[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Joshua Boyd]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 04:09:00AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:

> Teaching OpenOffice instead of teaching Excel and Word makes almsot no
> difference to me; I still believe they should be teaching word
> processing and spreadsheets rather than any particular instance of
> either.
> 
> Teach word processing and spreadsheets and the student needs, at most,
> a brief reference manual to come up to speed on anything.  Teach any
> specific thing and the student will generally be lsot when dealing with
> a different instance of the same basic function.  (Well, except for the
> happy few who can glark the underlying principles even though they're
> not being taught.  But those students hardly need to be taught anyway.)

I question the teaching of word processing at all.  Just tell kids they
have to type their papers, and they will be able to figure it out.