http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
This seems to describe what I heard on a WPR podcast last year...
]]>The Taliban, like some christians of the 4-6th centuries believed that: "everything we need to know is in the works of the bible/koran" (As appropriate) and that, even worse, "other" knowledge should be eradicated. In this specific case, the Taliban are students of the collection of Dark-Ages camelherders' myths usually called "the recital". Which is s subset of Theology - a subject with no content. Oops.
]]>In any case, the Taliban are generally better educated than the ordinary Afghan (Yusuf Zeropack?). At least they can read and write.
I was in school from the mid 1970s to 1999; I'm certainly not against education. Still, there are limits to what it can do. All indications are that in the US we're sending too many people into higher education; there aren't appropriate jobs when they get out and their debts make menial employment even more burdensome.
]]>Reverting, the Taliban, of course, just prevent education altogether, a * slightly * (ahem) more extreme position to the others, so equating the primitive Texans with the Taliban won't wash either.
Questionable. Preventing access to formal education is not equivalent to preventing education altogether. And while I agree it is an abhorrent thing to prevent access on the basis of gender, I find it's a really close toss-up in my personal catalogue of evil to prevent access to education - something that can be fairly easily rectified if those blocking it go away in a decade or two - compared to wilfully teaching everyone things that are demonstrably wrong. (I'm not talking about simplifications for age groups that you then say 'well, it's a bit more complicated' although I have some issues with that too.) Just wrong. It's often easier to teach people who know they're lacking something, and they will go much further, than re-educating people who have been taught things wrongly for an extended period and have a world-view well entrenched in that wrong thought.
Look at the vitriol poured on Darwin - you would hope 100+ years later that would be over - but it appears not.
But women under Taliban rule, however shitty it is - and I'm not saying it's not shitty - will talk to each other, learn from each other, and will know they've been denied access to formal education. If the Taliban thrash around and go in 10 years, or 20, the women will be there and many of them will be happy to learn. Give them 5 years of support and you probably won't realise they weren't taught at school - there will be a generation of lost mathematicians perhaps, they tend to peak young, but most other disciplines you can catch up surprisingly quickly.
]]>FOr instance, look at the Tory education policy - sell off schools to whomever wants one, a continuation of the new labour one of letting whatever private company or religious organisation start one if they ponied up a million or two. We know that a number of private schools are teaching creationist lies, the problem is proving it to a generally disinterested department of education and public who have been propagandised out of a belief in the usefulness of real information and how lying to children is bad.
]]>Education is only part of the answer.
Oh agreed. I'm trying hard not to troll Greg while playing whatever the atheist equivalent to devil's advocate to his position is. It seems to me his stance is fundamentally sectarianism with a mixture of some other nasty -isms too. Education is his chosen battleground for how evil the Taliban are compared to everyone else. He rapidly retreated on women's rights for some reason.
I think there's a lot of space for a fundamental debate about what the education system should be for, and what the school system should be for. I deliberately separate them which might tell you something about my starting point! Unless Charlie decides to visit that topic (or really leaves his sanity behind and asks me to guest write about it) I'm inclined to think that's really, really not a topic for this comments thread sadly. (If you want to go and ahead and hijack it some more anyway, brace yourself for some LONG essays!)
]]>INdeed, this isn't quite the right place for such a discussion, although maybe Charlie will have some views on the topic over the next wee while, what with the Tory destruction of school and higher education gathering pace, with an innumerate education minister who has an ego the size of a planet.
]]>In the past year I've been working with an org that is Word centric and it is entertaining to watch the "Word is fine" folks spend much time fixing Word created errors, but they are so used to it they don't see it. Humans are the affordance system for Word. It is the technology doesn't watch out for us and help us, we have to mind and watch out for it.
The last 6 months I have been talking with a decent number of very large organizations who have been running into a Word dead-end. Their folks that work out of the office and in the field (sales, field engineers, site examiners, etc.) all shifted to light tablets (mostly Android or Apple iOS) and lack Word. For compatibility and occasionally the lack of network access they have been using text tools with markdown (often with GUI interface for markdown, yet many use text insertions too). (There isn't a markdown tool of choice as there are seemingly as many markdown text editors as there are hairs on a dog, but they all work together relatively well.) The people found the didn't fuss with their words and tools, most of their words were placed into an online capture tool, and almost never were printed. Markdown allowed them to share files across their own devices and share with others.
The pain point has been this past year with their organizations moving to Office 365 their organization had no idea that 25% to 40% of their organization had not only stopped using Word, but are radically opposed to ever having to use it again. The organization has been having to pay for their "seat" to Microsoft and the companies want their money back. The companies are also finding the "new way" is growing by around 2% each month. They are trying to sort out how to embrace this "new way" in the next year and how to get out of the multi-year Microsoft contract.
One organization I chatted with this past 6 months is a worldly organization that has the aim to look after the world and they are trying to get out of Word mostly because of the comments change tracking has introduced errors and wrong versions because of an unusable interface. The problem costs them into the millions each year for time spent managing the errors. The problem has nearly lead to international disasters on a few occasions, but was averted with heavy discussions and many hours with teams trying to trackback to get the correct language into the final document. There are a few text and markdown co-editing tools that are in rather early release stages, but even these nascent tools have been showing fewer problems and ease of collaborative editing than Word. But, they are not ready to fully jump over to these solutions, yet they are certain Word is on its last legs in their organization.
]]>And yes, Gove does have an ego the size of a planet & he's dead wrong on religious education, but he is correct about the abysmal standards in Brit schools _ I used to be a teacher (amongst other things) & it was very dispiriting.
How's that for a brief round-up ??
]]>That rant is at http://bsdly.blogspot.ca/2013/11/compatibility-is-hard-chartestdoc-is.html, for you to enjoy or bitch about, but it does come with real data!
]]>The sweetener from MS and the awarding body involved was being able to add the MS logo to all of our documentation. Translation, price increase on fees charged, more money all round so pay raises all round.
We ran through a mock test and as previously stated, failed. 3 people who used word on a daily basis, running courses and using it in the business generally.
The online test software worked by logging every key stroke and mouse movement, it couldn't measure final results, it had to test the process. I can't remember specifics but I always remember one of our failed questions. We took 3 steps to format part of the test document, the test software said we should have taken 6 or 7. This was a common theme throughout the test.
If we had taken up the pilot we would have had to revamp every course (there was a test for each Office module) to take account of this and train people in a specific, mostly longer, process.
So not only did they want you to use their software. You had you use it in the way they thought you should use it.
MSSPEAK!
]]>Someplace upthread, I've raised the point that they've admitted that Windoze8 is designed for touch screens, to the exclusion of all else.
]]>I did this on a G4 PPC Mac with OS 10.4.11 Tiger installed. AppleWorks 6 is also installed on this machine, so i did side-by-side viewings to check accuracy. Pages ’09 shipped with the Snow Leopard Box Set, so it ought to work at least with that OS on MacTels, but i did not test this.
One likely explanation between MSB’s findings and mine is that i used AppleWorks 6 documents. Many of you may remember that there was some sort of format change between earlier ClarisWorks and AppleWorks versions to AppleWorks 6, whereby when AppleWorks 6 encountered a ClarisWorks 3 or 4 or AppleWorks 5 document, it would convert it before opening it (as Pages does with the AW 6 docs). It is very likely not possible to go directly from CW 3 or 4 or earlier or AW 5 to Pages, though in a perfect world it ought to be.
This is all part of The Apple Way (the Apple business model/world view): people are supposed to get so excited they pee themselves with each sequential major upgrade of hardware/OS/other software, and faithfully buy each item right away when it comes out. I’ve never done this myself and almost certainly never will, but i have learned over the years that Apple does tend to cover this scenario in terms of one-way migrations of user content… just don’t skip any steps!
]]>(Don't love Big Brother Microsoft, but that's a whole other story.)
]]>In that case why have I been using Windows 8 with a GUI desktop and no touch input devices for the last two years? Again, like the Lords of the Copybook Headings, I say that touch is another interface for Windows 8, not an exclusive means of interacting with the system. Heck, it's even got a command window yep, Textronix 4014 emulation mode with the background set to dark green and text as white Lucida for old-school types like myself.
Even Win8RT tablets and Win8Phone phones will work with keyboards and mice, trackballs, pen tablets etc. if they are plugged in or connected by Bluetooth. I don't know whee you got the incorrect information about touch excluding everything else from Win8 but it's so totally wrong I have to think it's part of a deliberate disinformation campaign by someone feeding the prejudices of others.
]]>