On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 07:36:42 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:
It isnt really feasible to teach either word processing or spreadsheets
without using specific examples of those, and it makes no sense to not
be using the most commonly used ones.

I think the core concepts are common enough that it doesn't matter. I'd
even go as far as to say that teaching a completely different product to
the most common one in current use is a good thing, because by the time
people enter the 'real world' things will likely have changed. The most
common product might no longer be so - or it may have been re-released
and re-worked to the point where the UI is different and the bells and
whistles work in subtly different ways that can catch people out.

Computing in general needs to be about teaching good logic, reasoning and
problem-solving skills, I think, *not* about how to use a specific set of
applications - and the fact that the academic world seems to have been
mostly doing the latter for the last decade or so is really holding us
back.

cheers

Jules