On 11-09-21 10:58 AM, John C Nash wrote:
Some of the people teaching 1306 (to call them Profs would be an exaggeration, as many are
contract teachers, mostly part time and not qualified for academic appointments, though
often quite dedicated) have been heard to insist on the use of M$ stuff.
In the Telfer School, my own policy was to ask pointedly that students NOT be required to
buy any particular software. We used Minitab as the "base" tool in the statistics course,
but I made sure students knew that they only had to be able to interpret the output, and
could use things like R or Octave for their computations. Further, that while students
might be asked to submit material in .doc or .xls, since unfortunately many offices
require the use of such formats, how they prepared them should not be prescribed. For my
own courses, I used pdf as means of submission, and provided copious information on how it
could be prepared without buying Acrobat.
JN
Interesting perspective.
I find institutional insistence on a particular tool instead of a
particular output format quite alarming. People should be allowed to
arrive at their destination by whatever means they choose - as long as
they arrive at the correct destination. The variety of routes chosen is
an indication of the health of the system in which they are working. No
variety in the route is indication of a lack of innovation, free
thinking and choice - not a great economic or societal indicator by any
analysis.
It always amazes me that the people insisting on usage of particular
tools only make regular use of a tiny fraction of the capabilities of
the tools they promote. Forcing usage of office tools that are designed
for the Fortune 100, with commensurately complex feature sets seems to
be counter productive. Sledgehammers to swat mosquitoes is the
mentality - irrespective of collateral damage.
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Bill
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Bill