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Text Book Shenanigans
Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 01:07 AM EST

Paul Murphy has been researching IT textbooks. The results are appalling. Here's how he begins:

"Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely their fault.

"Each of these professional qualifications is directly or indirectly controlled by some group that sets minimal educational standards, including things like 'IT competency maps' -- lists of things graduates are supposed to know about IT. Schools work to these standards. Thus, nearly every curriculum leading to a business designation of some kind features at least one, and usually several, introductory IT courses."

He took a look at some 8 textbooks created according to the standards, and here's what he found: Linux is barely mentioned at all, and UNIX only slightly more so (even Apple is mostly a no-show), and UNIX and Linux are typically compared unfavorably to Windows when they are mentioned.

Here's the imbalance quantified:

"But in total, BSD, GNU, Linux, open source, Solaris and all of the rest warrant roughly one word per thousand among the 2 million in the books -- and much of that coverage is negative."

Many more specifics are included in Mr. Murphy's longer paper on this subject. What I learned is that the same pro-Microsoft articles that the tech media spew out end up quoted in IT textbooks. I believe, however, that's from the old days, when articles got printed and if you knew better, you just disgustedly told your friends or your mate. Now, you can leave a comment correcting the stories for the whole world to read and consider. If every time an inaccurate story is printed there are comments calmly and clearly presenting the facts, which is what I see happening, that has to have an impact over time in what is included in a textbook. Mr. Murphy points out that people don't know what they haven't been told:

"Believe it or not, there's an upside for the Unix community here. Simply try to remember, next time you run into users who think Microsoft invented computing, bosses who are surprised to learn that not all computers run Windows, or venture capitalists whose idea of 'adult supervision' is to take your network-computing idea to Windows, that they got those beliefs from their textbooks -- meaning that they aren't necessarily as moronic as their opinions and that you can hope to reeducate at least some of them."

That is just as true for textbook authors as it is for financial analysts.

Mr. Murphy asks that if anyone is interested in contributing ideas or information to make his paper better, that they go to this page to find the draft. It might be good to stagger your arrival. There is a place for comments at the end. Here's a snip from the paper:

"Teaching an introductory business computing course without reference to Unix and other non Microsoft technologies amounts to an absurd misrepresentation, roughly comparable to teaching a course in the fundamentals of democracy without reference to England or the United States."

One of his readers posted that it isn't just IT textbooks and provides a url to a "critique of a bad physics text", Prentice Hall's "Science Explorer: Motion, Forces and Energy". Murphy responds by writing:

"My first degree was in physics/math; every time I read something on the subject in the press it reinforces the notion that the more you know about something the less likely it is that the business press will get it right. The examples you mention are just sickeningly sloppy and there's stuff like this in just about every science text - it's disgusting.

"Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it in general - but perhaps open source does offer an alternative simply because you can't get away with mistakes if lots of people get to see your work and comment on it."

Precisely. The open method is effective because so many eyeballs are watching and responding. Is there any reason why textbook publishers or standards bodies, or college and university presidents, for that matter, wouldn't be interested in hearing from the public on this subject? They might just respond to some degree, if they knew enough people noticed that their textbooks were not adequately preparing students for the real business world of the future. Even if Microsoft donated buckets of money to a college or university, no school can afford to lose its reputation for educational excellence. And, as Mr. Murphy points out, they may just be ignorant themselves and might be glad to learn something about GNU/Linux and BSD and how the world is making a switch that is likely to leave their students in the dust if they are not better prepared than this.


  


Text Book Shenanigans | 191 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: Tomas on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 03:23 AM EDT
I especially like the "...they got those beliefs from their textbooks --
meaning that they aren't necessarily as moronic as their opinions..."
comment. I'll have to TRY to remember that.

Tomas

---
Tom
Engineer (ret.)
"Friends don't let friends use Microsoft."

[ Reply to This | # ]

M$ in schools
Authored by: mrx on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 03:57 AM EDT
I go to a school in the UK and I seem to have Microsoft lessons rather than IT
lessons. The computers run Windows XP using Microsoft Office and IE, and the
servers run Windows 2000. And no open source software is used.

If we're going to get more people using Linux then bringing people up on
products from one computer software manufacturer is not the way to do it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book,... academia?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 04:09 AM EDT
There's no doubt that academia needs to hear the voice of Linux supporters. I took a class in XML and it was based entirely on Microsoft's implementation. I ended up dropping the class after I realized it was another MS spaghetti-noodle mess. Yet, the academic staff thought it was wonderful - a sign that they were out of touch.

While we're on the subject, what about math books and math teachers in general? After about 6 weeks of using a certain red-and-blue-covered Calculus book, I concluded it was a work of confusion in itself. If the authors would only focus on the core Calculus and not include all the "noise," and the teachers didn't insist on the students knowing all the "noise" (every theorem/formula), I believe the higher math experience might be more palatable.

Who was it, Jaime Escalante that taught East LA high-school students Calculus that went on to score high on an Advanced Placement Calculus exam? College academics (and math book authors!) take heed.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 04:10 AM EDT
"One of his readers posted that it isn't just IT textbooks and provides a
url to a "critique of a bad physics text", Prentice Hall's
"Science Explorer: Motion, Forces and Energy"."

The Open Source movement is putting heavy pressure on the commercial software
vendors to improve the quality of their products.

It's about time that a similar Open Source movement be created for textbooks:
why should the City of New York blow away zillions of dollars on expensive,
bulky and heavy textbooks put out by an oligopoly of textbook publishers who are
far more concerned with whoring themselves to make a fast buck than making sure
that their textbooks are accurate and readable? There is an incredible
institutional wealth of experienced, competent teachers who know how to teach
inner-city, immigrant and middle class students - and this wealth is not being
used because these teachers' brains are not being picked.

Buying textbooks that are not adapted to either the students' needs or
capabilities, nor the goals of the school system is no way to pick these
teachers' brains. And dumbing down the textbooks should not be considered a
valid adaptive response. The GPL, as applied to this new world of Open Source
textbooks, should do wonders in enabling the quick development of high quality,
no-fluff, no-nonsense textbooks that are free of charge.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Not a new phenomenon
Authored by: AJWM on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 04:18 AM EDT
Back in my college days, when Gates and Allan were still trying to work out
their BASIC interpreter for the MITS Altair (well, give or take a year), IBM was
the dominant force in computing.

We were fortunate in that the campus mainframe wasn't an IBM (it was Burroughs),
although there was an IBM 360 for administrative use and some courses that
required IBM-only software. Despite that, my prof for Operating Systems
insisted on teaching the whole course about OS/360. (We even had a PDP-11 in
the computer science lab -- complete with a copy of 6th edition Unix although we
didn't see that as undergrads, we used RSX when we used it at all). Worst CS
course I ever took. (I learned far more about OS's from the Burroughs listings
I'd retrieved from the dumpster...)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sad but not unique
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 05:14 AM EDT
As a programmer, I can reasonably claim the majority of C++ programming books
are tragically flawed as well. (The open model works here too. See
http://www.accu.org/ for good reviews on C++ books.) When looking through new
books I can't help but find mistakes--sometimes typos, sometimes utter
demonstrations of the author's misunderstanding of the language--on almost every
page.

So is this problem limited to tech books? Maybe, I don't know. But
time-to-market due to quickly aging technology, and publisher's desires to
obsolete-last-year's-edition both force authors to write publish textbooks
without sufficient editing.

The problem could be something else entirely, too. MS has the money to
commission textbook authors to write MS-friendly books, and the money to
pursuade publishers to print those books. They have the money to help schools
choose curricula and to donate computer labs with MS software on them. Hmmm,
they have the money to influence just about everything from government and
politicians to mass media and schools, including preschool. And they do.

[ Reply to This | # ]

MS Textbooks
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 05:27 AM EDT
Does anyone else think that the gigantic MS PR machine plays a role in
supporting the publication of such non-technical IT textbooks?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Fox Terriers and Evolution
Authored by: gvc on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 06:59 AM EDT
An interesting study was done on high-school science text books. The conclusion
was that they were all knock-offs and uncritically spread around unquestioned
"facts."

For example, a large number of discussions of evolution say something to the
effect of "a horse was once the size of a fox terrier." This
comparison of course is lifted from one original source. A large number of
authors, when interviewed, had no idea what a fox terrier was, or, for that
matter, how big it was.

S.J. Gould, "The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone," Natural
History 97, no.1:16-24

While I was looking for a reference to this paper, I found an interesting site:
"Misconceptions in Science"

http://www.amasci.com/miscon/books.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Try researching ownership of the publishers
Authored by: Jude on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 07:27 AM EDT
It's interesting to research the ownership of the publishers that print these
textbooks. I did this several years ago, and I was appalled to find that most
of the big school textbook publishers were the *same* megamedia conglomerates
that own magazines, radio stations, TV stations, music publishing, movie
production and theme parks.

Think about it: A huge fraction of a child's information environment is
controlled by a tiny handful of companies. If you ever wonder why John Q.
Public seems so screwed up, perhaps this is an explanation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sources?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 07:37 AM EDT
> Among these, the eight listed below comprise about 4,000 pages of text and
influence somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 students and their instructors
each year.

Uhm, did the author provide a source for these figures? I graduated from
B-school in 2002, and I've never heard of any of these. I called my friend
pursuing his MBA at the U of Chicago - she's not familiar with any of these
books either.

Does this have any basis in reality, or is it just the latest manifestation of
the commonly held belief among engineers that they are smart and everyone else
is stupid?

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Clever + Stupid - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 07:51 AM EDT
  • Sources? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 08:11 AM EDT
  • Sources? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 08:31 AM EDT
Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: ds on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 08:12 AM EDT
I'm a graduate of a certain UK university which received a large cash injection
courtesy of Microsoft/Gates Foundation relatively recently, and although I spent
a few years hanging around the computer laboratory, I saw a lot more Linux and
UNIX than anything else. In fact, I seem to remember them explaining in an
introductory lecture that they refused to buy Windows because it was too
insecure. The problem is more a question of care and attention going into the
design of lecture schedules and book recommendations. After all, when you walk
into the computer science department of a bookshop a large percentage of the
thick, highly coloured contents are nonsense. We were recommended to read Knuth
more than anything else.

Of course there are bad textbooks out there, and calculus books are terrible
offenders, but I don't agree with the criticism of the <i>Motion, Forces
and Energy</i> book which seems roughly appropriate for a twelve-year old,
if you are going to insist on giving twelve-year olds textbooks. This seems to
be more of a statement of the author's political ideas about education than
about the books suitability as a educational tool in physics. I would have been
scandalised had it been suggested to me that at the age of twelve I should have
been skipping stones, or was incapable of understanding algebra.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: markus on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 08:23 AM EDT

PJ, I consider the following snippet offending and arrogant:

"Teaching an introductory business computing course without reference to Unix and other non Microsoft technologies amounts to an absurd misrepresentation, roughly comparable to teaching a course in the fundamentals of democracy without reference to England or the United States."

This sounds like the United States and England invented democracy. If this is your example then all textbook claiming Microsoft invented software are correct.

Just start with the word: Democracy is Greek and describes the form govenment introduced around 500 BC. This is when the US weren't even discovered, England is still a Kingdom today, even though democratic by now.

Markus

---
Markus Baertschi, Switzerland

[ Reply to This | # ]

'Tis true, I'm afraid to say.
Authored by: Frihet on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 09:27 AM EDT
'Tis true, I'm afraid to say. I suspect particularly at B schools where faculty
is expected only to grind through old text books and the curriculum guide.

I've taught several technology classes (mainly to keep fresh and provide some
real-life experience to young folks) at a school where this is the expectation.
I always have to add material to the courses I teach to bring the content up to
date and make it more inclusive.

If I'm teaching strategic management, I use MS Windows (flattening) and Linux
(increasing) to demonstrate the relationships of competitive technology
life-cycle curves and resistance to innovation and associated vulerability in
dominant firms. I ask my students to keep an eye on the slopes of both lines
for the next year or two. This increases awareness, at least.

I use a Linux laptop in the classroom to generate interest and encourage
objective discussion of alternative approaches. That's difficult, because the
school is an MS school. But, I do it.

I'm teaching a class on wireless technology next semester. The text book does
not mention GSM. I have my work cut out for me again. I use a GSM phone, so
I'll be able to contrast these technologies in a practical way as I add material
to the course. It's not just MS. But . . .

MS clearly has a strategy with respect to schools, and it has little to do with
a broad learning experience. That's understandable from their point of view.
As "God" once said (in the movie), "once you've got the children,
that's the ball game." What'$ not under$tandable is how a properly focu$ed
$chool admini$tration can let them get away with it ;-)

---
Frihet

Repeal the Digital Monopoly Conservation Act.
Write your congress folks!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 10:12 AM EDT
The misrepresentation of technology doesn't exist everywhere. While I was a part
time night school instructor at a local private two year college, their computer
networking program offered one course each in NetWare, Windows and Linux. The
explanation to the students was that all three were important. At approximately
$30,000 plus per two year program, they were able to fill a lot of seats.
Interesting result considering the prepdonderance of public colleges and
universities in the Upstate New York area. One may ask why this was? One answer:
the closest and largest community college, had no comparable program (even
though it was titled "Information Systems") but did offer training in
Cobol. On behalf of one of my children, who was thinking of attending this
community college, I queried one "IS" department head as to whether or
not high level operating systems like NetWare or Unix were being offered or
taught in some fashion and the response was; "NetWare, oh we've heard of
that. I think we might try teaching a course in the fall."
My point here really should speak more to the fact that established
institutions are slow to change while the newer ones are more apt to be up to
date. Cobol, versus three operating system courses and much more relevant
material besides that in the other courses, means "No Contest".
We may say that there is much control of public opinion from Redmond, but I
think we give them too much credit. The real problem is that our publicly funded
institutions are incapable of following and staying up to date in an evolving
process such as IT. Just ask your grade school and high school level kids
teacher what she or he is teaching your child on the computers in the classroom.
Note the shifting of weight and the glassy stare. It's not their fault either.
The system doesn't have a clue, so we all buy windows for lack of anything else
to know.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Do you know what your kids are reading?
Authored by: RyanEpps on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 10:16 AM EDT
Attempts to correct factual errors in text books provided to my kids meet with
extreme resistance from the school. I often marked up their text books and
added references to correct information. I ended up buying the books so they
could be issued new ones minus my corrections. Teachers do not like being told
that they are not providing adequate service to their students.

I’ve developed and contributed to several technical papers/manuals on military
systems.

Ryan

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: lnx4me on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 10:52 AM EDT
{begin rant}

I think we're missing a key point - the problem is not IT textbooks, but the educational system at large. Check reports, or better yet, review some texts used at your local schools. IMHO the goal has become making students "feel good about themselves", not harming their self-esteem, and certainly not educating them to the fullest extent possible. Like Lake Wobegone on the Prairie Home Companion..."where all children are above average".

Check the American Electronics Association's report , it does not take a SCO rocket scientist to analyze the results.

About MS and schools ... the COBA recently instituted a MIS program at the university where I am a faculty member. A cornerstone of their proposal was that the program be MS-centric because that was what the business community understood and students would see in the workplace.

I was forced to drop a wonderful C++ IDE/compiler because VC++ Student Edition came bundled with the texts - bugs and all. I checked with the Bookstore and we could not get the text "unbundled" from the software. Likewise, say "database" and business faculty respond "Access". Oracle used to be a large player but now all I hear is SQLServer but FWIW I use Linux and PostgreSQL for my database class. Likewise we use Red Hat for the networking classes.

MS is very smart in their approach - our state has a "State License" which entitles faculty to "a home copy" of whatever MS products used (they recently pulled the OS so XP is not available under the license - you want it, you buy it).

I could go on and on but the "choir" already knows. I do believe the problem is at a level far deeper than the desktop and textbook coverage - publishers respond to demand whether it derives from a specific technology/platform or dumbing down science and math texts so ill-prepared kids can "succeed".

{end rant}

Bob

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: dkpatrick on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 11:30 AM EDT
I teach Linux at a local community college where the Windows curriculum has hit
an enrollment 'wall'. The Linux attendance is growing while UNIX and Windows
have both stalled.

The textbook problem is one of currency. The textbook I use is based on Red Hat
7.2 and is in current publication. This company's Fedora-based version comes out
in a year. Windows and the publishers of Windows textbooks are aggressive in
releasing new books when a new release is available while there is no central
authority in the Linux community to have a comparable influence.

Locally Sun has also been aggressive in donating hardware and software to the
colleges.

The schools respond to what the market demands. All the programs I'm familiar
with are anxious to keep enrollments up and if that means catering to the
Windows community, that's what will be taught. The publishers, in turn, cater to
the teaching community and if the course is Windows-based, the text will be
Windows-based. Without financial or material support, schools are not
evangelical.

If every AOL CD came with a Knoppix CD we'd see some progress :-)

---
"Keep your friends close but your enemies closer!" -- Sun Tzu

[ Reply to This | # ]

Academica: "Hacker Contest" -- students refuse Windows
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 11:47 AM EDT
Some weeks ago I attended a talk given by a researcher from Darmstadt Technical University (Germany) about their "Hacker Contests". Basically, these contests are in form of a practical lecture on securing systems and systematically tracing successful break-ins. Of course, there is much more demand from students than can be handled by the university...

While the talk in itself was already highly interesting (how to set up simulated networks, et cetera) I found it most instructive that the presenter showed a slide with "lessons learned": one topic is that students now outrightly refuse to use Windows boxes in the class. He mentioned that even students that had never ever any exposure to unix systems and had grown up only with Windows PCs straightly refused Windows and instead tried to learn Linux or Unix over night. They openly told the teachers that they do not consider Windows to be secure in any way and that they rather ditch their sleep just to learn Linux and Unix, because they are anxious that they would otherwise have no chance against attacks when using Windows.

This is something that should be communicated to these high-profile analysts: the people now being educated don't eat all the spin-doctors' tales any more (and analysts' tales as well), they are now gaining first-hand experience in university and they can and probably will change the view on Windows in the following. These people are the people that will decide in the next years what systems will be deployed. And this is a situation that Microsoft fears: no successful brain-wash of the next generation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judging Books by Their Covers
Authored by: Ted Powell on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 12:00 PM EDT
Nobel laureate Richard Feynman had some experience with the textbook selection process in 1964. There's a chapter about it in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" : Adventures of a Curious Character.

(Admittedly, this is about selection for books at the grade-school level, but I suspect that much of it carries over to the business-school level.)

An article in The Textbook Letter, July-August 1999, gives an extended quote from this chapter—well worth reading.

Here is a shorter quote, about the infamous "blank book" episode:

We came to a certain book, part of a set of three supplementary books published by the same company, and they asked me what I thought about it.

I said, "The book depository didn't send me that book, but the other two were nice."

Someone tried repeating the question: "What do you think about that book?"

"I said they didn't send me that one, so I don't have any judgment on it."

The man from the book depository was there, and he said, "Excuse me; I can explain that. I didn't send it to you because that book hadn't been completed yet. There's a rule that you have to have every entry in by a certain time, and the publisher was a few days late with it. So it was sent to us with just the covers, and it's blank in between. The company sent a note excusing themselves and hoping they could have their set of three books considered, even though the third one would be late."

It turned out that the blank book had a rating by some of the other members! They couldn't believe it was blank, because [the book] had a rating. In fact, the rating for the missing book was a little bit higher than for the two others. The fact that there was nothing in the book had nothing to do with the rating.

From the Editor's Postscript:
If a state agency really wanted to obtain legitimate evaluations of textbooks, the agency could achieve this by using a process that is very well known: Send each book to a knowledgeable reviewer who will appraise it, who will write a report to set forth and explain his appraisal, and who will sign his name to his report. This is the process employed by the book-review editors of newspapers, magazines and professional journals throughout the land. It works, and it can be repeated to any desired extent: To obtain several appraisals of a given book, simply send the book to several reviewers.

As a rule, however, state agencies don't want legitimate evaluations of the textbooks that publishers submit for adoption, because the agencies are allied with the publishers. The adoption proceedings staged by these agencies are not designed to help school districts, to protect students, or to serve the interests of taxpayers. Rather, they are designed to serve the interests of the publishers, to generate approvals and certifications for the publishers' books, and to help the publishers sell those books to local schools.

This is why we continue to see, in state after state, the same absurdities that Feynman saw thirty-five years ago. In state after state, the legitimate reviewing of books is shunned. ...

---
his, her, its ..... not hi's, he'r, it's

[ Reply to This | # ]

Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: ujay on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 12:26 PM EDT
I read Mr. Murphy's article the other day and came to the conclusion that this
was a red herring.

These textbooks are not programmers textbooks, they are business administrators
textbooks. As a rule, many texts are several years out of date, revisions
usually limited until a new text book is written.

Linux has only come to the fore in traditional IT shops in the last few years.
It does not surprise me that referneces to Linux in a Business Admin book would
be limited.

What Mr. Murphy need to look into is how many references to Linux exist in
textbooks aimed at IT people and programmers. He will see a whole different
picture there.

When a Business Admin graduates into the real world, they quickly realize how
limited the textbooks were, on more than just IT areas, and then begins their
real education. Effective managers make use of many sources to familiarize
themselves, and if looking into IT areas, will quickly discover the linux
options.

It is the IT people who's job it is to give alternatives, with cost benefits and
other related issues that the admins know and understand.

If I had stayed at my former position as IT director, and were asked just 2
years ago about linux replacement in the servers, I probably would have
cautioned against it, even though I have been using Linux for 5 years myself.
Today, the situation has changed, but the fact remains that at the time of
original writing of those texts, Linux was not as viable a solution for business
as it has become.


---
Programmer: A biological system designed to convert coffee and cheesies into
code

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Shenanigans
Authored by: webster on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 12:57 PM EDT
I assumed this was an Irish word like mulligan or hooligan. It may be but the
origin is uncertain. It started in California around the time of the gold rush.
First printed use is in 1855 in San Francisco. Since it is similar to Spanish,
German and Irish (Gaelic) terms, its origin is unknown. California attracted
quite a mixture; maybe its chinese. Have we started a donnybrooke here?

---
webster

[ Reply to This | # ]

No Surprise
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 01:36 PM EDT
Microsoft Marketing has always followed a different path from that of most Tech
firms, and it's a tactic that they learned from IBM, and improved on.

Don't Market to the IT staff, they will implement what they are ordered to,
market to upper management.

I Wouldn't surprised to find that Microsoft marketing had made a help desk
availble to publishers of textbooks for PHBs where they could get assistance for
the sections of the books dealing with business software.

[ Reply to This | # ]

IT in the classroom
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 02:10 PM EDT
I teach classes at a community college. I teach Windows Server 2003 classes and
some Cisco classes. We are a Microsoft/Cisco/Novell Academy. We talked to Red
Hat about becoming a Red Hat Academy but they wanted $20,000, which we cannot
afford. After attending Brainshare I hope my school will be able to offer SUSE
Linux classes.

Cisco offers a "Fundmentals of UNIX" class which mentions Linux in
passing, but the class is really a primer on how to navigate the file system,
the ls command, very beginning concepts.

The point here is that vendors are good at getting made that promote their
respective platforms. There is no good off the shelf courseware for Linux
classes that I am aware of. My school created a custom course for our begining
Linux class.

Just some thoughts for the groklaw crowd.

[ Reply to This | # ]

When you extrapolate beyond your data is when you screw up
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 02:58 PM EDT
The textbook problem has always existed. It is a straw dog. There is every
reason for calm and reason to prevail. At the same time, I do believe the
topical post.

Everyone for all time should do everything within their power to put the
best books forward because our children are learning from textbooks.

Just do not think it can be "fixed" because little is
"broken". The writers,
editors, proof readers, publishers, curriculum committees, and readers
rely on their limited knowledge, skill, wisdom, and morals.

The global information society has alternatives. For example, MIT's Open
Courseware Web portal publishes the content they are allowed:

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

When one looks at the world as one issue, everything appears to be that
issue. : )

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Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: smoot on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 03:31 PM EDT
Unfortunately, this is an all too common phenomena in IT education. I remember
teaching a database course in the early 1980s at a major university. The text
was very IBM mainframe centric. I taught the course for 4 semesters. In the
final two semesters I ended up developing my own curriculum because of the bad
textbook.

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A+
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT
The A+ certification has a module on operating systems. As far as I can tell
this solely covers Windows, with the main emphasis being knowing the difference
between the NT based editions and the DOS based ones.

I see no mention of Unix, Linux, MacOS or anything else!

http://www.comptia.org/certification/a/os_objectives.asp

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  • A+ - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 05:32 PM EDT
  • A+ - Authored by: Astreja on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 06:00 PM EDT
  • ICDL, too - Authored by: bmcmahon on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 02:50 PM EDT
  • ICDL, too - Authored by: bmcmahon on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 02:51 PM EDT
Outsiders' Misconceptions of Unix
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 06:06 PM EDT
On the contrary, before I knew much about IT I instinctively
regarded Unix as far above DOS and Windows. I knew PCs in
Dixons came with Windows [Note for non-UK readers : Dixons is
a popular consumer electronics chain store] - so every Tom Dick
and Sally used Windows for games and letter writing. OTOH I
knew Unix was used for serious stuff like stress analysis and
scientific simulations, and needed a computer an order of
magnitude more powerful than a PC (this was c1995).

I also grasped very early on that Windows was only a front end
on DOS and that DOS was primitive, having been created as
something that could run, albeit practically on the metal, on the
feeble early PCs. I did realise that NT, when it came along, was
better, being the same Windows front end but now on an OS/2
kernel.

It puzzles me why others, like corporate administrators, do not
see things the same way. Maybe it is because I am an
engineer and not an administrator. Now I know much more
about the subject, and that my original "outsider's" impressions
were correct, I sometimes attempt to explain the above to others
but I am met by blank looks, or even hostility, like when Gallileo
told people the Earth went round the Sun. In many circles it is
regarded as irresponsible not to use Windows.

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Windows Culture vs Unix Culture
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 06:35 PM EDT
I work in a group of about 10 technical (not IT) people. Three of
us, while not IT professionals, are IT literate in the sense that
we can write scripts, use the command line and set up a
network. The others can only click and type. We all have to use
Windows at work, but two of us three literates use Linux at
home. All the others have Windows at home.

I do not regard myself as knowledgeable about Windows, but the
irony is that in the country of the blind ..... these others come to
us Linux users to solve their Windows problems! Even though
we do not hesitate to say what a crock of brown stuff Windows
is, while we do so.

Despite thus recognising that the most IT-capable people in the
group are happy to use Linux, these others nevertheless seem
to regard Linux as something inferior, not a proper system, and
that if it were any good, why is it free and why didn't their home
computer have it pre-installed?

Certainly most people outside of IT itself, and a few other geeks
like me, just don't get it.

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Another awful aspect of these texts...
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 11:18 PM EDT
"The fact that the business world holds IT certifications in such high
regard is appalling; would you prefer that we disregard the whole M.D. thing and
have Doctors be Glaxo certified general practioners and Pfizer certified health
engineers ?" -E. Rosenberg

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Not just textbooks
Authored by: mobrien_12 on Sunday, April 04 2004 @ 11:48 PM EDT
Have you gone to the bookshelves of your local bookstore lately? It seems to be
better than the situation described in the article, but not that much better.
MS stuff is dominating the shelves. It's darned hard to find a book on LaTeX
now.

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LOL!! Not to worry...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 01:41 AM EDT
I started playing with computers when 386 was king. I found a busted 8088, fixed
it, and became entranced by the command line. A few years later, I purchased my
first *new* box (486-dx66 Whooeee!!). by then I had 4 boxes in my folks'
basement, and I was learning networking. I went on-line the first time on a
Tandy 486 25-sx (only one that had a decent modem).

At that time (my beginning)the high schoollocal college taught MAC- but I, and
nearly everyone else that got "good" went DOS+3.x. Why? Because MAC
owned the market and cost gazillions of $$ to own. M$ was the new kid on the
block, was cheap, and you could probably "lift" a copy if you had no
money. M$ was comparatively "open" and encouraged anyone to write for
their system. The tools were readily available too, so there were thousands of
apps laying around for free (or nearly so).

Now the worm has turned. MS is the big dog with all the muscle, the champion of
proprietary code. The "new" kid on the block is Linux, just coming
into it's own.

Now to my point: What system is (predictably) the system of choice for the new
generation of snot-nosed cadets? Where are they going to go to get their tech.
fix?

What kid can afford to outfit a $1000 box with a $250 O.S (and apps too), not to
mention enough of them to learn networking skills?
Can any kid go out today and build a decent database or web server, or write a
great game or app out of bubblegum and bailing wire using MS software?

The kid will go where the system is cheap and powerful, where he can really
LEARN, where knowledge and ideas are openly exchanged (and in fact encouraged),
and greatly exceed the silly pap taught in lower and mid-level schools.

One has to look there, folks. Look to that kid in the basement with the
obsession, because he's the next generation of IT. He may be working for
corporate, he may be a service tech, he may just be the guru down the street
that knows how to fix everybody's problem. But he controls the future of the
tech industry. He, and those like him are the ones everyone goes to to get the
answer, to write the program, to build the box...

M$ is big enough to have it's way with Wall Street and to sniff with contempt at
Main Street, but it ignores *THE* STREET at it's peril. All those back rooms and
basements that support the cubicles that support the offices of the PHB's, all
the back alley shops and little store fronts that make sure Aunt Nellie can get
to her e-mail and surf the web. The people running those places may have gone on
to "higher learning", but I can nearly guarantee that they started in
their folk's basement with a couple of pent. 80's ..

Take a breath, keep a weather eye, but don't worry- the fix is in.

-The F@t Guy

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Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 10:13 AM EDT
"Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their
MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll
understand that their ignorance isn't entirely their fault."

I consider this a mildly fallacious argument, mainly because time marches on,
and seriously, if you're going to put money into something, you have to be able
to research it. I have a significant yearly budget as a developer that both
encompasses the breakneck rate of change, expansion of my own abilities and
refinement. Stand still and die, or at least watch some snotty nephew
accelerate past you in four or five years.

Another aspect to consider is that of conservatism in that the average
'higher-up' in a company may consider it demeaning to actually approach someone
with pertinent experience and _ask_, which is something I've come across more
than once, particularly if the subject is badly understood or explained. As
I've commented in the past, 'engineers' often have an 'ivory tower' demeanour
because they're considered as people who play with intangibles, especially given
the difficulty of enumerating the value of knowledge versus relevant skills
versus accreditation.

An interesting concept that I came across while reading 'Zen & The Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance' (Great book for anyone concerned with perception) was
that self-taught people generally have much better reasoning for diagnosing and
fixing problems because they're not restrained by a dogmatic or rote form of
learning; accreditation is frequently goal-oriented rather than about the
acquisition of knowledge, simply because the subjects tend to be rather broad.

Draconis

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Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 01:44 PM EDT
I just wanted to give a shout-out to Portland Community College. In most
classes, the assignments must compile on Linux and you are given a host account
if you need one.

We are also using the excellent text book "Computer Systems, A Programmer's
Perspective", by Bryant & O'Hallaron. It uses Linux, gcc, and gas to
teach assembly and machine level operations.

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Text Book Shenanigans: MS the most Successful
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 04:23 PM EDT
My speculation on part of the reason that MS is so predominant is that the text
books are written by business oriented authors. They see MS as the MOST
successful software company and therefore the best. This is based on dollar
value. And from that point of view MS is the most successful.

The problem is the logic involved with applying this to good IT infrastructure.
Just because MS is so successful does not mean they have the best software
products. They have a very good marketing department. It produces some of the
highest quality misinformation available with regard to other software. But the
pointy haired bosses and business types take this as truth since the company is
so successful. MS has also been able to pull a great number of contracting
shenanigans that even when caught have not really hurt them.

To sum it up because MS is successful they are to be upheld even if their
business model is sort of slimy.

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Text Book Shenanigans
Authored by: Artiken on Saturday, April 10 2004 @ 06:25 AM EDT
When I started to learn programming it was on the Commodore 64. Plenty of
documentation. There was even a magazine, Creative Computing, that handled
programming styles for the latest 64k machines. Emagine that. One magazine that
was able to cover the IT field and give space to all of the leaders.

I then got the Kernighan & Richie C book. (K's name is a best guess.) I read
it. Easy to follow and had at max 100 pages. It looks like a pamphlet compaired
to todays books. I was able to write some pretty cool Programs. Well I think
they are cool. Simple utilites that solved a problem that I needed to solve.

I have tried to wrap my brain around the current MSDN and it's obsficated help.
I don't get it. I've read and tried to follow the 1,500 page books related to
MSVC & Borland C++. I usually end up with a headache and feeling like I know
less than I started with. Borland is better than MSCV books, but both end up
leaving me feeling like I'm stupid. And the style of code that I end up writing
looks like some of the worst spagetti code I have ever seen. Maybe I should just
wait for M$ to write my apps for me. Maybe I should pay them Huge amounts of
money so that they can tell me how to write my code so that it doesn't crash.

Then about six months ago I found Linux and downloaded it. I'm still learning
the in's and out's of the OS. But in the mean time I've been using the GCC
compiler to write programs again. I've been looking at code snipets, reading
online books (less than 500 pages) and actually coding again.

The cost to me for the M$ suite of programming tools and all of the very large
heavy books has been around $1,000.00 (USD) And I was still not able to make a
decent application. Yes I could scab together a program in VB (yuch) but it had
many errors (not mine) and ran very slowly. It seems like I would spend 90% of
my time drawing the pretty little interface and 10% of my time writing the
actual code. There is something backwards here.

The cost of the Linux Development tools? Nearly Free. The cost of the
Educational Material? A few emails thanking the authors. Not that I had to. I
just wanted to express my thanks. My apps are faster running, the bugs are all
mine, and I spend 75% of my time writing the actual code and 25% of my time
doing the interface. Which means that I am able to write programs faster.

I loaned my nieces boyfriend the K&R C book. His text book in college is one
based on M$ .Net C. (EeeeWWWWW!!! Something I won't even bother to look at.) He
was having a hard time understanding the flow of programs and how to write good
code. When I handed him the book he looked at me like I was handing him a short
story that wouldn't do him any good. I explained that "This is the original
book by the original authors. Everything is included. All things C related are
in here. It is not filled with a bunch of verbage. Short, simple, sweet."
He read the "book" over the weekend. I say book, because it looks more
like a pamphlet. He now understands the C language and has been whipping out his
C++.net homework in no time flat.

My main point. Is the latest M$centric books are filled with verbage that leave
the reader overwhelmed and confused. Even if you know what your doing. They
obsficate it so much that you end up feeling, "Boy these guys must be
smart. I can't understand a word they are saying." When in reality they
don't know what the hell they are talking about. Is this what text books are
supposed to do? But they got paid big bucks to produce books that weigh more
than your laptop. So they must be right.

Artiken

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