RSSMajor University of the People annoyance
Oct 15
Rants, school bias, inconsistency, Office 2003, Office 2007, OpenOffice Writer, software, University of the People, Windows XP, word processor No Comments
Hey Readers!
Another week has begun at University of the People and after a horrible last week, I was expecting this week to be better but I am not so sure that is going to happen. The work load doesn’t seem so bad this week but something that was a minor annoyance before has now turned into a major annoyance.
Why am I so annoyed? I am annoyed at the school’s lack of consistency and software bias. A couple of weeks ago, we were given an introduction to the desktop. Normally I would say this is fine despite the fact that I don’t need to know how to click the start button but what really annoyed me is that the walk-through was for Windows XP and XP only. From the discussions that have taken place among the students, there don’t seem to be too many of them on XP anymore. Some, like myself are on Windows 7, some are on Vista, a few are on a Mac and many are on Linux. A number of students, myself included, are irked that the school seems to be showing favoritism to an 8 year old, insecure operating system instead of something even halfway current not to mention the fact that many are on Linux because they can’t afford a license for Windows and are at a disadvantage because of it. So much for the school being free and open to everybody no matter their circumstance as long as they have Internet and know English.
If this was just a one time thing, I would be willing to overlook it but this week it has gotten much worse. Now, we have the problem of lack of consistency. In this week’s learning guide (our reading material for the week), we are told how to do certain tasks in Microsoft Word 2003 and OpenOffice Writer. Again, I have my current software complaint but I am also irked that Google Docs, which is what I use, is completely ignored. If that wasn’t bad enough, part of our work for the week, our discussion, requires Office 2007. Huh?! Why would you tell us how to use Word 2003 and Writer, only to make us talk about features of a completely different program and only that program? This is insane! How are those of us who use Google Docs or OpenOffice Writer supposed to participate in the discussion (which is for a grade) if we don’t have Office 2007? I have multiple copies of Office 2007, but that isn’t the point. It is not my preferred environment although I do enjoy it, but many people can’t afford to have several different word processors just because a school can’t make up its mind as to what it thinks we should be using.
Make up your mind University of the People!!! I recommend making the system where everybody can learn equally regardless of their software and stop using old software or playing guess what word processor you need next.
