Mac Lab Report

Slogans to Help Keep Macs in Your School

- 2003.07.10

My own adventures in attempting to defend the Mac from being eliminated from my district have been documented here before. Our current status is that they seem to be waiting for everyone who defends the Mac to go on vacation simultaneously. I also note that districts in Madison, Wisconsin are being forced to eliminated Macs by an IT director who brags about eliminating Macs from other districts before "cleansing" (my term) Madison schools.

It's time for us to stand up for professional teachers making professional decisions. If we have no choice in how we design our lessons, soon we will all be teaching from scripted workbooks that read like standardized test instructions and sound just as exciting. "Make your marks heavy and dark, and don't forget your three-letter extension on the end of your filename," we'll all say. "Please deposit your Microsoft tax with your Passport card before logging on," will be the mantra of the year 2010.

We've decided we've had enough of this silliness, so we present for your free use some slogans that we hope you'll print out and mail to your elected school board representatives. Stick them on cubicle doors. Tape one to every dead PC you can find in a closet in your district. Link to them on your Web page. Use them as your email tagline.

Who do you want to decide how your child gets taught, your district accountant or your child's teacher? Support Macs in schools.

Are You Learning With Your Computer or Learning About Your Computer?

Keep up the good fight. The future of computing is at stake.

Jeff Adkins is a science teacher who isn't afraid to state his preferences in computing platforms. In his classroom he has everything from a beige All-in-One to a a G4 XServe, and they all work together nicely. He calls himself the "poster child for technology integration" in the classroom. He was the 2006 Outstanding Educator of the Year for the California Computer Using Educators (CUE) organization. He also maintains a site for astronomy teachers at www.AstronomyTeacher.com.

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