A rather good set of readings showed up on Slashdot today; I was especially interested in this one concerning Apathy, Lies and Fear.

In the articles listed above, the issues arise when teachers do not have the knowledge of what something does.  It’s a situation of brand loyalty taken much too far.

Because places have minimal technical knowledge for teachers, and the IT administrators at many schools are in the same frame of mind, there’s one way to do things that is right, and in many cases, claimed the only legal way.  Unfortunately, that’s Microsoft’s way.

People need to start having the ability to see a piece of software not for what it’s called, but for what it has capability to do.  Consider your web browser.  Generally, there is 3 different options that someone would be using, which take up a vast majority of the browsers used – namely, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.  Each program does the same thing, and has the same capabilities, but there are people who will disallow or even reprimand if a specific browser isn’t used.

Why?  Why is it that there’s so much reliance on this software, on this system?   On top of that, there are even more browsers available out there, that even less people use.  Take the chance to go find out about Opera, Google’s Chrome, or any other browser listed on Wikipedia’s “Comparison of Web Browsers” page.  What makes these browsers less usable, not as “good” as the other one chosen?  It’s a learned trait.

People don’t say “make a digital presentation,” they say “make a Powerpoint.”  You don’t hear “find this on the Internet,” instead, it’s “Google this.”  The product is given more credence than the action, and so that hurts the rest of the software community in what they’re trying to accomplish.  It’s not “use this computer to find out the information you need,” it’s “use this computer to find out the information you need.”

Just a minute, you might have said.  That last one says the same thing!  While that’s true, and I did that on purpose, the meanings are different, depending on who says them.  When I’ve asked someone, “Who makes your computer?”, over half the time they have said “Windows.”  Not Acer, HP, Dell… those are just companies.

Again, we have the product getting more credence than the action.  Something has the market so tight, that people don’t realize that there’s another set of options.  Computing then means using Microsoft Windows, not using the computer.

I want this message to get out around the world – that’s why I’m displaying it on the internet.  Hopefully people will get the chance to read it, read the points that I’ve made, and see that there has been a spark of interest in possibly understanding things further.  And please, don’t tie products with processes.