Posted By: Gary Baird
Students need access to the "latest" technology to give them the tools they will need to compete for the jobs of the future. I hear this statement, or something similar to it, from the "pro" bond crowd all the time. It's in their letters to the editor. They talk about it during the public comments at school board meetings. It's in their writings on the Citizen's Millage Committee website.
But what does it mean? If it's what Okemos Schools are currently doing with the millions of dollars of technology they already own, it simply means teaching them to use a few (primarily Microsoft Office) software applications, and do "research" on the internet. With the exception a few limited areas such as computer science, this is the level of proficiency most OPS students achieve after 10+ years of exposure to "technology" at school. Technology at the lowest level - as consumers. Where is the innovation? Where is the cutting edge? These skills and a buck will get you a cup of coffee. They will NOT qualify a student for a job in a "high tech" field.
As someone who has used PCs since the stone age of home computing, I remember when software was actually "difficult" to use. Modern user-friendly word processing and other office software is TRIVIAL by comparison. I can't understand why such an inordinate amount of time is spent learning/practicing such simple tasks. The only thing that makes sense to me is the schools are trying to justify having spent so much money on computer technology to start with.
Assuming for a second that we should give serious consideration that a child might be "disadvantaged" by not having 10+ years of learning to use Microsoft Office, the goal of 4 year life cycle for all computers in the district seems very wasteful. All this for the primary purpose of running Microsoft Office and surfing the internet? Older computers are perfectly capable of runing older versions of Microsoft Office. They ran them perfectly fine when both were new. The problem comes when computers do get replaced, the software gets upgraded. This is the situation OPS is in now, with many different versions on Microsoft Office on the various computers throughout the school district. A problem arises because Microsoft inevitably changes their proprietary file specs so that older versions can't read files produced by newer versions. To solve this problem there is an urge to upgrade the software on ALL the computers. This not only cost more money, it makes the older computers feel their age because the new software usually has become sufficiently bloated with additional "bells and whistles" that performance may be very sluggish on older hardware. So why not just run the old stuff? Well, you can't get licenses for it any more. What to do? Replace the computers every 4 years?
Here's a solution that costs nothing. OpenOffice. This is a FREE, open source code, suite of office applications, very similar to Microsoft Office. What's more, it will run on virtually any architecture: Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, you name it. Every student could take home a CD and install it on their home computer, FREE. It could be installed on every school computer FREE. No more version incompatibility. It will even read Microsoft Office files. This is the ONLY solution that has been suggested that solves the issue of compatibility. Did I mention it's FREE? It also won't be considered, which is another reason to VOTE NO on May 8th.