All Ages What operating system does your school provide on computers?

pandandesign

pandandesign

Legacy Member
I remember when I was in middle school, the only operating system that the school provided for the computers was Mac OS. I also remember that both of my high school and college have both Mac and Windows but more people prefer using Mac for a lot of reasons. I like using Mac OS because it is more stable and is better for any editings. What operating system does your school provide for computers?
 
My university currently has the windows 8 OS on pretty much all computers. I really admire how schools are continually trying to integrate technology into their systems. Improved technology makes things easier for both students and staff alike.
 
pandandesign said:
I remember when I was in middle school, the only operating system that the school provided for the computers was Mac OS. I also remember that both of my high school and college have both Mac and Windows but more people prefer using Mac for a lot of reasons. I like using Mac OS because it is more stable and is better for any editings. What operating system does your school provide for computers?
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My school has Windows. I think its because Microsoft sponsored the whole thing and the school was pretty much underfunded in that area. Mac is way too expensive and therefore not widely used where I live too.
 
Back then, when i was still in school, it provided both Windows and Mac. We had about 5 labs, and 2 was Mac and 3 for windows. A lot of kids wanted windows and some wanted Mac so, they came up with an efficient solution.
 
alxsnow said:
My university currently has the windows 8 OS on pretty much all computers. I really admire how schools are continually trying to integrate technology into their systems. Improved technology makes things easier for both students and staff alike.
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Yeah my school also has the window 8 0S on there. I have to say that all the computers in the school run smooth and they are efficient and easy to use.
 
My high school was PC-based, but the film department (of which I was a member) was all Apple. So we had a ton of Mac computers all situated in our building. It actually made us feel kind of bad at one point. Other departments could barely afford paint, but we spent about half a million dollars on new computers. They were great machines, though.
 
Back then my school provided the computers with Windows XP. It's not bad at that time. Currently my Uni is using Windows 7 for almost all computers provided to students. It's decent, except for one thing. We have to use Internet Explorer to browse the internet.
 
When I was in elementary school, my home computer was one of the first colored iMacs--the purple one. I remember it had a game called Nanosaur that was truly epic. At my actual school, we had super slow, super limited Windows 98. It was...an experience. Then in Intermediate and High School, Windows evolved to XP. I upgraded my home computer to a Macbook. About the time I graduated high school, I believe Windows 7 had come out, as well as Mac OS X. A couple colleges I went to had the traditional Windows XP in the library paired with "Mac Labs."

As for Japan, everything is already converted to Windows 10, and many universities and colleges are utilizing iPads and other tablets for textbooks.
 
My old high school predominantly uses Macs, actually. We had them in the library, in the tutorial centers, in the computer labs, in the writing centers, etc. We did have Windows computers too, but those were mostly in the "technology wing" where more specialized classes like three-dimensional modeling, etc., were taught.

In my university, now, it's predominantly Windows computers in the libraries and whatnot. However, in the computer science labs, we use Macs!
 
The computers that we provide are run on Windows OS and while we did have a choice as to choose MAC's we decided against it principally because of the popularity of the OS outside a classroom environment. There didn't seem much point in teaching children how to use Apple computers if they went home and had Microsoft based PC's.

We also have Android tablets instead of I-pads for much the same reason, and while I-pads are more popular at the moment, I do think that in years to come android will be the most popular OS for mobile devices, so the children will benefit more in the future even though that might not be the case right now.
 
Well I actually find it pretty interesting to see which school use which operating systems, and I am also surprised at the amount of difference. I remember I always grew up on PC, which is no surprise, but then in the later years everything seemed to be a Mac. That was all well and good, and then when I graduated and went back into the school system, it was mixed, where some had PCs and others had Macs. I guess it is beneficial where most people are familiar with both, so that is a positive.
 
In an ideal world I think that schools and colleges would be able to provide devices that use both operating systems, but in these days where budgets are tight, that simply isn't possible and so that's why most schools have to choose one or the other and in most cases that Windows. Apple tends to be the more expensive of the devices anyway and so that's another issue we looked at when choosing ours, and for the price of 10 Apple MAC's we could get 15 Windows based PC's so in the end it was a bit of a no brainer really.
 
Sadly, they still use proprietary operating systems here.

I wish all schools would adopt free and open source software.

We can not transform our society (truly rethinking it) using the "status quo" systems full of malware by design that will not allow the study of their internals since the system's source code is treated as a trade secret.

Free software stands for freedom, not price alone. The use of pirated software is not the solution.

Children learn from what they use. In the very precious time when their minds are most malleable what better gift than offering the advantage of being impregnated with the learning of open systems that stimulate their curiosity and allow them access to the full range of internals powering the software? The type of software made by creators not seeing the classroom a business, but as an opportunity.
 
In an ideal world then what your saying is right, but as we know the world isn't ideal and I can't see what you are asking being implemented anytime soon, if at all. Unfortunately education is a business, and a business that a lot of companies are doing pretty well out of, and so while for the schools and the teachers the priority is the education of the children, their priority is to carry on making as much money as they can and if that means lessening the opportunities rather than expanding them then that's the way it will continue to go.
 
@pwarbi

It pains me a little bit to say it, but yes: I am an idealist. I think in the not-too-distant future the situation regarding free software will change. In fact, there have been great advances when looking at other sectors such as the government in certain countries. They pass mostly unnoticed but are there as a testimony of the possibility of actual adoption.

On the other hand, the reality on the ground is that schools do not always seek to adopt the best teconologia in terms of productivity or freedom, but whatever suits them, for reasons as dark as having a certain company offering a sponsorship.

Reading articles like this makes you realize some of those facts: 3 Reasons Linux Doesn't Star In U.S. Schools
 
In our schools, we have windows by default but also in most of the computers we have ubuntu as well, just to provide alternative options to students and make them understand that windows isnt the end when it comes to the operating system.

Occasionally, we teach them ubuntu as well just so that they are familiar with the basics of that particular operating system.
 
The last school I taught in was a nursing college. The computers available for use had Windows 7 on them. I think there might be some with Windows 10 but I cannot be sure. When I was a child in school, there were no computers yet. Was it possible for us to study without computers? Yes, of course. Would it help if there are computers in schools? Why not? It's all a matter of how they are used.
 
Our computers still run Windows 7. We've been considering upgrading to Windows 10 but are yet to make that move. What could be better though is using virtualization software so more than one operating system can be installed on one machine.

This way, students can at least learn how to use other Operating Systems if say we have Chromium (Linux--based), Windows and OS X installed on one computer although there's a high probability that OS X won't work well on a PC. .
 
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