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Australian State May Give Students Linux Laptops
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 14, 2008 07:02 PM
from the keep-it-cheap dept.
from the keep-it-cheap dept.
Whiteox writes "The Australian Prime Minister's plan to equip high schools with 'one laptop per child' may go open source. Kevin Rudd's $56 million digital revolution will include 'laptops [that will] run on an open source operating system with a suite of open source applications like those packaged under Edubuntu. This would include Open Office for productivity software, Gimp for picture editing and the Firefox internet browser.' So far this has been considered for New South Wales and I think other states may follow."
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Times are different now. (Score:5, Insightful)
That strategy worked great for Apple back in the late 1970s / early 1980s. Get Apples in front of schoolchildren and by the time the IBM PC came along it was too late. Kids were already in love with the Apples, and many "stuck with what they knew." It was the most effective long term marketing move Apple ever could have made, and I doubt they even realized it at the time.
Times have changed, though, and the ability to monopolize the hearts and minds of kids with the only computer they're exposed to is long gone. Many of the kids will already have PCs at home, many will have (or at least have played) X-Boxes, PS3s, Wiis and a host of other devices, including smart phones. I don't think this can have the same social effect that Apple had on us 30 years ago, because the environment is now so different. The novelty won't be there.
Re:Times are different now. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:5, Insightful)
That strategy worked great for Apple back in the late 1970s / early 1980s. Get Apples in front of schoolchildren and by the time the IBM PC came along it was too late. Kids were already in love with the Apples, and many "stuck with what they knew." It was the most effective long term marketing move Apple ever could have made, and I doubt they even realized it at the time.
Times have changed, though, and the ability to monopolize the hearts and minds of kids with the only computer they're exposed to is long gone. Many of the kids will already have PCs at home, many will have (or at least have played) X-Boxes, PS3s, Wiis and a host of other devices, including smart phones. I don't think this can have the same social effect that Apple had on us 30 years ago, because the environment is now so different. The novelty won't be there.
I agree, but there is still something very positive for Linux going on here, and that is that now Microsoft has to run around trying to put out fires like this one, and has less time to spend doing... other things. I know that people here think Microsoft has more money than God, but eventually the moles start popping up faster than you can whack them down, and you have to start losing some.
Australian students may not choose Linux when they leave school, but they will be more likely to have a choice when the time comes.
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Australian students may not choose Linux when they leave school, but they will be more likely to have a choice when the time comes.
I would argue that you are close to right, but not quite on the head of the nail. When the time comes to choose, students will be able to make the choice based on two FAMILIAR products. The windows PC that mum and dad have at home, and the OSS system that they have now become used to at school.
What held me back for such a long time to have one open source install at home? I didn't want to go through the learning process of getting used to it. That won't be an issue for these kids.
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:5, Interesting)
They will not only learn how to use the open source apps, they will also then get on a Windows computer and realize how much it crashes and does quirky things.
One problem with Windows users is they dont consciously realize when something has gone wrong.
They just think 'Oh its crashed' and re-open the app.
They think its just how computers are.
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:5, Informative)
You're missing one critical difference between open source software and Windows: The open source software tends to improve with each release. That can't really be said for Windows.
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:4, Interesting)
It was the most effective long term marketing move Apple ever could have made, and I doubt they even realized it at the time.
Heck yes we knew it, that was the whole and entire point.
Disclaimer:I wasn't in the Apple educational group at the time, but our early MIS development group shared the same (tiny) building with them on Bandley Drive, and there was a little bit of crosstalk.
Parent
Re:Times are different now. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The real reason behind this... (Score:5, Interesting)
NSW secondary school students could be issued with $56 million worth of Linux-based laptops as part of Kevin Rudd's digital education revolution.
The real reason behind this is that the federal government would supply the *hardware*, but that the schools would have to pay for the *software licenses* and the *support*. At least the price for software licenses would be greatly reduced now.
(Despite being a FreeBSD user,) I consider this is a good step forward: Give the children wooden blocks to play with, and they will build bridges with them.
Re:The real reason behind this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Give the children technology that they, and their teachers don't understand and the laptops will end up gathering dust.
I'm all for using OSS, but somebody needs to take responsibility and ensure that teachers and students are properly educated in their use.
on the one side the govt says "hey, we've paid enough, you get free laptops!"
on the other side the schools are saying "this will eat into our already slim budget, more money please!"
net effect: the kids lose out, better off investing the money in better teaching programs than laptops that the students don't even need.
Parent
You are REALLY underestimating them. (Score:5, Insightful)
" Give the children technology that they, and their teachers don't understand and the laptops will end up gathering dust. I'm all for using OSS, but somebody needs to take responsibility and ensure that teachers and students are properly educated in their use.
How difficult is it to use firefox, Openoffice, and Gimp? Seriously? It's not like we are asking them to use LaTeX.
Neither students nor teachers are idiots, despite being treated by idiots for years by Windows software.
Parent
Re:The real reason behind this... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what experience teaches us.
I'm of an age (born in '64) to remember when the pupils were the only ones who really knew how the computer systems worked. It was a time when 'hacking' was a positive term, and those happy few who had access to their systems became the people who have driven this whole technological revolution.
I'm a perfect example. I have exactly zero formal computer training, and am in the process of negotiating a director's position for an online company.
In my experience - and I have applied this method countless times - all you need to do is identify the bright, curious ones and give them time in front of the keyboard. The rest takes care of itself. A cultural effect sets in, in which bragging rights go to the most innovative, and the whole process takes on its own momentum.
I've spent the last 5 years working in a part of the world where academic opportunities are very limited, and even here every single one of my apprentices (only one of whom had any post-secondary experience) has gainful employment in IT.
Courses are all well and good. They serve a definite purpose. Teacher training serves an important role as well. But your premise that any shortfall in this regard will result in systematic failure is demonstrably false.
Parent
As a Linux-Savvy Education Student... (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest opposition to Rudd's "computers in schools" plan has been that he's funding the hardware/software but no the support or training. No doubt this will give more weight to their argument.
Re:As a Linux-Savvy Education Student... (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest opposition to Rudd's "computers in schools" plan has been that he's funding the hardware/software but no the support or training. No doubt this will give more weight to their argument.
This Australian is not opposed to that. I would love to see Linux laptops in Victorian schools, and I would love to see the kids and teachers in those schools learn and develop their own methods for support and training -- it would be a hugely educational and involving experience, and would help break down the idea that true innovation in computing only comes from above, from the commercial package houses.
I'm willing to volunteer 3rd level support for such myself, but only if they spend some time scurrying about themselves and learning what they can do. Access to a help desk won't really help them learn the basic skills necessary to operate in a society that increasingly depends on densely-packed transistors written on melted sand. Learning the rote behaviour of running common commercial packages may help them in basic knowledge management, but doesn't grant the curious among them visibility under the bonnet.
Example: How would you set up a Wiki under Windows -- build a Sharepoint server and call it a knowledge base (Urk!) or have them set up a Mediawiki LAMP stack? Which one would they learn more from? Which one could they do with the smallest infrastructure spend? (Yes, I know about virtual appliances, it was just an example.)
You've got to give kids clocks to take apart.
Parent
Re:As a Linux-Savvy Education Student... (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to give kids clocks to take apart.
No, you don't. ;-)
I remember back when I was in maybe the 4th or 5th grade, and I found an old mechanical clock in the house that wasn't being used. I took it apart, studied the pieces, and put it back together so it still worked. I did this several times, to figure out more about how the pieces worked. Then one day, my mother found me with the clock disassembled. She blew up, gave me a lecture about ruining the clock, took it away from me, and disposed of it.
If she had been around when I found the clock, I'd have never been permitted to take it apart, even though it wasn't being used. She didn't believe that kids like me were smart enough to handle something that she couldn't understand, not even when the teachers kept telling her how smart I was.
People don't have to give kids anything that's educational. Many people would prefer not to. The kids might get the idea that they can learn about such things on their own. We wouldn't want kids to get such ideas, would we?
Parent
Don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will be forthcoming with massive discounts 5 minutes before the deal with RedHat is signed and our government will renege on any promises they made.
It's the traditional "what do you mean we don't get a discount? Well, ya know, Open Source is getting more and more acceptable..."
Unfortunately, the moral imperative for schools to use exclusively Free Software [linux.com] is not even a consideration here.
Don't believe it (Score:4, Informative)
The NSW State Govt can't organise a chook raffle let alone something such as equiping kids with open source laptops. It has bigger fish to fry.
Besides, the topic is slightly wrong. Rudd isn't part of an Australian State, his part of the Federal Government. Two different beasts. The State won't 'give', it will 'receive'.
Rudd wants to give lumps of cash to a number of States based on need, spending not just on technology, but more importantly on infrastructure, health and education.
Headline wrong (Score:5, Funny)
"Australian State Threatens To Give Students Linux Laptops to Force Microsoft to Lower Prices"
There, fixed that for you.
Fools! (Score:5, Insightful)
When everything is free to obtain and upgrade, students learn it all in school, and interfaces don't arbitrarily change every 4 or 5 years, the whole system collapses. There won't even be any big companies to bail out, either.
Re:To bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
The word is too.
Fear spreading is as popular a past time here in Australia as it is in the rest of the world. Widespread filtering would not only be easily detectable [downforeve...justme.com] and ineffectual but it would also be defeated by public outcry. It won't happen.
Parent
Re:To bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Even the Linux kernel (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Australians wanted to ban..."
Australia has a population of 20 million, we have a diverse background, we are not all the same.
Perhaps you could have been more specific and stated that a minority of Australian federal politicians wanted to ban such a thing.
Parent
Re:In the middle of an economic crisis (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, now that's an interesting position. Could you back it up, please? By most traditional measures (GDP per capita, GNI per capita, etc.), Australia is one of the most well-off in the world. By which measure do you assert that it's not a first world country?
Parent
Re:In the middle of an economic crisis (Score:5, Informative)
It depends how the debt was incurred.
If the debt is incurred to fuel capital spending, then yes, the debt helps the nation to grow by increasing our productive capacity.
If the debt is incurred to fuel consumer spending, then it's bad debt.
Debt comes with interest payments. Paying interest on the debt only makes sense if the benefit received by the debt is greater than the interest paid. So it really depends how the debt is used as to whether or not the debt is bad.
As for Australia being a "developing" nation: what crap. Australia is not a "developing nation", according to all international benchmarks. We have one of the highest standards of living, next to the US and Japan.
Australia:
Infant mortality: 4 / 1000
Adult literacy (men): ~99%
Adult literacy (females): ~99%.
Life expectancy (males): 78.9 years
Life expectancy (females): 83.4 years
Per-capita GDP: 37,300 $US.
For truly developing nations, these statistics are much much worse. Take India, for example.
Infant mortality: 33 / 1000
Adult literacy (men): 76%
Adult literacy (females): 65%.
Life expectancy (males): 63.1 years
Life expectancy (females): 66 years
Per-capita GDP: 2,600 $US.
(Yes, I know that Qatar has the highest per-capita GDP, that's largely due to its reserves of oil. An outlier doesn't disqualify the general trend.)
Developing nation? Please. You either don't understand the term or are unqualified to speak about it.
Parent