Education News 5/4-11/2001

Monday, May 7, 2001

John Droz, Jr. wrote this weekend. He has again updated his excellent site, Should Our Schools (or Anybody Else) Have Macs or PCs?

Steve:
: Last week I had a productive meeting with our school superintendent and some school board members. Although I answered all their questions as to why Macs are better than PCs, I could see that they were not entirely satisfied with one issue.
: Paraphrasing their question, it is: "Why should our school be using computers that most businesses do not?"
: Even though I had already addressed this on my site, I felt I needed to strengthen it. I went back through many of the 1000+ email I have recently received (several having pertinent observations here), and checked out several more applicable sites.
: The result is that I completely rewrote my page dealing with this common question, now listing ten reasons why it is the right thing to do (<<http://homepage.mac.com/mac_vs_pc/3.html>>). I may be biased here (!), but I think that this is the most comprehensive set of reasons ever forwarded about this concern.
: As such (and because it is a popular question) you might want to think about doing a story on this. As usual if readers have corrections or additional supportive ideas I will be pleased to consider them.
: Regards,; John Droz, jr.

Disk First Aid 8.6.1 is again available for download from Apple's servers without using the software update control panel.

School Express has added two new free titles to its Concentrate series, Numbers and Animals. (Note: When decompressed, the application name for Numbers appears as "C2.exe," but launches and works as a Mac application.

I noticed that the School Express also carries a nice set of handwriting fonts for purchase at their online store. They look to be about the same as the SchoolHouse font collection Apple apparently licensed from Signature Software for AppleWorks 6. I guess I'm a bit of a font freak, as at one time I actually wrote my own slant print font for use in my classroom. I also still use Mountain Lake Software's School Fonts regularly for spelling and handwriting worksheets in my classroom.

Since I'm totally off on a font tangent, I'll go on. I was pleased to see when looking at these fonts that my copy of Macromedia's Fontographer still worked well under Mac OS 9.1. There hasn't been an update or upgrade in years. The full version is still available from Macromedia for $349! Amazon also has it for $314.99. Wow! I think I paid a little over $100 for the education version when I got my copy.

I finished last week on a personal business day to help move one of our daughters back home for the summer from Indiana University. We got things wrapped up in pretty good shape there and were able to stop by the IU bookstore for a few minutes before coming home. Being a truly caring parent, I took the opportunity to get Samantha a copy of Office 2001 for $5! It's pretty amazing to see the push Microsoft has made to capture the college market, with an array of software titles at just $5 a CD. The software was displayed -- well, stacks and stacks of CD's in jackets -- in a glass case that had 4 iMacs atop it. They were the only computers for sale on the main floor.

I spent a good deal of time Friday evening wading through a barrage of flames in response to my column Never Mind. Apple Education probably is dead. When I sorted out the ACDNW's (Apple can do no wrong.) and looked at the responses from educators, some of my fears for Apple Education were pretty well confirmed. Apple hasn't done much to help us keep our Macs at schools. There were some very good situations described, but far too many stories of Apple losing its hold at their schools. Unfortunately, there were some errors in the column concerning pricing, for which I'm going to pay a heavy toll in credibility:-(. They may obscure the prime thrust of it that Apple's current pricing will not break through the Windows barrier at most schools.

I am honored that the Mac News Network opened up a forum for the column. The comments there are running about 50-50. Half want to hang me, and the other half want me shot!

Ever edit a web page, or your high school or college newspaper on a slow news day? Well, that's today for Educators' News. So, if you're looking for some hot education news, you might be well advised to visit the NEA or CEC sites. What follows is 209 words of filler:-).

On days like today, I always check the out a few favorite cartoon sites for something with computing or educational relevance. Unfortunately, Daily Static is really cool today, but is a bit of a geeky inside joke. While Scott Adams The Dilbert Zone often will bring a grin to the cubically oppressed, Monday's frame comes up lame. My favorite educationally related strip, Funky Winkerbean, is stuck at April 23 with a frame about telescopes and aliens. Even good old Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur is stuck on a smoking joke. Oh well, so much for the classics! (Can you guess my grade in literature?)

Has anyone received a new iBook as yet? Or, for that matter, their AppleWorks 6.1 shipment?

While the MacAddict site got put on hold for a few days this week, my print copy for June arrived today chock full of OS X material. Just as sites such as Version Tracker (C, X) and MacFixIt (C, X) have had to split into Classic and OS X sections, MacAddict's CD will now carry both types of applications. While I really prefer OS 9.1 at this point, I am a total shareware junkie and will be tripping out this week trying various items from the CD.

The only piece of real news I found today was a MacObserver posting that pointed the way to a Wall Street Journal article by Pui-Wing Tam. The WSJ column says an Apple Computer spokeswoman confirmed that "Apple will open its first retail store on May 19." Apple has apparently sent out invitations for the grand opening of an Apple retail store in McLean, Virginia.

John Droz, Jr. is back in the Mac news again. Charles Haddad has an excellent column in Business Week, about John's efforts to revitalize Apple Education and the viability of Macs in schools. Reeducating School Boards about Macs chronicles some of John's efforts. If you haven't visited John's site as yet, it's a good one for times when you're fighting platform wars at your school.

It appears that Apple will ship AppleWorks 6.1 CD's well within the promised "May" timeframe. I received an email from Apple yesterday that said,"We expect to ship your order by May 21st." Although Apple got the bugs worked out of AppleWorks with the 6.1.2 update (and the system 9.1 update), I've held off switching over totally to AppleWorks 6 until the Windows version was out. The AppleWorks 6.1 CD is supposed to ship as a hybrid CD containing both versions. It's only available right now through the Apple Store for Education, but at the great price of $39 shipped!

The idea of an LC type of Mac for today really seems to be catching on over at Low-End Mac. Dan Knight continued his series of suggestions for low-cost Macs for schools with Macs for Schools: The cMac. Dan also maintains a forum for readers to be published at a major Mac web site in the My Turn series. Alex Alee weighed in yesterday on My Turn with Where's the iPizzaBox?

John G. Spooner reports today in a C/net News.com report that IBM will release 1 GHz PowerPC chips by the end of this year and 2 GHz by late in 2002.