I now teach in a computer lab for K-8 students. The lab is very poorly
equipped, in fact I brought my own out-dated IBM XT clone with its word
processor, spread sheet, and Internet capabilities. I have discovered
that Apple apparently targeted education for its products because it
could limit their design to something less than useful elsewhere and as
such could underprice the market. This worked most schools are loaded
with Apple products.
The only industrial market Apple penetrated was the offset printing
industry and for this they produced special versions of their Macintosh
model. They had an excellent design for the job and promptly achieved
dominance in the small shops of which there were many.
I also teach courses at Keene State College, Professional Studies
Department. Like many educational groups, Keene State, until most
recently went with the Apple products. In fact, the faculty is very
Apple oriented because that was what they were brought up on. The
*Computers for Education* course which I teach uses Apple Mackintosh
because the school lacks educational software for the IBM clone equipment.
I believe that we do our students a great disservice by cutting their
teeth on equipment which still quite isolates itself from the rest of the
industrial world. A disservice because, though the Apple can now use
either the Windows/Dos operating system, the Apple is still foreign
enough that one has to stop an think about *how* this or that works.
I vote that educators stay mainstream and stop making excuses for their
lack of understanding the industrial markets where most of their
graduates end up.
Charlie Richmond ccr@gold.mv.net
Lecturer, Keene State College crichmon@keene.edu
Ed. D. Candidate, U Mass, Amherst