We students have it rough. For each course we take we have to learn how to use the tools they give us.
In Math; you learn the formulas, Foods; the recipes, Wood shop; the machines. Comm tech has students making webpages, in which case you use the web page program.
If we get high marks in that any of these classes people will know we can solve problems, cook food, work wood, or create webpages.
What they don't know is that we have to rely on the webpage program that the school forces us to use.
At E.D.S.S, all of the communications technology students learn how to use the Adobe Dreamweaver program. I happen to know that it doesn't work. Or at least, work well
Adobe.com says Dreamweaver can "Design, develop, and maintain standards-based websites and applications."
They don't say that the standards they maintain are ones they've made up.
Good webpages can be accessed by anyone, be they blind, deaf, or dumb. That's where standards come in. There is a group called the World Wide Web consortium that sets those standards. They give you an option on their site to check your website for errors. When I started out making webpages in Dreamweaver, I put a page through the tester which came back negative. I tried to fix it but just made things worse because I had no idea what to do.
Because the school system had taught me to rely on an Adobe product I couldn't make the webpage work the way I wanted. If I had been taught how to make a webpage using proper html code I would have been versatile enough.
E.D.S.S. seems to only use Adobe and Microsoft products. The computers run Windows with MS word, and PowerPoint. The image tools are Photoshop, Flash, and everything else Adobe.
When I apply for a job my potential employer will probably ask "What do you have experience with?" I'm going to want to say more than one program.
The point of going to school is to learn new things. Programs from only one publisher is simply not enough. Not only are the tools they give you bad and limited, but the schools PAY for them.
There are plenty of free programs out there that the schools could use for free, however the school board continues to pay for ones that are owned by large companies.
The board can even continue using those programs if they want. But only exposing students to one option severely limits what they can use on jobs and personal projects.
Why the school board hasn't yet introduced more options is not a big mystery. The WRDSB Chief Information Officer is Mark Carbone. Carbone taught from 1981-1990, and a department head till 1999. He then consulted on Information and communications technology for 5 years and continued climbing the ladder. For three years he has served as the CIO for Waterloo's schoolboard. His online resume says that he has degrees in Education and Music. The only Information Tech schooling he had was a five day course four years ago.
This makes me ask why a music teacher is in charge of selecting the programs students are being trained to use for the rest of their lives.
He may have spent years tinkering with computers and software, but he could just as easily have no idea what he is doing. If I were an astronaut, I wouldn't want an amateur rocket scientist sending me to the moon
If I was deciding who got to choose what programs students were taught, I would want someone who actually used these programs. I would also want the teachers to be able to teach the students as they see fit, using programs that they are familiar with. Teachers with no reason to think creatively may as well be replaced by robots.
The role of a teacher should be to impart their knowledge of what they know works. Not to groom students into using only board-approved products.
It is a great disadvantage to be able to have one or two companies control all of the technology that students use. Those companies can then control what gets taught. The schools will have no choice because their students will only know how to use those products.
If the students are instead taught to use many different programs then they will be able to more easily pick up new programs. Instead of simply going through the motions of what they are taught they will have learnt how to learn.
In the wild, the animals that survive are the ones that can adapt to new dangers. If today's students don't learn how to do the same then tomorrow they will become extinct.