Should DSU get macbooks?
June 20, 2010
Remember those times when you were in a store with your parents? Almost inevitably you would see a piece of candy or frozen treat that you wanted. The pushers of the Macbooks are kind of like the child in the store by asking "please, please, please" while receiving a stern "no, no, no". But every year it keeps being brought up like the reasons for having Macbooks; this year the reason is so much greater. When I look at the graphics arts program I see a couple of teachers, "a couple" of teachers who use and teach with OS X. That hardly elicits the need for two mac labs AND the overhaul of a successful tablet pc program. DSU as a university is widely known as the tablet pc campus. Now with the infusion of Macbooks we can no longer claim that title. We're a laptop campus just like SDSU, Northern, School of Mines, etc. So it looks like the mac pushers have won. Individuals are suckered into the looks and feel of the machine but not overall functionality. Arguments have been made that they are just a better machine perhaps better then our own Fujitsu tablets. But only those individuals have failed to do any research. Just take a look at appledefects.com. It lists over 30 defects of not only the Macbooks but other devices as well. What if the Fujitsu computers had over 30 defects? I'm also disappoint how the macs where pushed on into our curriculum by Computing Services. A handful of Macbooks where purchased and then given to individual faculty to push the Macbooks program, not because the faculty asked for them but because there was a lack of an academic reason to have them. Sure, macs are good for graphics - but that's the ONLY single feature. In addition, a survey taken the last week of the last semester in which less than 30 students responded to wanting a Macbooks. I could probably find 30 students who have Dell or Lenovo computers or who at least would like to lease one from the help desk. So I'm asking, is this really a student driven project? Is it academic? When did we survey students about the Fujitsu brand? Why not allow students to vote on a specific brand or model and make that the standard for a couple years? One reason this university went to Fujitsu was the large selection of different "tablet" models compared to the single model that Hewlett Packard has. What's the reason for going with Apple? The large selection of mobile devices they offer? At a recent Apple conference there was a not a single mention of the macbook. How come we're not looking at the Apple Tablet PC? I would think that if we are going to have an additional mac lab, the argument for Macbooks would dissolve because there is a reason we have specialty labs. I also believe that any additional classes, such as a professor wanting to teach an app development course, would be able to use the new lab. But a single new class is hardly a reason to spend more money on apple hardware. Comparatively the apple desktops are a bit on the spendy side. And Apple computers are not on state contract. This apple debate also brings in the overall larger issue of money spent on individual majors. The small number of graphics arts majors win our IT focus because the larger proportion of the pot of money is spent on them. We don't spend money on Adobe products for Education, Business, and Computer Networking majors? So I stand here as a proponent of students, a proponent of the tablet program, a proponent of proportional funding. But this isn't the direction we should be going in. The kid in the store won :-(
Posted at: 09:29 AM | Add Comment
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