Just ordered an iPhone 5
. . . Today Tonight
. . . I’m not sure how valid the whole skit was anyways?????
You answered your own question.
You must have missed the bit about it being the “pillar of journalism”?????
Nope, I was just making it perfectly clear.
To the person that made the point?????
Last I checked, more people read threads on Boardworld than just you and I.
Maybe “You just answered the question for everyone” would’ve been more like it then?????
Perhaps, but much to my perpetual disappointment, I still regularly choose to give people’s literacy skills the benefit of the doubt.
I think for a long time Apple was very much the easiest interface to new tech than anything else on the market for those who had limited tech skills. Nowadays I think that the other manufacturers have copied, caught and surpassed this as well as Apples looks.
Additionally the general populations tech skill level has risen and many are appreciating open platform capability and if not that than seeking to avoid the proprietary nature of all things Apple.
In regards to the schools, a level of uniformity is required to allow teachers to teach the discipline they need to teach rather then dick around trying to show students how to do something on the computer for 7 different platforms. Imagine having to know how to do the same thing on 3 diff types of macbook and then windows XP, vista and 7, the hour long period would be done by the time the IT was taken care of.
There’s not that much difference between applications on Apple machines and programs* on Windows machines, so teaching is essentially the same on either platform.
* It makes you wonder why Windows mobile devices have “apps”, not “progs”?
thanks, nthn.
Most of the deal with students not bringing in their own laptops is so that what they do is controlled. (as I explained previously). If you are using a school/government owned computer then you are bound to follow the rules that are the conditions of use. Students all sign usage agreements. So if you try to look up porn or do the wrong thing, you can be properly pinged for it…and rightly so.
If kids could bring in their own private computers, then all manner of material can be accessed in class and there isn’t much the teacher can really do about it…but parents would get up in arms if they found out that dodgy material was being accessed and passed around between students during school. Not having their own makes this much more difficult and if they are found to be doing it they get in a lot more trouble.
The poor kids. I guess they’ll have to “look up porn or do the wrong thing” and access “all manner of material” on their smart phones instead. 
I am having this little battle in my head right now cords, I sooooo get where you are coming from, but I also think thats where schools fail at the same time.
One day will sit, drink and sort out the education system so it works like it should 
I am having this little battle in my head . . .
That’s because you evidently advocate the assumption of personal responsibility - something the left are notoriously not too comfortable with.
I’m up for that. Sounds good!
I see the other side too, you know….but I also see what basically a big freakin’ distraction the introduction of phones and computers has brought. kids are so addicted to these things that it sometimes makes attempting to teach them stuff really, really difficult.
I’m not saying the education system couldn’t do with a big overhaul and practices etc are in need of change, but these things never happen quickly, so just flat out undermining current efforts doesn’t help at all.
chucky it is actually EVERYTHING to do with personal responsibility….the system in place says that if you choose to do that stuff, don’t do it on the school’s machines and in school time because you run the risk of being caught and punished. There is still evidently a choice there and therefore personal responsibility, it just removes the school’s responsibility for what some punks decide to do with their government owned laptops.
If kids want to do it on their smartphones, then they can by all means do it and be personally responsible for it, but it is nothing to do with the school.
What you are actually describing is the avoidance of potential liability on the schools’ behalf - an entirely different thing.
yes but does the avoidance of potential liability not place the onus of responsibility on the individual students…personal responsibility??
I think in this case it is a perfectly reasonable things to draw a line in the sand and avoid liability for such matters.Students therefore become responsible for their own actions which is what you spend half your time trying to teach them, as teenagers (and some adults) like to place blame everywhere except on themselves. Choose what you want to do but choose carefully and be prepared to suck it up and take the punishment if you knowingly break the rules. Seems pretty standard to me.
. . . does the avoidance of potential liability not place the onus of responsibility on the individual students…personal responsibility??
So you agree that all kids SHOULD be allowed to use their own laptops if they (or their parents) so choose?
no, clearly I don’t as at that point, the school has not avoided liability and the school can be punished for the student’s choices.