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I'm Australian, I started high school in 1996, what stuck out to me was lack of computer literacy in the vast majority of teachers. It wasn't uncommon for stude

I'm Australian, I started high school in 1996, what stuck out to me was lack of computer literacy in the vast majority of teachers. It wasn't uncommon for students to know more than the teachers. We had the occasional teacher who was enthusiastic, for example I had an English teacher who arranged for us to be email pen-pals with students from a school in Japan but for the most part the majority of teachers were utterly clueless about technology. One vivid memory I have is from grade 10. I elected to do a tech drawing class, we were supposed to have some lessons on using CAD and the school had presumably paid money for CAD software in the computer lab but the instructor (maybe 50 years old) had no clue how to use the software. So after maybe 2 lessons of him fumbling around and no one accomplishing anything it was back to drawing in pencil with a compass and a protractor for the rest of the semester.

sen 3y ago
Yeah I’m Australian-born too, going back to Australia at the end of high school after doing most my schooling in Europe was mind blowing, like going back in time. Obviously some schools/unis were more advanced but almost everyone I met had never even used a computer in Australia, and at most had some email access for work/uni and that was it. The country itself was advanced tech-wise in companies/government but as far as education went it was really behind, and was basically left as “if you need computers for your job then they’ll train you”.
- RoyalHenOil 3y ago
  I'm originally from the US (I moved to Australia in my mid-20s), and it's interesting how different it was for me and for my Australian partner. I first used a computer when I was a toddler in the 1980s, and I have been using them ever since. I went to a very low-income public school in a poverty-stricken, high-crime neighborhood, and we were using computers (albeit very outdated Apple II's that had been donated) starting in 1st grade. We were writing stories and printing them out by second grade, and learning how to "surf the web" and cite websites by 3rd. By high school, we were learning Photoshop and video editing. Meanwhile, my partner attended a very expensive private school, yet his first experience with a computer came drastically later (like some time around 2000 or so?), and it was because his family bought one, not because the school had them. On the other hand, he was already playing video games on a SNES from an early age, whereas I didn't get my first console (a cheap secondhand GameCube) until 2005 or 2006 when I was a university student. I can really see the difference in our parents, too. His mother is essentially computer illiterate to this day, whereas even my grandpa (born in 1930 and grew up sharecropping) was making websites without any help from his children or grandchildren while I was still a little kid.

sen 3y ago

Yeah I’m Australian-born too, going back to Australia at the end of high school after doing most my schooling in Europe was mind blowing, like going back in time. Obviously some schools/unis were more advanced but almost everyone I met had never even used a computer in Australia, and at most had some email access for work/uni and that was it. The country itself was advanced tech-wise in companies/government but as far as education went it was really behind, and was basically left as “if you need computers for your job then they’ll train you”.

RoyalHenOil 3y ago
I'm originally from the US (I moved to Australia in my mid-20s), and it's interesting how different it was for me and for my Australian partner. I first used a computer when I was a toddler in the 1980s, and I have been using them ever since. I went to a very low-income public school in a poverty-stricken, high-crime neighborhood, and we were using computers (albeit very outdated Apple II's that had been donated) starting in 1st grade. We were writing stories and printing them out by second grade, and learning how to "surf the web" and cite websites by 3rd. By high school, we were learning Photoshop and video editing. Meanwhile, my partner attended a very expensive private school, yet his first experience with a computer came drastically later (like some time around 2000 or so?), and it was because his family bought one, not because the school had them. On the other hand, he was already playing video games on a SNES from an early age, whereas I didn't get my first console (a cheap secondhand GameCube) until 2005 or 2006 when I was a university student. I can really see the difference in our parents, too. His mother is essentially computer illiterate to this day, whereas even my grandpa (born in 1930 and grew up sharecropping) was making websites without any help from his children or grandchildren while I was still a little kid.