Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Medical Illustration <druid AT email.unc.edu>]

>> The problem is procurement policies and other regulations that state
>> that M$ software is required for compliance. In those cases, no other
>> solution, even Mac, can get it's foot in the door until the policy or
>> regulation is changed. For example, part of our MS site license is 3,000
>> M$ Works licenses. Why? Because the state of NC requires M$ Works for
>> the mandatory 8th grade computer test.
> 
> While that makes sense from your prospective, what idiot wrote into law
> that a particular software package and not general skills would be in a
> test of that nature?

You'd be freaking surprised.  I'm working freelance, developing Flash based
games that help teach children the terms needed to pass that particular
test.  As far as I can tell, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING from
databasing to slide making to spreadsheeting is Microsoft specific.  Not
only that, but it seems to be  mostly works, which I had personally thought
was outdated and had been left behind in favor of the office suite.

That I could figure out, there only seemed to be one application that was
not Microsoft specific, and that was an extra app that this particular
school sys was teaching, not something mandated by the state.

Before I looked at these questions, I thought the kids would really be able
to work well with a computer after all this computer training.  But from the
looks of it, we're really only teaching them reliance on Microsoft specific
products.  The databasing questions would not apply to any SQL compliant
rdbms, the word processing questions would only apply to works, half would
be different in word, the multimedia questions seem to make powerpoint out
to be a highly advanced multimedia production program (ooh, ahh, I can make
my text fly in... I'm a multimedia WHIZ)...  It's really frustrating to see
what crap they are teaching these kids...These kids are going to grow up
thinking that the only programs you can run on your comp are Microsoft
packages...

Sigh...  

D