[Wylug-discuss] PDA's in schools

[Andrew J Cole]

>           No other technology was even looked at. Microsoft naturally
>jumped at the opportunity of selling 10,000's of PDA's to British school
>kids and gave him lots of free kit, trips to the states etc. 

Tony B could well be courting MS as part of his retirement plan!

>So, the future of computers in schools in the UK could well be stitched
>up by an ex headmaster who used to struggle to turn on his
>computer......

I didn't see the news item in question and haven't noticed it reported in
the press but I presume that this is not presented as a proper "Teaching
and Learning" initiative but rather as yet another proposal to provide
pupils with a personal "PC" for notetaking, homework and data transport.

As it it appears to target a commodity device (and MS) it cannot do
worse than some previous initiatives which seemed to do nothing more
than push virtually unshiftable kit.

What about other commodity devices - iPods for instance?

Computers in Schools (and in education in general) should be about
systems and software to enhance teaching (ie. with at least some element
of knowledge transfer).

As a report last week which seems to have killed off some daft goverment
proposals for IT testing in schools said the use of computers in schools
is actually pretty pathetic and concentrates far too much on vocational
elements (which in most cases is familiarity with MS software -- here
OpenOffice would seem to fit quite nicely).

It used to be said that nobody ever got sacked for purchasing IBM:
today that seems to be MS but that might not be the case much longer.

Andrew