[Tutor] Python as Application (OT now)

[Lee Harr]

Sorry about misposting this here. I always mix up the
tutor@ and edu-sig@ lists. I am just going to follow
up two things that seem tutor related.

If this seems interesting, you may want to join the
edu-sig  list for more...


>>More frightening to me than the ubiquitous use of MS Office is the
>>omnipresence of windows. Every time a student sits down in front
>>of KDE in our lab and says "Where is the internet?" I can only cringe.


>I do wonder why you cringe. Educate the user. He is expecting his
>usual metaphor, and it's not there. The majority of the world has it,
>remember, so he expects you to as well.
>


Certainly. I guess I should have said "I have to cringe" instead of
"...only cringe". I don't just walk away and leave people wondering
why it is impossible to do what they want to do.

As for why ... I guess I just see internet explorer (and windows) as
so limiting, that I cannot understand why this is what we are
teaching.

How do children reach high school without knowing what the
internet is, and that it is not the blue "e"?


>I've never worked in any workplace where anything else other than
>Excel was used.

>You can't really separate spreadsheet from Excel, or word processing
>from Word, in the general public's view.


Well. I've never worked anyplace where excel was used for anything
other than a badly designed database. Someone must be teaching
people that is what it is for. ("Formula? What is a formula?")

I also get all kinds of odd documents in my lab. People have no idea
what file formats are and are (understandably) upset when they
cannot print out their papers. And yes, we do have a computer
running windows with office, and we still get strange microsoft
documents that are unopenable.

Papers are generally poorly formatted. Things like using the space
bar or tab key to center things. Then even when the docs do open
up, the formatting is all askew.

Perhaps if teachers thought more about the _abstraction_ of a word
processor and the _abstraction_ of a spreadsheet, and focused on
how these tools are best used  --  instead of focusing on how to
use the specific implementations -- we would have fewer problems,
and more capable students.

To me, programming is all about abstraction.


Thanks for your time.
(please follow up to edu-sig)

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