On Thu, 2006-05-11 at 14:52 -0300, Jacques B. wrote: > It's unreasonable to expect parents to have access to PowerPoint for > school projects. I think it's unreasonable that parents should have to stump with $1000+ worth of machinery (a PC), plus proprietary lock-in software, for homework purposes. And what are you going to do with it? Use it as a high priced electric typewriter, and to look up dubious sources of information on the internet as your references, with no trained educators to help you as you struggle along with your project. But then I disagree with the notion of homework, anyway. It's only value is to involve parents with their child's education, but most don't, or don't do it in a worthwhile manner. The kids go to school to learn, at the end of the day they've done enough of that. Likewise most parents have had enough work during their day, and don't want to spend several more hours doing work on something at home. It, homework, is pointless anyway. I work in electronics, I highly technical field. I've never needed anything I was taught at high school beyond basic maths in the first couple years, and the same applies for most people that I know in a wide variety of jobs. All those nightly hours of grief were a complete waste of my time. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have coasted school. I would have flatly refused to waste my time with pointless rubbish, insisted that they constrain themselves to teaching things that were genuinely useful, and flatly refused to co-operate with any punishments meted out. Even when I worked in schools I realised it was a pointless place for most people. -- (Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.