Macenstein

Posted by Helper Monkey

We often hear of Apple’s battle to make headway in America’s education sector, but it is nice to see that Apple is also making a concerted effort to gain a youthful mindshare globally as well.

Macenstein reader rico et nath sent us a link to a page on Apple UK’s site reporting that they have made a deal that will put them in all of Ireland’s 3500 primary schools by the end of 2006, primarily as part of the country’s F�S (Gaelic for “vision�) film project, which aims to help children learn key skills in communication, teamwork, problem solving and critical thinking through film.

According to Creative Director Ciarán McCormack, “The three watch words for F�S are simplicity, connectivity and creativity. Apple gets ticks in all three boxes. The hardware and the software are so intuitive that teachers and children can just get on with what the project is all about — making and using films to learn�.

Can’t argue there.

McCormack also finds that supporting the Mac platform is easy. “We can maintain high-quality support because if, very rarely, a school rings us up with a problem, we can usually address it over the phone. The project used to be multi-platform, but responding to a PC-based query was a nightmare. We had to ask so many questions about the various PC operating systems and whether they were updated that we usually ended up having to visit the school to solve the problem�.