Monday, April 21, 2003
AppleWorks to go home in every student's backpack?
Just when I thought it was safe to write "The Last AppleWorks 6 Review", eWeek reports that Apple is set to release yet another AppleWorks 6 update this week. The new version 6.2.7 will feature "improvements to AppleWorks' presentation and spreadsheet modules" and "several international spelling dictionaries". It's always nice when Apple takes the time to release one more update for an aging application, and everyone should install it, but it's hardly headline-grabbing. On first blush, the biggest news here appears to be that the packaging has been re-designed. If nothing else, I now know that I need to block out some time next week to install this on all three hundred Macs at work. Big deal. Time-consuming, for sure. Perhaps even a crucial update, might even fix a long-standing bug or two. Certainly not interesting.
But down around the eighth paragraph, the eWeek article includes the following tidbit: "Apple plans to usher in a new purchasing option for education buyers, dubbed 'home use licensing.' Through this program, schools will be able to let their students install AppleWorks on their home computers."
Wow. Now that is a big deal. This is the first I've heard of it. Although I have no knowledge of whether my district intends to participate in this program, my mind races at the possibilities. If I had use of such licensing, I could send the AppleWorks 6 installer home with each and every one of my students. Wait a minute, you say, what about the fact that the majority of them have PC's at home? One of Apple's least-publicized forays into cross-platform software development is the fact that "AppleWorks 6 for Windows" does in fact exist. Well, maybe not for you consumers at home, it doesn't. You have to be logged into the Education portion of the Apple online store just to bring up the SKU for the Windows version, but it's there. In fact, it's been there for awhile.
Presumably under the theory that cross-platform schools would be able to keep their standard software arsenal consistent across the two platforms without resorting to putting Microsoft Office on every Mac and PC, Apple quietly released both Mac and Windows versions of AppleWorks 6. Since I have the infinite privilege of working at a 100 percent Macintosh school, I've never needed to resort to installing, using, or even thinking much about the Windows version. But with this new "take-home" licensing deal, I would theoretically be able to ensure that all of my students would have access to AppleWorks 6 at home if they have a computer there, regardless of which platform it might be. What this would mean is they would be able to go home and work some of the same computing magic that they currently work while at school. I should explain that I'm not talking about compatibility here. This is about the appropriateness of various software applications and their resulting potential in the hands of young children.
We're an elementary school, and we don't teach pure computing skills unless they are going to directly enhance existing curriculum areas. The students acquire the skills along the way. While the students generally enjoy using the computers in an educational manner while at school, they do so because it's a school setting. When they get home, they usually want to use their home computers for games and little else. It's entirely up to the parents as to whether any real-time guidance on what to use the home computer for is provided. I often try to encourage students to spend at least a little time with their productivity tools at home, but when they do so they find themselves staring either the overly complicated and cumbersome MS Office or the horrid and limited MS Works. It's not easy to motivate students to do something educational at home when the only productivity tools they have there don't suit their needs. We're talking about nine and ten year olds here, and while they can wade through the complexities of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, it doesn't mean that they are willing to. It's not realistic for me to think that every single student will ever have their own Mac at home (unless I move to Maine, America's new iBook captial), but I've long wished for a way to at least get AppleWorks into the hands of every student. This way they would finally have an adequate and appropriate tool at home that would allow them to easily be creative and productive, rather than just going straight for the latest skating game from Tony Hawk (a Mac user himself, ironically). Now, if this home-licensing deal really is what I think it is, one day I just might get the chance to throw a cross-platform copy of AppleWorks 6 into every student's backpack as they head out the door.
When you see what third graders can accompish with the AppleWorks Slide Show module, or Database module, or simply the Word Processing module in terms of using it to enhance and expand their understanding of core subject areas, and then you realize that most of them don't have access to this software on their home computer, you realize that it's almost criminal for parents to buy their children anything but a Macintosh. Some of my students who have Macs at home are so computer-proficient that they've taught me things about iPhoto that I never knew. I've never seen any data on this, but in my observations, kids who have a Macintosh at home tend to use their home computers in more of an educational fashion. Kids in general can do more with computers of any kind than most adults can, even if the tools provided are not what they should be, but it kills me to see so many of them hampered by an unfortunate mistake in platform choice by their parents.
As an educator, there's little I can really do about the purchases that my students' parents make. If they've chosen to limit their kids' potential by buying them a PC instead of a Mac, it's just something that I have to accept. But perhaps now, I can get education's most crucial software application in the hands of all of my students anyway. This is the kind of move that Apple needs to continue to make in order to gain marketshare not only in schools, but in homes with young children as well. If parents see that it took a product called "AppleWorks" to inspire their kids to finally do something useful and educational on their home Windows PC, it could go a long way toward getting parents to go out and obtain the right computer for their kids after all.
Do your children really know how to go to town on your Macintosh? Do you believe, as I do, that Apple should give away AppleWorks 6 for free to anyone who has a child living with them? I'd love to hear about it.
Just when I thought it was safe to write "The Last AppleWorks 6 Review", eWeek reports that Apple is set to release yet another AppleWorks 6 update this week. The new version 6.2.7 will feature "improvements to AppleWorks' presentation and spreadsheet modules" and "several international spelling dictionaries". It's always nice when Apple takes the time to release one more update for an aging application, and everyone should install it, but it's hardly headline-grabbing. On first blush, the biggest news here appears to be that the packaging has been re-designed. If nothing else, I now know that I need to block out some time next week to install this on all three hundred Macs at work. Big deal. Time-consuming, for sure. Perhaps even a crucial update, might even fix a long-standing bug or two. Certainly not interesting.
But down around the eighth paragraph, the eWeek article includes the following tidbit: "Apple plans to usher in a new purchasing option for education buyers, dubbed 'home use licensing.' Through this program, schools will be able to let their students install AppleWorks on their home computers."
Wow. Now that is a big deal. This is the first I've heard of it. Although I have no knowledge of whether my district intends to participate in this program, my mind races at the possibilities. If I had use of such licensing, I could send the AppleWorks 6 installer home with each and every one of my students. Wait a minute, you say, what about the fact that the majority of them have PC's at home? One of Apple's least-publicized forays into cross-platform software development is the fact that "AppleWorks 6 for Windows" does in fact exist. Well, maybe not for you consumers at home, it doesn't. You have to be logged into the Education portion of the Apple online store just to bring up the SKU for the Windows version, but it's there. In fact, it's been there for awhile.
Presumably under the theory that cross-platform schools would be able to keep their standard software arsenal consistent across the two platforms without resorting to putting Microsoft Office on every Mac and PC, Apple quietly released both Mac and Windows versions of AppleWorks 6. Since I have the infinite privilege of working at a 100 percent Macintosh school, I've never needed to resort to installing, using, or even thinking much about the Windows version. But with this new "take-home" licensing deal, I would theoretically be able to ensure that all of my students would have access to AppleWorks 6 at home if they have a computer there, regardless of which platform it might be. What this would mean is they would be able to go home and work some of the same computing magic that they currently work while at school. I should explain that I'm not talking about compatibility here. This is about the appropriateness of various software applications and their resulting potential in the hands of young children.
We're an elementary school, and we don't teach pure computing skills unless they are going to directly enhance existing curriculum areas. The students acquire the skills along the way. While the students generally enjoy using the computers in an educational manner while at school, they do so because it's a school setting. When they get home, they usually want to use their home computers for games and little else. It's entirely up to the parents as to whether any real-time guidance on what to use the home computer for is provided. I often try to encourage students to spend at least a little time with their productivity tools at home, but when they do so they find themselves staring either the overly complicated and cumbersome MS Office or the horrid and limited MS Works. It's not easy to motivate students to do something educational at home when the only productivity tools they have there don't suit their needs. We're talking about nine and ten year olds here, and while they can wade through the complexities of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, it doesn't mean that they are willing to. It's not realistic for me to think that every single student will ever have their own Mac at home (unless I move to Maine, America's new iBook captial), but I've long wished for a way to at least get AppleWorks into the hands of every student. This way they would finally have an adequate and appropriate tool at home that would allow them to easily be creative and productive, rather than just going straight for the latest skating game from Tony Hawk (a Mac user himself, ironically). Now, if this home-licensing deal really is what I think it is, one day I just might get the chance to throw a cross-platform copy of AppleWorks 6 into every student's backpack as they head out the door.
When you see what third graders can accompish with the AppleWorks Slide Show module, or Database module, or simply the Word Processing module in terms of using it to enhance and expand their understanding of core subject areas, and then you realize that most of them don't have access to this software on their home computer, you realize that it's almost criminal for parents to buy their children anything but a Macintosh. Some of my students who have Macs at home are so computer-proficient that they've taught me things about iPhoto that I never knew. I've never seen any data on this, but in my observations, kids who have a Macintosh at home tend to use their home computers in more of an educational fashion. Kids in general can do more with computers of any kind than most adults can, even if the tools provided are not what they should be, but it kills me to see so many of them hampered by an unfortunate mistake in platform choice by their parents.
As an educator, there's little I can really do about the purchases that my students' parents make. If they've chosen to limit their kids' potential by buying them a PC instead of a Mac, it's just something that I have to accept. But perhaps now, I can get education's most crucial software application in the hands of all of my students anyway. This is the kind of move that Apple needs to continue to make in order to gain marketshare not only in schools, but in homes with young children as well. If parents see that it took a product called "AppleWorks" to inspire their kids to finally do something useful and educational on their home Windows PC, it could go a long way toward getting parents to go out and obtain the right computer for their kids after all.
Do your children really know how to go to town on your Macintosh? Do you believe, as I do, that Apple should give away AppleWorks 6 for free to anyone who has a child living with them? I'd love to hear about it.
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