Re: Apple computers and teachers go back to the early 70's.

Jim

Posted on 7/31/10

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On 10/02/07, came late to the game. (M) wrote:
> And games are high on the list of reasons that kids and
> adult males prefer PC's... there's more games available for
> them than for Apple computers.
>
> Apple computers were the first to include multimedia software
> as part of the base OS install iCal, iChat, iDVD, iMovie,
> iPhoto iTunes are powerful creation tools.
>
> Although WinDUHows includes some multimedia software it is
> more proprietary centered and apps. as powerful as the
> free Apple ones cost hundredsof dollars.
>
> Apple first started courting education in the early 70's when
> they were sold by Bell and Howell. In 1973 The Minnesota
> Educational Computing Consortium (later Corporation), commonly
> known as MECC, was founded. The goal of the organization was
> to coordinate and provide computer services to almost all
> schools in the state of Minnesota and latter many schools in
> the US purchased their programs to run on Apple IIE and Gs.
>
> In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh which was the
> first commercially successful personal computer to use a
> graphical user interface. The Macintosh's graphics
> capabilities were far ahead of their time, despite being Black
> and White only. MECC ported its most successful titles to the
> Macintosh to take advantage of its graphics capabilities.
> In 1989, Apple donated $2 million worth of computers to 23
> schools to help children; Apple had done this before with the
> Apple II.16.
>
> DOS based computers were late to adopt GUI (graphical user
> interface) operation, later known widely as PC's they started
> to appear in Secondary School business and mathematics classes
> around the middle 80's.
>
> It wasn't until 1990 that Multimedia PCs are developed;
> also schools began using videodiscs; object-oriented
> multimedia authoring tools are in wide use; Simulations,
> educational databases and other types of CAI programs are
> being delivered on CD-ROM disks, many with animation and sound.
>
> IMnsHO the best answer would be that "If it
> weren't for the Apple Macintosh we'd be using DOS 10.0"
> (DOS was a non-graphical UI that was common before Apple
> introduced the GUI.
>
> Also it takes more support personnel for PC's than for Apple
> computers...
>
> N.
>
>
> On 10/02/07, AJH wrote:
>> I work in a district that uses mainly MACS. Actually, MACs
>> are the only computers I've ever used since that's what I
>> had in the classroom. Now I work in a support role with all
>> elementary schools. I sometimes have people question
>> (gripe) about why we use Apples/Macs. I've been told that
>> they are : 1. more user friendly and 2. less susceptible to
>> viruses.
>>
>> Thought I'd pick your brains a bit. Which do you prefer and
>> if you use Macs, could you give me further "Pluses" to
>> mention?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> AJH

Just as a correction to the original post: The Amiga multimedia
computer was around in 1985 and was light years ahead of
Macs/PCs. Many still regard the Amiga as the best computer ever
made. It may have been about 1990 until Macs/PCs were able to
do much with multimedia, but they were trailing behind in that
area. Even without the Mac, there were indeed many other
choices besides PCs (Atari's Falcon was also impressive). Apple
seems to like to rewrite computer history and erase everything
other than Macs/PCs ;)

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