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Comment by jolmg | Hacker News Reader

> Apple's latest earnings call revealed a wave of K-12 districts abandoning Chromebooks and Windows machines in favor of the company's new MacBook Neo

It's not just Chromebooks but Windows machines. Schools really should be providing OS-agnostic computer education, and for that they really should support any machine, especially Windows machines which more easily support changing their OS.

This just changes from having them teach "click this Windows-specific icon to do this" to "click this Mac-specific icon to do this".

Schools are still being used as a tool of OS companies to lock-in users for life.

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You're not wrong, but I've sat in an elementary school classroom while a teacher was doing the computer class.

It was already difficult with a class attempting to follow instructions in a single OS; if a teacher had to be giving three sets (at least three!) of instructions to a bunch of kids, they realistically wouldn't get anything done in the 50 minutes they have each week.

I could see a proposal to using one trimester for Windows, one trimester for Mac and one for Linux - because it genuinely is kind of hard to switch from one to the other, and it would be useful if kids had a basic familiarity with all three. (Though, how do you choose which distro to use for Linux? Or do you just make them walk uphill each way on the command line?)

You work almost exclusively with the common ground, the common conventions. Teach them file managers, "programs" in a very general sense, windows (being able to resize and position them, the window buttons (to close, maximize, etc.), window menus, etc.), the concept of saving a file from a program, file extensions. You take little pauses to explain how things may differ slightly between OSes.

You take the same approach with programs (web browsers as opposed to simply Chrome, spreadsheets as opposed to simply Excel, etc.).

Once they have the common ground, you can expand on differences, but always OS- and program-neutral, because schools shouldn't be a marketing tool.

The idea is that students should be able to use any computer in a very basic extent. It doesn't take much.

> (Though, how do you choose which distro to use for Linux? Or do you just make them walk uphill each way on the command line?)

You pick the one that has the most common ground with the other OSes.

Again, you're not wrong, but I think you're underestimating just how much hand-holding and very specific instructions a lot of kids need in these classes.

You have to teach them both the general concepts ("data lives in things called files, each file lives in a folder, folders are arranged in a hierarchical tree-like structure") - but you also have to teach them to actually use these things, and you have to wait for each student to have done The Task that is being asked of them. Because if you just talk in vague abstractions, it's not going to sink in as much as Doing The Task will.

If you have any sort of opportunity to observe a elementary or middle school computer class, I strongly urge you to. It's very enlightening.

(Actually, observing any kind of class is very interesting. I used to do it at least once a year for work. I know that every profession is probably super interesting to an outside observer, but - especially as a parent - that was wildly interesting and worthwhile.)

Imagine doing this with non-ChromeOS desktop Linux and every kid has a different DE, distro, maybe even window system installed lol

And they all have Firefox and LibreOffice Calc installed, so you can teach them how to use a web browser and a spreadsheet in an OS-agnostic (and DE/distro/WM-agnostic) way.

I don't think the schools are worried so much about not knowing how to teach students to use a word processor, but rather their IT staff not being able to maintain the equipment and set things up properly.

Kids will learn how to use basically any software easily, they are sponges. The poor admin that has to deal with all the lost machine and device enrollment, and password resets and OS upgrades borking stuff, they are the ones who schools are optimizing for.

I wouldn’t get too excited on this topic. The differences between a Mac or Windows PC round to nearly zero in basic GUI operations, and the primary software kids will be using regardless of hardware is likely either G Suite or Microsoft Office depending on what the school district prefers, and most likely accessed through Google Chrome either way.

If they want to game, they’ll eventually get a Windows PC. Even if the school district doesn’t deploy Macs, they’ll likely end up with a Mac by the time of college anyway. And tomorrow won’t be the Year of Desktop Linux either, unless Microsoft really really botches Windows.

> The differences between a Mac or Windows PC round to nearly zero in basic GUI operations

Which should make things easier to educate OS-neutrally.

> and the primary software kids will be using regardless of hardware is likely either G Suite or Microsoft Office depending on what the school district prefers.

That's what I object to.

> > The differences between a Mac or Windows PC round to nearly zero in basic GUI operations

> Which should make things easier to educate OS-neutrally.

It also makes it unnecessary to teach minute differences. If a student needs to make a switch later for educational, vocational or interest-based reasons, they can figure out the minute differences or seek help.

>> and the primary software kids will be using regardless of hardware is likely either G Suite or Microsoft Office depending on what the school district prefers.

> That's what I object to.

I figured you would, but again: anybody will learn any system they need to because of either work, education or personal reasons. People don’t switch off Excel & don’t want to switch off of Excel because they don’t have to. If you’re only ever going to learn exactly one spreadsheet app in your life, Excel is the one you probably want to learn, unless you don’t strictly need Excel for your vocation, then you can make the choice yourself. Options exist, but it’s fine to treat Excel like the default, because it is.

Meanwhile we learned to use Appleworks in elementary school, haha

At least MacOS is unix based and has a proper shell etc (not that school kids will be using it).

For someone who picks up technical stuff easily learning how MacOS actually works is much more useful (and closer to linux/bsd) than Windows.

Modern windows is just a weird, locked down mess that doesn't teach you much about anything

Both Windows and ChromeOS have Debian subsystems that are easy to enable and use. I prefer the macOS way for my job, but for students it doesn't really matter.

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