Spreadsheets

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

  Michael,

> > > There are no plans for an official OLPC spreadsheet activity. At
> > > least, none that I have heard of (or could imagine). Largely because 6
> > > year olds shouldn't have access to it.
> >
> >   Can you explain why they shouldn't?
> 
> It wasn't that I felt children should or shouldn't have such an
> activity, I had just not heard/read of plans for one (though, I now
> see the need for one is briefly talked about on the wiki) and was
> conveying that to Nathalia. Clearly, I spoke too soon.
> 
> Apologies to the list for over-speaking myself.

  OTOH, one could argue that training the surface-level use of office
tools is not about education (especially for a 6 years old).  And,
training kids to do a PowerPoint-style presentation with short bullets
points encourages them to forget details (it is sort of true that any
presentation on any substantially complex subject is about forgetting
details).  So, that kind of reasons for not allowing kids to access
such kind of tools might make sense.  But spreadsheet software can
empower kids in the classrooms more than slideshow software, I think.

-- Yoshiki