Thursday, April 12, 2001

tech.life@school | Joyce Kasman Valenza

Apples or PCs in schools? Debate continues

I move with ease between the Mac on my desk and the growing number of Windows machines operating throughout the district on the same network. For a particular task, I might choose a particular platform. But in many cases, it's a nonissue; the software is the same for both. I can transfer my files with ease. An increasing number of applications are Web-based and platform-independent. Still, as I watched the schools around me can their Apples and open more Windows, I began to worry.

For more than 10 years, it has been a hardware holy war - "my platform right or wrong." Folks are devoted to their platforms. Over the course of the fray, schools using Apple computers have been assaulted by parents who claim that school districts must be all Windows because it's the way the real world looks. Yet I know that, when their students enter the real world, it is not likely to look anything like the desktops they now face.

I asked Holly Jobe, director of instructional materials services at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, whether Macs and PCs can exist happily together. The answer: "They can, and we've seen them exist on the same network, using the same software. Microsoft Office files are easy to exchange back and forth. Even heavily PC districts find that Macs are better for certain subject areas - for instance, music and art. In a lot of districts, you'll see more Macs in the elementary schools and more PCs in the high schools." ". . . Personally, I think Apple has good, quality products."

Jobe noted that most of the districts in Montgomery County have now standardized on PCs but many choose to use Apple computers for particular applications. Two or three remain "real Apple districts." "It's not a debate about Mac vs. PC; it's about what you could run on either platform," said Ron Daniels, chief information officer for the School District of Philadelphia. "We have about 35,000 computers within the district, and 80 to 85 percent of them are Macs. Our philosophy is to develop more platform-independent, Web-delivered applications of software."

Daniels said that the district's art applications are Mac-based and that students in the earlier grades use programs such as MacWrite, MacDraw and MacPaint. "But we are more PC-based on the secondary level," he said. "We are trying to prepare kids for what they'll meet in the academic [arena] or in the job market."

Daniels noted that, because many states are adding technology as a proficiency, he believes the district should be "moving toward PCs. Decisions are made by examining what's in the field. We are concerned about job skills, about those students who are going into technology or technology-based fields." The district's technical programs - Cisco Networking Academy, Oracle Internet Academy and MOUS (Microsoft Office User Specialist) programs - are PC-based. "When we are talking about offering kids a basic understanding, it often doesn't matter which platform they use," Daniels said. "But when we are preparing kids for a job in the technology field, we use the platform they are more likely to encounter: PCs."

Lester Ray, market development executive with Apple, said he believes that instructional decisions come before platform. Ray is a longtime educator and the former director of technology for the South Brunswick (N.J.) School District. "When people use the argument that kids need to use 'real-world' computers, I disagree," he said. "The real issue is working with kids so they can learn concepts, skills, the thinking process, and how to access knowledge. I want the best combination of software and staff development, and then I factor in what's the most cost-effective way of achieving the goal."

Ray related a conversation he heard at a recent technology conference. A teacher was saying she didn't like Macs because they were too easy to use, and that, when children use Macs, they don't learn how to use technology. "I asked if I could quote her," Ray said. "It was one of the best possible ads for Apple computers. It is not my personal goal to have everyone use a Mac. . . . Energy really needs to be put into the instructional process, not computer mechanics." Ray turned me on to a few Apple support features I hadn't yet seen. Apple's Learning Interchange, at http://ali.apple.com/, offers an impressive array of tools for teachers, and Apple's iTools site, found at http://itools.mac.com/, offers a number of appealing free services to Mac users using OS 9 or better. IDisk offers up to a whopping 400MB in storage space for your iMovies and other large files. Free e-mail, home pages with a variety of templates, cards, and the KidSafe search tool are also available on the iTools site.

Ray granted that, "if you are in a business lab and there is not a great demand to be creative, you'll probably want PCs." But he noted that particular applications are better suited to the Apple platform. For instance, "the whole music industry runs iTunes [www.apple.com/itunes/] on the Mac platform," he said. Ray also said he preferred training teachers on Macs. "When I started to do staff development with Mac [graphic user interface], I realized I could get people up and running in one-tenth the time it took on a Windows machine," he said.

Another compelling argument for the inclusion of Macs is the highly reviewed iMovie program, which is finding its way into the media programs of many schools. "For creating visual imagery, I haven't found anything as simple yet elegant to use," Ray said. "The maximum time it takes to get someone up and running using iMovie is half an hour."

"The major point is that the product reduces the importance of the mechanics, and allows the creative energies to blossom," he said. What about that "real world" question? "When you look at kids, platform doesn't matter," Ray said. "Over 60 percent of the kids in sixth grade are going to be in careers that we know nothing about right now. When people tell me a kid in sixth grade needs to learn PowerPoint to be a skilled knowledge worker, I laugh in their faces. What they need to learn is how to sift information, to recompile it, and to build it into viable representations of their understanding." OK, then what about networking? "I had to install both a PC and a Mac on a Windows 2000 network," Ray said. "The Mac was easier to install."

And in answer to my big question, can a school district realistically choose to remain dual-platform? Ray told me: "You want to get the best digital appliance out there for the particular task, to put the very best resources together. And yes, Joyce, Macs and PCs play very well together."

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Joyce Kasman Valenza is the librarian at Springfield High School in Erdenheim, Pa. Her column appears each week in tech.life. E-mail: joyce.valenza@phillynews.com

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