Comment Doesn't matter (Score 1) 454
The majority of what you are teaching them is not application specific. People are constantly having to learn new, different, or upgraded applications. This can be a painful period of adjustment, but it is not starting from scratch. Once they're comfortable with the new app, they begin leveraging all the bulk of their prior experience acquired from previous apps to getting actual work done in the new app.
If you see what I mean.
For that matter, in practice, most of us keep a selection of apps and choose the best one for the task at hand rather than insisting on trying to do everything with a single app.
So, while the choice of app may have some importance, it isn't hugely important.
That said, I agree with the advice to use multiple apps. It ensures you cover more ground (rather than missing features/techniques that a specific app doesn't support), and it teaches your students how to deal with switching apps.
It could also be interesting to assign different groups of students different apps for the same project. Then have them compare their experiences.
If you see what I mean.
For that matter, in practice, most of us keep a selection of apps and choose the best one for the task at hand rather than insisting on trying to do everything with a single app.
So, while the choice of app may have some importance, it isn't hugely important.
That said, I agree with the advice to use multiple apps. It ensures you cover more ground (rather than missing features/techniques that a specific app doesn't support), and it teaches your students how to deal with switching apps.
It could also be interesting to assign different groups of students different apps for the same project. Then have them compare their experiences.
