applications, without diving in head first. > > <devil's advocate> > While that may all be true, isn't the point of school to teach kids > things that they'll _use_ once they get out of school? That's why my > high school (back in the day) used primarily Windows, MS Office, > WordPerfect, Pagemaker, Quark Xpress, etc. Why teach them an > application they an application that they'll probably never use? > </devil's advocate> All schools are not trade schools. In most schools they're going to class to learn to _write_, not to become an expert in one word processor. They're learning the concepts of _publishing_, not just how to become a Quark Xpress or Pagemaker whiz. The concept of "diversity" that's been done to death in our educational systems applies not just to race but to software. As long as the teacher receives a paper in an acceptable standard format, it's irrelevant what program was used to create it. Give them a few options on the school computers, let them choose what they prefer. There's a plethora of community education classes and other resources for people who just want to put "Microsoft Word" on their resume. -- Carl Patten