Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!ether!bug!stevef
From: stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Educational software contest
Summary: A plan to sell more Amiga's and help education.
Keywords: education, contest, Commodore
Message-ID: <494@bug.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 91 07:11:52 GMT
Reply-To: stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Organization: Handmade Designs, Salem, OR.
Lines: 44

I am interested in education and in seeing the Amiga be a big success.  In
these matters I have the following perceptions:

	1. Commodore would like to sell to the education market.

	2. There is not much educational software for the Amiga
	and what there is is not very good (actually, none of the
	educational software I've seen for any computer is very
	good, with the exception of the "Where in X is
	Carmen Sandiego" series from Broderbund).

	2.5 The lack of educational software holds back Amiga
	sales in this market.

	3. The Amiga is uniquely suited to education.

	4. The Amiga has attracted an exceptionally large and
	talented group of programmers who produce public domain
	software.

	5. A lot of their effort is not well focused and is spent
	on re-inventing the wheel and writing demos.

	6. Contests are very good way to get a lot of people to
	work on a problem cheaply.

With all of this in mind, I think there is a way to bring the Amiga's strenths
to bear on this weakness: Commodore should hold a contest for the best new
public domain educational software.  This would be good publicity for
Commodore, who could claim to be doing it for "our children", and it wouldn't
have to cost them much as they could give Amiga's for prizes.

The educational potential of computers has barely been touched.  At the same
time, schools don't have a lot of money to spend on software, so there has not
been a lot of commercial development.  Using a contest to develop software
gets around this problem, and holds the potential of really helping education
(lord knows it needs all the help it can get).

I've wanted to write Commodore with this idea for some time, but I didn't know
who to write, so I thought I'd post it to the NET to see what you all think
about it.
-- 

uunet!sequent!ether!bug!stevef	  I am the NRA		Steven R. Fordyce