On 11-09-21 10:58 AM, John C Nash wrote: > Some of the people teaching 1306 (to call them Profs would be an > exaggeration, as many are > contract teachers, mostly part time and not qualified for academic > appointments, though > often quite dedicated) have been heard to insist on the use of M$ stuff. > > In the Telfer School, my own policy was to ask pointedly that students NOT be > required to > buy any particular software. We used Minitab as the "base" tool in the > statistics course, > but I made sure students knew that they only had to be able to interpret the > output, and > could use things like R or Octave for their computations. Further, that while > students > might be asked to submit material in .doc or .xls, since unfortunately many > offices > require the use of such formats, how they prepared them should not be > prescribed. For my > own courses, I used pdf as means of submission, and provided copious > information on how it > could be prepared without buying Acrobat. > > JN Interesting perspective.
I find institutional insistence on a particular tool instead of a particular output format quite alarming. People should be allowed to arrive at their destination by whatever means they choose - as long as they arrive at the correct destination. The variety of routes chosen is an indication of the health of the system in which they are working. No variety in the route is indication of a lack of innovation, free thinking and choice - not a great economic or societal indicator by any analysis. It always amazes me that the people insisting on usage of particular tools only make regular use of a tiny fraction of the capabilities of the tools they promote. Forcing usage of office tools that are designed for the Fortune 100, with commensurately complex feature sets seems to be counter productive. Sledgehammers to swat mosquitoes is the mentality - irrespective of collateral damage. -- Bill -- Bill _______________________________________________ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
