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Most of today's kids need a spell at boot camp.

Yep

Now some new IT guy with a hard on for Windows can simply change all the Mac's into PC's. When before it took a committee to evaluate the hardware choices of switching.

"Windows is the industry standard, it's what kids have to face when they get a job"

Bye bye Apple in education.

Of course I truly believe "Boot Camp" is just a temporary measure until virtualization (running Windows apps without Windows in Mac OS X) becomes a reality.

Then Mac OS X will be welcome almost everywhere for it's great security, ease of use, good looks, plus it runs Windows and OS X apps.

Ron, not me.... 12 years old!

http://www.endlesselevation.com

MW: "research". As in MDN needs to research more news than just Boot Camp stories... its getting old boys...

The "real world" nonsense that people use to elimintae Macs from schools is the biggest farce argument ever created against Macs.

First of all, in the "real world" the vast majority of people who USE windows barely do anything more than use Office and Explorer, and solitaire or minesweeper, all of which can be learned on the Mac. These same people don't administer or troubleshoot their own systems. They have community college droputs do that for them.

Secondly, we send kids to school to learn math, science, language, history, and art, not to LEARN WINDOWS. Give them a tool that is going to give them more uptime in learning those topics. Give them Macs.

Thirdly, by the time a current 6th 7th or 8th grade kids gets into the workforce, the systems will be vastly different anyway, and they will need to be trained anyway. So it makes no difference that the MUST learn Windows now.

Fourth, there are PLENTY of professions where Macs are widely used and if not, a platform independent situation can occur. Plenty. Not just graphics like everyone thinks. This argument has been debunked plenty.

<<Once the almost exclusive domain of Apple and the Mac, technology in education has been steadily shifting toward Windows-based PCs for several years --

particularly in colleges and at the high school level of K-12 education.>>

um, isn't that pretty much ALL of education?

Schools? - bootcamp won´t effect any sales this year or next - too late in the buying cycle.
By next year things will evolved to something else - New OSX, New Windows OS, virutalization, etc,who knows?.

Word going out at schools - lets wait and see what happens. Xtra sales for Mac in the near future because of bootcamp, I doubt it.
"We have windows pcs, why should we buy apples to run windows??????!

Sure looks good on paper. Use OS X for the superior educational software, boot into Windows to teach office skills. Just one little problem: cash-strapped schools are not going to want to purchase Windows licenses in addition to the Mac hardware. Unless that option can be made cost-effective somehow, it's a non-starter.

macromancer - u r confused.
it´s not the OS that counts, its the software on the computer that uses the OS.
People don´t "LEARN" Windows or OSX. You can´t make or do anything with an operating system.
But one can create something using Word, Photoshop,Quark, InDesign, etc., etc. All work on either system
It´s the software, the tools that people create things with that students should learn. Most kids going to school already have a computer at home and know how to operate them.

My preference - no computers at school. Kids should learn to write by hand, draw by hand.

Mr. Stevens, you have a point, but:

Have you ever tried to teach windoze filing system to 3rd graders? How about networked drives?

Most of the adults I work with cannot figure out how to get document from C:\\wherever to T:\\whatsisplace, let alone kids.

Twenty years ago I had to learn assembly for microvax. Fortunately, my prof hammered the point that it was learning the concepts, not the syntax, that was important.

The Empire is simply trying to breed future consumers. You ought to see the powerpoint crap they try to pass of as lesson plans. If these kids are still using office in 2015, I will shoot all computers I see

I've been saying it since the first Windows on Mac hardware, this is an Apple WIN with education buyers. Now they get both (if they want that windows shitware).

p.s.

School district IT types are just as bad as enterprise when it comes to the "M$ = job security" phenomenon.

Mr. Stevens, you were likely raised on windows, and therefore find it easy to use, if a bit frustrating at times. Have you ever tried to teach it to someone over the age of, say, 60? It is the same as teaching a kiddo--windows is completely, totally, 100% counterintuitive.

and yes, I know it's only one backslash--I was venting, gimme a break...

How many schools can afford to buy a bunch of Intel IMacs or MacBooks and then pay for Windows XP on top of it to go around and setup? I would love to see this happen in schools but $$ is tight in most and most admins don't want to support 2 operating systems. I hope I am wrong. Now we will have to see what Leopard brings.

Now educational institutions don't need to have separate PC Computer Labs and Mac Computer Labs. They can now simply have Mac Labs which at the very least will do both, and presumably will do any X86 based OS when Boot Camp ships as a part of 10.5 sometime in the next 12 months.

i heart macdude: "Have you ever tried to teach windoze filing system to 3rd graders? How about networked drives?"

Nope - they taught me!
Kids are sponges - they learn everything real quickly and don´t give a gnat´s sweat about the OS. They want to do the programs on the computer.

i heart macdude: "Have you ever tried to teach it to someone over the age of, say, 60?"

My parents can´t figure out the remote control for the TV, a microwave or their cellphone or how to change the remote key lock on their car so it does not honk everytime the lock the car doors.
My parents had a Mac, now they have Windows. (They had Mac OS8 & 9 - crashed all the time on them. Drove them batty. They got Windows XP and think its great.) They can´t do anything but the basics - click and write. And they don´t want to know more.

Wow. Didn't even think about that.

I am still just amazed at how every single edition of Aqua is more revolutionary than the last.

that's all

Gregory,
Very nice website! Keep up the good work!

The issue is not which computer they use to learn but the practices they learn while using. My experience in education is that while kids are sponges and can learn many things, if you teach a specific way to do something, rather than a broader idea of how you may achieve a goal, people are more inclined to only learn the one way. Then, when outside of their comfort zone, they break down because "the menus are not same" as when they learned or "the interface has changed" or some other BS excuse. In my experience with computers (Mac and PC for 13+ years, 7 in education, 6 in business), people who start out with Macs are less likely to be afraid of the computer when it diverges outside of their comfort zone. The reason I see, they are less afraid of "breaking" the computer and more interested in being productive. They have less concern for the right way to do something and will settle on any way to complete a task. The argument is relatively moot. Yes, Windows may be king now, who is to say in how many years if things change. The issue is not what computer we teach on, but that we teach using critical thinking skills in using a computer so that the skills translate to any OS, not just Windows, Mac , etc.