When I was in middle school, the lab was filled with Apple computers, including very early versions of iMacs. I worked with the school’s resource teacher and helped out with hardware in the labs, and we continually argued over the merits of Mac versus Windows PC. Macs were winning out in schools due to a push on educational software and their relative ease of maintenance, while PCs offered an ease of upgrading and access to a world of software rarely ported onto Mac’s smaller market share. I naively assumed then that Macs would eventually disappear, or that the division would become less significant, with software easily running across the two operating systems.
Fast forward two decades later: the Mac and PC divide still exists. The days of the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ad have passed, but the divide between operating systems in software, interface, and aesthetic is still extensive. I remain personally entrenched in the Windows and PC camp thanks to the better support for gaming and development software. Yet I’m writing this post on a Mac thanks to a trend towards favoring Apple products at my institution. When teaching on-campus, the Mac or PC decision is usually made for me: a computer lab will be equipped with one or the other, and students in courses that involve digital production can be relied upon to have access to those labs. This in turn determines what software I use to teach a course, and provides a valuable consistency of access. However, teaching online presents many more challenges, particularly when integrating any projects that involve using a program that isn’t browser-based.
Here are some of the biggest challenges the Mac and PC dual “virtual” classroom has presented me with in teaching online this semester and how I’ve handled them so far:
- Limitations in cross-platform software. Most creative software is optimize for one operating system for another: as I noted last week in my post on Stencyl, very few tools for game-making or media production are truly cross-platform. I’ve had to significantly redesign every project to only use cross-platform tools, which often means going with a more complicated or less-ideal solution for a design problem. For examples that are only available on one platform a student could theoretically use a solution such as Boot Camp or a virtual machine, but this demands an investment of time and knowledge on the part of the student.
- Availability of legacy software and objects of study. As I teach digital media both as production and as object of study, I often require students to play older games or examine interactive media artifacts. Many of these are only available for one platform (often Windows), and even those can require knowledge of tools such as DosBox and other environment emulators to run. Unfortunately, this means videos often replace hands-on interactive experience in the context of an online course. Awesome web-based collections like Internet Archive’s Arcade provide some great options for web-based content, but the ongoing death of Flash and the abandonment of support for Unity web player means lots of great interactive web content is becoming harder and harder for the average student to access.
- Inconsistencies in student system knowledge. In a campus computer lab, we can rely on having certain software installed in advance. When students are their own system administrators, they often don’t know how to change permissions on their computer or how to successfully install software. I’ve found adding detailed step by step instructions for Mac and PC can help mitigate some of these problems, but ultimately online courses require students to gain additional technological literacy to succeed. This can add a layer of frustration to any project before it even gets started. I often find I answer as many (or more) messages with questions on how to install software on a Mac as I do questions related to a project itself.
- Different standards in interface design. Even cross-platform software is often customized to a particular operating system in its design, and updates are often not consistent between different versions. When teaching students who use both, it’s necessary to either have access to both platforms and take multiple screenshots and tutorial videos (which can add significant prep time and cause confusion for students) or to only choose programs that are nearly identical.
As universities often think of online course delivery as entirely web-based, the requirements to take an online class are often minimal and list Windows and Mac OS as equivalent choices. This will continue to present challenges for any project-based class that takes advantage of the computer as a tool, and not just a web browser. The web browser has served as a great cross-platform equalizer for the delivery of many types of content, and in-browser production tools (such as the Twine 2.x) are growing in sophistication. However, downloadable software still provides levels of interface and capabilities not yet easily replicated on the web.
I believe bringing project-based learning to online courses is an essential part of making them meaningful for students who are engaging in a technologically-mediated educational environment. However, until true cross-platform support for software becomes standard, we must take into account these different platforms and knowledge levels when designing any such content.
How do you prepare for the Mac / PC divide when assigning software and production tasks in an online course? Share your strategies in the comments.
[CC BY 2.0 Photo by Tama Leaver]