Chris Betcher

So many times in schools I've heard people defend their choice of software for students by trotting out the old "industry standard" argument. They reason that schools should have their students using certain pieces of software because "it's what the industry uses". Aside from the fact that most of the people making these claims are often career teachers who have never worked in an industry outside of education, they often also neglect to condider that not all industries are the same. There is often a bizarre kind of expectation that all students will end up working in the finance/legal world of a bank or a lawyer's office, or in a narrowly defined "creative industry", both places where, yes it's true, you will sometimes find an incumbent piece of software that has been in use there since God was a boy. If I may tell a couple of stories to make a point… Story 1 When I was still teaching (computing subjects) one of the tasks I would get my ...