kaled - 2:56 pm on May 17, 2008 (gmt 0)

I don't have first hand experience of modern schooling with respect to computer skills, but it seems to me that far too much effort goes into teaching people how to do achieve specific tasks and not enough effort goes into teaching people how to figure things out for themselves.

If people learn to figure stuff out on their own, they will adapt quickly to whatever computer environment they find themselves using, but it people simply learn to complete a set of tasks they are likely to be lost if the software changes.

To this extent, both sides of this argument are correct - it really depends on how the children are taught. If they are simply taught how to complete set tasks then experience of Windows as well as Linux can only be good. However, I would hope that the children using these laptops will learn how to figure stuff out, in that case, the choice of operating system is largely irrelevant (provided both work equally well).

Kaled.