hi On 9/2/07, jonathon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Howard wrote: > > > And, fire the guy who made the decision to use a spreadsheet for this > kind of > > As a first step, that would be fairly useful. > > Demonstrate that there are real and practical consequences to using > the wrong tool for the job. >
The woman who created this .xls spreadsheet is considered a hero at this school. The spreadsheet was created 2 years ago, and this school has grown by 33% or so since that time. But they are still using the same spreadsheet system because it loads lightning fast on Excel. You couldn't possibly tell them that Excel is not a good solution for this need, unfortunately. I wouldn't even broach the subject, because they think that I am a wee bit odd as it is. Heh. It has taken me two years to get to the point where I can now ask one teacher to do an introduction to the students on the Ubuntu philosophy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29 One of the key regional differences in attitudes that I am seeing with my work in shooting the Digital Tipping Point is that in North America and parts of Europe, the emphasis is on practicality of computer usage, to the utter exclusion of philosophy in some cases, especially as contrasted with the attitudes in Latin America, where the idea of digital freedom resonates. That certainly is true in the case of this school, at least.
