One seldom encounters the technology-hating, outside of ascetic communes, environmental rallies, and shacks in Montana. Most people want technological progress. Americans are justifiability proud of our advanced technology, the envy of the world, and the product of our productive, free-market economy. No one wants an abacus instead of a computer, or a slow computer instead of a speedy one.
It’s nearly impossible, then, to see how someone would not endorse a plan with the goals that the Whitewater School’s technology plan proposes.
If I were voting, then I’d vote for those goals, too.
I’d just like to ask if the goals are met by the current effort. I wrote about this previously, in a post called, The IT Dead End in Our Schools The WUSD plan wants successful students, and so do I. I doubt that a single OS, single computer configuration is the best way to achieve that goal.
The plan as implemented is less a technology plan than a Microsoft and PC Vendor Support Plan. It has to be a PC, and it has to run the Microsoft operating system.
That’s foolish. Even in many enterprises, IT managers are moving away from a homogeneous Microsoft environment. Across this continent of three hundred million, how many use the Firefox browser rather than Internet Explorer? Millions — just no one in our schools. How many use the Linux OS? Millions, just no one in our schools. How many use a Mac with OS X? Millions, just no one in our schools. (For smartphones, the whole Windows mobile world of Treos and Blackjacks is threatened by non-Microsoft software from RIM’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone.)
Why? Do our WUSD IT coordinators know better than millions of successful, affluent consumers? Alternatively, is it that they know Windows better, and so that’s what they install? If we had a vendor that wasn’t a Windows-only seller, perhaps we’d have a better selection, that better matched the diverse possibilities that this amazing society offers.
By the way, a few quick points about the Register’s recent story, entitled, “Tech-Savvy.” First, is there anything about the story that’s the least bit reflective? It’s written as a story, but it might as well have been a press release. The story doesn’t really ask anything about how the plan has unfolded in our schools. The goals are admirable, but the implementation has been technologically undiversified.
One other point, that applies to comparison between our schools and peer districts. We may score better than other districts on any number of other surveys, but if our peers are performing poorly, that’s no consolation. Even the largest mouse is still puny. Why not set a better standard than peers who may be struggling? (The city budget report had the same flaw, the same consultant’s method of comparison. It shows how we are more efficient than some of our peers. So be it; can’t we set a better standard than Somewhat Above the Herd?)
When students leave our schools, they’ll have the chance to purchase and choose better software and hardware than we provide, and require, them to use while they’re with us. Our students should have the opportunity – now – to use the different computers and operating systems that America produces to the benefit and enjoyment of all the world.
UPDATE: One of the strengths of the web, over dead-tree publishing, is that a web publisher can provide links to original material about which a conventional newspaper can only refer. For example, the Register can refer to the WUSD technology plan, and EnGauge survey, but I can link to the original documents, so that you can read them for yourselves. The Tech Plan is available as a .pdf file, and the EnGauge survey is available, also, as a .pdf file.