kubla2000 writes "The current issue of the Times Educational Supplement is running an article in which they cite a report by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association telling primary and secondary schools in the UK to dump Microsoft Operating systems and products in order to save millions. In a report to be published next week, obtained by The TES, Becta will highlight schools which have turned to free software instead of the market leader's products. Becta does not name Microsoft in its analysis. But almost all schools use some of the company's products. Their conclusion? Schools running OSS are saving 24% on average per pc versus those running proprietary systems."
Why would they? If they have to give their product away for free, they lose the basis for their entire business model.
Besides, even if you get MS software for free, you still have the costs associated with mitigation and damage control for the zillions of exploits that will dog your network.
If kids get used to using OpenOffice.org, etc at school, then they're going to go home and tell their parents about it at home, who might decide to go for it on their next computer. When those kids get their own computer, they also might decide to try OpenOffice over MS Office. Same for teachers who get used to it at work - if they start saving their files in OOo's format, they want to be able to open them when they get home, etc.
Especially when it comes to what the students are using, most schools only have a couple dozen computers for all the students to use. So by giving away 30 or so copies of MS Office, MS could be preventing a couple hundred kids from telling their parents about OOo.
Especially when it comes to what the students are using, most schools only have a couple dozen computers for all the students to use. So by giving away 30 or so copies of MS Office, MS could be preventing a couple hundred kids from telling their parents about OOo.
I don't know where you're from, so I'll let you off, but in the UK most schools don't have "a couple of dozen computers" - I worked in a primary school doing IT support for a while, and for the 5-8 age range there was a machine in every room, 5 support machines for staff, and a suite with another 10 in it.
And I've been saying what this article has been ever since I started working there:P Licensing costs the school thousands a year, due to "having to upgrade", money which could be much better spent on extra support staff in classrooms for kids who need help, or hundreds of other things.
Well... sometimes it works, anyway. We in my CS dept are still using win2000, apparently because MS hasn't given us XP and we have no intention of paying for it. The tactic hasn't worked for us yet... but then, it doesn't really harm us either.
As long as you are still using Windows, you are not threatening. Announce a migration to Linux and THEN you may get free or significantly reduced product.
MS WANTS it's software in education so that Windows and MS Office are the only things young people entering the workforce know. Apple's educational programs are really the only thing that kept them alive all these years (although OS X has finally given them a true technological edge over MS so it's not Quite as important, but is still important. Pre-OS X MacOS was truely horrible.)
They can just give it away for free, in order to maintain their stronghold. Then, they just write it off as a donation of $199 a copy for Windows, and $500 a copy for office, and they end up making money off giving donations to the school.
you *try* donating old PCs. People don't want to know - ok, a primary school where they have a couple of machines for kids to play on might, but secondary schools are like corporations: they want new, fixed TCO machines on a 4 year refresh cycle. they want them consisted, so they can use the same image on them. what they don't want is a ragbag of old tat that'll cost more to setup and support than buying new will. PC costs are negligible now: I've just bought a Dell with a monitor for 211UKP with 3 year warranty, for example.
These come with a client licence for XP as well.
Bash MS all you want, suggest schools use Linux/Open Source, but don't set up a straw man argument that's clearly false.
Wow, this will be a great oportunity for OSS to snap up another user base. Not only will it save a lot of money for the schools, but this will more than likely result in more users seeing the wonders of free software, and converting themselves.
Would be good if they openly condemned Windows though:P
Not suitable for use in schools? What do you think schoolkids do on the computers? Everything I ever did in a school IT lesson I could have done in an out of the box linux distro at the time, even more so now. Possible that some of the circuit design software for design tech might be missing... but then we had old Acorn machines still running for that very reason anyway and then had a few dedicated windows machines installed running just that, for the majority of school computers linux is just fine. Based on the UK National Curriculum at any rate, which is what matters for this.
Just recommending dumping one supplier of software simply to save money is a worry.
Is our school's education all related to money? do we just want to make it cheaper?
Or make it truly better. As much as I don't like Microsoft maybe there are situations where their software is best.
Just saying to dump them because of cost to save 24% sounds appealing at a first glance, but then replacing teachers with babysitters at half the wages would save 50%.
But it's not doing much good for the kids. Maybe a less broad "Microsoft is 100% evil" attitude would help the kids. Their the ones learning
Want to really save money? Dump computers altogether in elementary schools. I didn't get involved with computers until grade 7, and even then it was a real stretch of the imagination -- a single LOGO class was about it. Even in high school, computers weren't all that prevalent until grade 11. As a result, I had to learn things the old fashioned way -- by figuring it out on my own without a computer doing it for me. I think things turned out fairly well as a result and my interest in computers carried me the rest of the way. Do kids these days even know multiplication tables without reaching for their cell phone's calculator app?
Most Elementary schools don't have computers in every classroom, nor do you use computers to help you in your assignment. Generally there is a computer lab that every student visits once a week for maybe an hour. During this hour they learn some basics about computers and possibly have a little but of fun. It definatly does not replace traditional learning. They are there mainly to get kids interested in technology for the future. I know LOGOWRITER got me interested in programming at a young age, though I doupt they do anything nearly as cool.
The report says to dump microsoft. What happens when microsoft do make the best tool for the job? It seems too broad to me.
Maybe linux is good for 80% of things and MS good for 20%. maybe the other way around or some other combination. Is it certain that open source software is always the best use for our kids? always? without fail and no MS ever again?
I think this is even more tricky than what you've pointed out.
The real trick is in the tools market. Educational software is a special class of software. It's very different from say engineering or scientific software. It's not like networking applications or graphics or text editors. Those are all software applications, but in the bbrave new world of edutainment you tend to think of the software in terms of "titles" or at least in subject matter categories because subject matter or content is the emphasis rather than usage or applicaton.
Most adults who don't have kids in school simply rely on their memories and think that computers in school are about teaching typing or perhaps even programming or maybe using the Net. Well, that' certainly can still be the case, but in the 90s, things changed and software pervaded education in a way that it never did before and a lot of people aren't aware of the extent to which that happened. In many schools entire curricula are computer based and a very small set of companies has a major chunk of that market.
The major tools providers in this market create tools for "non-programmers" because they're meant to be used by "content specialists" and specifically that means teachers. This class of development tool is not a popular one among open source enthusiasts particularly because they build their applications around runtime applications that are guaranteed to lock-in the products.
THis is the reason I have long insisted that education will ironically be the last bastion of closed source. It's a systemic issue with roots in the tools market.
The one thing that could change this sad situation is precisely the sort of thing being proposed here. That is, with a bit of encouragement of this sort, companies like Macromedia with an elephant's presence in educational software might be more likely to release Linux runtimes which would allow existing projects to be re-packaged as Linux native apps.
And, since Adobe has recently purchased Macromedia, perhaps such a change might be even more likely as Adobe proceeds to "enter new markets" as they have stated they plan to do.
Luckily, it's not that urgent either way because most of those eudcational apps built with Macromedia tools like Director and Authorware can already be run under Wine.
Then coming back to your point about "best tool for the job" it is really just about OS's rather than the apps since, with the help of Wine, the apps tend to work both ways. And with some pressure, a native Linux run-time could change those apps into native Linux apps at the click of a button as long as the original project files were saved and typically a big project gets archived.
So, it's really about what OS to use simply to hold the content. If you seriously think Windows is a better tool in this case then I would simply say that if it's my tax dollars you're dealing with, you're wrong.
or say text editors or , tends to be very heavy on repetitive GUI interaction with an emphasis on displaying multimedia content and creating easy-to-use interactions that make use of moving graphics and animations and the like. The goals of educational software are very different from most software applications.
Having Not-MS running at school lowers all the cost associated to children constantly reconfiguring the software, installing 'cool' stuff and otherwise render the PCs unusable. Of course you can try to lock down the PCs as much as possible, having them reinstalled for each course and all the other ways to keep the PCs in a non-surprising and workable state. But all those are associated with additional cost (either having someone knowledgable setting up the labs, probably to be hired from outside, or sending the responsible teachers to training courses or whatever). For Linux there are educational distributions (in Germany for instance ask Schulen ans Netz e.V. [schulen-ans-netz.de]), which take care of the special problems of educational computer labs. You can create workable computer images with ease, and without violating the license agreements that came with the software. You have a very good set of computer work related tools already within every distribution, so there is no cost for additional software. And: for a school it could be very important: You keep a lot of computer players out of the lab and thus are freeing seats for people who might actually do their homework or class projects after regular hours.
Microsoft didn't make Visio. Though they do sell it now. But whether Visio is the best diagramming software for use in schools is an open question. From my recollection of it, I'd say that a less featureful diagramming application which is easier to use would be better. Same goes for the MS Office suite.
In my high school, I learned word perfect. However for spread sheets we used excel. Our teachers taught us how to read the menus in order to figure out what we needed to do. When I started using MS word, and later OpenOffice, I was able to do this with no problem. People who can't transfer from one word processor to another really have no skills at all anyway, because they will be just as lost when upgrading to a new version of the same system. It's like only being able to drive one model of car, because in other cars, the cruise control is operated differently.
A school should be giving a kid a well-rounded education,. I don't think we're going to be prepping people for a job in grade 3 -we're giving them the basics.
If that job requires use of Microsoft products to work
... even in this case, your argument doesn't hold up. The version that the kids will be learning on won' be the same one as when they go into the work force 5 years later...
Besides, how much "Microsoft Experience" did *you* need to be able to say "Do you want fries with that?"
Once schools are teaching how to use Free software, then businesses will no longer be able to use the bogus argument "but that's what they teach in schools" as a reason to stick with Microsoft.
Schools should not be Microsoft training centres anyway. We pay for schools with our Council Tax, and this particular Council Tax payer resents having my hard-earned spent on consolidating a foreign monopoly.
Nor should schools be a place to push an OSS agenda simply because it's OSS.
Schools should, in theory, be pushing what is best for the pupil, not what is cheapest. So whilst there is an argument for using free software to teach, for example, programming, a course which teachs pupils spreadsheets or word processing could, arguably be using the most widespread software.
Oh and the article title isn't exactly truthful. "Told to Dump Microsoft" makes it sound like it's an order from on high; it's not. It's a recommendation, not a government mandate.
So whilst there is an argument for using free software to teach, for example, programming, a course which teachs pupils spreadsheets or word processing could, arguably be using the most widespread software.
Why? They should teach a generic use of a word processor, I doubt the goal it's about becoming an expert in an especific product. Then why should they teach expensive programs that students possibly can not afford to use at home legally or share between them?
I don't agree with MS's business practices, nor its monopolization in software, but children are not best served by denying them the skills they're most likely to use in work.
By the time these children have to "work" whatever version of software they learned their skills on will be outdated. Schools should learn general skills, not specific software or versions.
The issue at hand is really a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" question. Though some may argue otherwise, schools exist to educate young people and prepare them for their eventual dilbert-like status in the the cubicle.
So if these student all learn linux and open office and who knows what else the schools might be offering instead of M$, then what will they do when their prospective employer asks, do you know how to use word, access, powerpoint, excel, xp, the list goes on. Is this a safe bet, and who should adopt what first.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday May 09 2005, @04:55AM (#12475189)
I have this exact problem. In school we were only given LUMOCOLOR pens. Now when I look for work and they ask me if I know how to use Blic pens I just break down and cry. I blame my education for my inability to adapt to change. I think schools should do something about this!!
BECTA don't recommend dumping anyone, let alone naming Microsot. They instead recommend that savings can be made by looking towards Free (as in beer) solutions.
If the objective is simply to teach kids the basics of how computers work, what an operating system does, and what can be achieved with a word processor, a spreadsheet, or a database program, then OSS is perfectly adequate to the task. Given that Free software can easily at least match the basic capabilities of proprietary non-Free offerings, it is surely pretty obvious that there should be no real need to spend large amounts on licenses for proprietary software.
However, don't overlook the wider politics of the matter. To some degree, what employers want is a trained workforce (as opposed to an educated one), and in that case it makes lots of sense to train them with the exact same tools they will be expected to use in employment. Which means Windows, MS Office, etc.
Also, don't forget that it will surely be so much in Microsoft's interest to get those youngsters to equate software with Microsoft that they will provide exceptionally deep discounts to education purchasers - probably as far as giving the stuff away.
It will take some principled political leadership to enforce an OSS policy on education in UK, and I really can't see much prospect of that coming from the current government.
To some degree, what employers want is a trained workforce (as opposed to an educated one), and in that case it makes lots of sense to train them with the exact same tools they will be expected to use in employment. Which means Windows, MS Office, etc.
I was taught DOS when I was in elementary school. When I graduated and got a job, what use did I have for my knowledge in DOS?
This argument you have is absolutely moot since the landscape of operating systems are changeing so fast.
Now, don't get me wrong: DOS is archaic these days... BUT you learnt what a file is, what a program is, how to manage directories and basic skills on the command line. You might think that this is stupid, but that are basic computing skills that you have (unknownly) transferred to using in other contexts. Let it be Windows, Linux, Mac OS X or any other operating system of your choice that uses files, programs and have a command line.
Kids these days do not know the difference between a program and a file. Double clicking on a file is "starting the program", they often don't know where exactly on the filesystem they have saved their file, they don't know what a file type is (Text file? That must be Word, right?) and I could rave on. I see this every day, and it is absolutely maddening.
most uk schools now have more than one computer room, if they used an MS room for teaching kids to use MS office, then an OSS room for doing their work. then they're trained to use office and educated on OSS products - if in 15 years, most UK business converted, that could do wonders for our economy.
Lately I was absolutely amazed how much my 14 year old cousin associates 'Windows' with 'Computer' and vice versa. He had absolutely no idea that there even is a company called Apple and that there are other operating systems like Linux or *BSD.
Computer is PC and PC is Windows.
This is actually a really bad sign, since one tends to like what you are used to. If you learn on the one OS and get into computers only on this road, than everything else you cross by later will only be 'Not as you know it.'
We hear that argument ever so often, especially in the context of Office programs. People dislike OpenOffice not because it does not do the job for them, but because '...it is not like MS-Office'.
'In Word I can do this and that...'
Using MS Products in schools cements their Monopoly in a way that no other marketing campain could achieve.
Exactly, and it goes much deeper than that. My girlfriend (there goes my slashdot reputation) was absolutely amazed that I had something non-Windows. (I run: Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and also Windows 2000). Before she knew me she bought a (much too expensive) Windows machine for her needs. She only got trouble with it. She was absolutely amazed at what my iBook could do. Needless to say that she was pretty much pissed that she didn't know about Apple. Why didn't she know? Simple: she schooling she had was Windows-only. Even though some teachers told her to get a Mac, it didn't stick with her. (After all she never saw one before meeting me).
So when the time came to buy a computer, she looked at the advertisements. The only thing you see there were... you got it: Windows machines. She bought that (and upon the advice of her former boyfriend, she bought the most expensive one that was sold at the time). For the same price she could have gotten a fully loaded Apple. She doesn't need much: she's a kindergarden teacher and has to write the occasional letter to parents and surf the web and email. The machine she had (before buying her new computer) would have been more than adequate with some added RAM. (The old machine now is used by her mom after I added RAM and reinstalled it... It works *just fine*)
Only after I cleaned her new machine and secured it (which took a lot of time) her machine is now usable. I already tried to convince her to buy a Mac Mini to replace her P-IV machine, but she doesn't want to spend money on new computer hardware anymore. Very understandable.
As for Microsoft in education. I am an (apprentice-)teacher since january this year. Everything I (have) to teach is 100% Microsoft. The school-programme itself never mentions "Microsoft" per se, but if you read the programme and know what software is installed on the machines, you know exactly what is meant. Up until now, I managed to survive with my own Office 97 copy to prepare courses. Alas, I now have to do databases, which means "Access". I found out the hard way that Access 2003 (what the school runs) is incompatible with Access 97. Today I asked the computer-department to get a copy of Office 2003 in order to upgrade my own machine. (Note: this is completely legal in the context of their contract). It absolutely sucks. Personally I write all my stuff (courses, tests, etc...) in OpenOffice, but course preparation without the software that is run at school is pretty much impossible. I fear that Office 2003 is going to a dog on my P-III 600Mhz laptop that I have dedicated for schoolwork.
Of course, schooling in this country is completely sold to Microsoft.:-( I'd rather teach the kids the basics, but as I understood, the school programmes are written by asking companies what they want from people that have a certain diploma. The companies obviously want Microsoft, because that will give them people that are nearly immediately productive. It's sad... Perhaps some day this will change, but for now I'm stuck with that kind of mentality.
Makes me wonder why I actually wanted to become a teacher.:-((
I think it's a good move, but only if there is no significant downgrade in terms of quality. Making such a move solely based on monetary or semi-political motivation wouldn't be good. With the current state of OSS software (e.g. OpenOffice), we might be seeing this condition met.
Don't schools use a lot of software that runs on top of either of the Windows or Mac platforms?
Are there OSS equivalents for titles like The Way Things Work, or science lab programs, astronomy simulations, or all those Director based multimedia titles, etc?
OSS is great at replacing an office suite, email program, graphics editor, etc.
But are there a lot of OSS educational programs out there, or educators going to rely on web site content?
I have been wondering just how long it would be before someone realized that the annual tithe they pay to the folks in Redmond made little sense when the purpose was for students to learn how to use a spreadsheet or a word processor. There are plenty of lower cost or even no cost (as in free beer) versions of these old warhorses. If the basics of page layout and print formatting are the subject at hand, then using MS Word or Office is not the most economical way to go.
What this really does do, though, is break the lock step routine that has been going on for a while -- the schools teach MS specifics because Business uses MS, while Business says they use MS because that's what new hires know, so the new hires won't waste a lot of time having to learn new tricks.
I hope to see more of this, because for too long MS has been "locking" students into their way of thinking and of doing things. Bravo for the folks with enough courage to stand up to the MS juggernaut!
I have always found it disgusting that some of the taxes I pay for public services find their way into the pockets of private enterprise, financing the huge salaries of CEOs and paying out to shareholders.
I recognise that sometimes this is unavoidable - for example, hospitals need computers and those computers need to be bought from a PC supplier like, say, Dell. But I would alaways hope that in such a curcumstance, the best deal possible has been negotiated.
In the case of software in schools, I do not understand why commercial software is purchased when viable free alternatives exist at the level at which they are used in schools - for example, if a schoolkid is being taught how to use a word processor or how to create a spreadsheet, why do they need MS Office when OpenOffice has more than enough functionality for the level they need?
What's more heartbreaking is the fact that companies like Microsoft suck money out of the system which can instead be put to better use training and paying teachers more, on books, etc.
No, I'm not blaming Microsoft alone or directly, they're just a business trying to make money after all, but Open Source software can also serve as an example to kids to show them what can be achieved when people put pure financial gain to one side and just work together for the purpose of making something good.
I thought I'd reply here to everyone that's currently bashing the idea of using cheaper software in schools as somehow being bad for childrens education. IT'S NOT. Schools (in the UK at least) have a very limited budget to spend, which doesn't just cover software - it has to manage teachers (of whom we currently have a shortage due to the abysmal wage they get), school dinners, visits and trips - even things like the bus to school in some places. Now, if this was aimed at the government as some "magic tax-saving measure" (get OSS for schools, save £1-2Bn tax) then I'd be worried. However, as it's aimed at schools, it means that they can free up sizable chunks of their budget to concentrate on other areas (Teachers for instance) - other areas which, in all honesty, probably do more for a childs education than M$ Super-dooper-text-ed-2025++ edition OR Open-tux-GNU-codehacker-6000.
The report may well be perfectly valid, but I'm a little suspicious of it without further information, if only because the main cost normally hyped for Open Source Software tends to be the training cost. (I'll welcome being corrected.) From the article:
The association analysed costs at 33 schools which use paid-for software, and compared them with 15 which have pioneered the use of free programs, known as open source, and the pared-down hardware to run them.
It's difficult to judge this because the report hasn't been released and the article isn't very specific. I'd be interested, however, to know what kinds of prior skills the people at the 15 OSS schools had before they began, versus those at the 33 Microsoft schools. For all we know from the article, these 15 schools had the only 15 staff who are at all familiar with open source software in the entire UK education system. This is unlikely, but my intended point is that the actual cost could be dependent on what skills are available to the school within their existing staff.
If the IT staff at the OSS schools were already confident with installing, configuring and maintaining OSS software, it may be that it was no problem and they could have the low-cost benefits of free software. For all we know, however, the staff at the Microsoft schools might have been regular teachers with more important teaching responsibilities than how to administer the computers. Using Microsoft software would clearly cost more, but what matters is how it'd compare with training all the necessary staff to use OSS.
Staff at Microsoft schools may have had little or no OSS experience, and almost no hope of successfully setting up or administering an open source system without some serious help from an expert. This would be compared with plugging in a pre-installed Microsoft PC similar to their home PC, and running a few setup programs for various educational software, that is.
What's the current status of random people being able to randomly install and use open source software in useful ways? Without having had to go through an installation from that point of view for some time, it's hard for me to know.
Anyway, this isn't to say that the OSS installation and configuration issues couldn't be bypassed in some other way that might still work out to be cheaper. Perhaps it's still not too expensive to simply train people. Alternatively, depending on how serious the curriculum was, an education department might offer a service to configure computers for schools, and perhaps even administer them remotely.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday May 09 2005, @05:38AM (#12475488)
my mum is a year 6 primary school teacher. in her class there are 5 computers; 3 with Windows 2k and 2 older machines with SuSE 9.0 (that i installed a month or two ago).
only one of the windows machines is covered by their office licence, and their other licences for educational software. the other two windows machines were pretty useless until i installed abiword on them.
the SuSE machines are definately the most popular amongst the kids (aged 10-11); partially due to the selection of games that came with the distro, but mostly because its something new and different. this effect will obviously ware off after a couple of months but it will be interesting to see which machines they favour in the long run.
The worst that can happen is that they'll know that non-MS operating systems exist.
A lot of people seem to be saying that kids should be taught Microsoft so they wont need to be retrained when then get jobs. This is inflexible old-think espoused by people who really don't understand how computers work.
It is only people who lack much experience with a diversity of technology who think you need to be trained how to use each specific task keystroke by keystroke.
Young people who have grown up in a technological enviroment have much more powerful mental paradigms relating to computers. Truly proficient computer users do not need to know specific details about what menu to use or what button to press. They have a higher level understanding of the general design of user interfaces and can jump with little effort from windows to mac to linux to xbox to ps2 to nokia to motorola and so on.
Increasing exposure to more types of technology is in the end a better education than intensive study on one particular (soon to be obselescent) technology.
this article is a dupe of an identical one from last week.
anyway. When I was at school we used such computers as commodore PETs, BBC Micro Bs and Masters, Acorns and the occasional spectrum or Dragon32. I didnt
use a 'Windows PC' until college (17 years old)
and even then its not what folk use these days (being pre Windows 3.11!) and that was only when I couldnt get onto an Acorn Archimedes 3010!
what harm did 'not using microsoft' do me? none. I am far more computer literate than someone who has been stuck in front of a Win2k box for 4 years
and been taught 'computers'. I think not only ditching microsoft at schools but also ditching x86 PC's is the best way to go. lets get an eductional machine back into the schools. lets allow our children...future generations of the human race..what computers mean and how they work. NOT just to move the mouse to select icons and
how to type a basic spreadsheet in. I WROTE a spreadsheet program when I was at school. do children learn that sort of skill now at school?
I'm an ICT technician working in Primary Schools within London and Microsoft are not the whole problem here. RM (Research Machines) still hold a virtual monopoly over all-things school, at least in the primary schools arena, and they will supply and support only MS.
Then you have individual boroughs who will ONLY supply/support RM stuff, so you're fighting a losing battle.
The borough I work in has no non-MS schools to my knowledge, there are no borough tech's supporting non-MS stuff (in fact, support for any non-RM stuff is almost nonexistent hence my employment). Borough support has been effectively removed for any school which dares go non-RM (I kid you not).
Schools with even just plain Windows 2000/XP setups are abandoned and have to employ people like me to do silly things like add printers, block websites, fix paper jams, etc. as well as keeping the network going in all weathers.
Convincing a school in such a borough to go non-RM (and therefore possibly non-MS) means possibly removing any sort of borough support, having to coexist machines (the borough I work for can do finances, classlists etc. **only** via a piece of arcane Windows/DOS software), replacing every piece of software and all their paid-for expensive site licenses with an equivalent via Linux, or getting Wine to work with programs that cause no end of trouble even in Windows-only environments.
Training of staff/students is a minor matter, despite some posts on here, because most primary school teachers are nowhere near proficient on computers (I've met 2 or 3 across 6 different schools, and that's using a definition of "can install printer on standalone Windows PC by self given instruction manual and driver disks"). Some staff I know have cheat-sheets for almost every action from saving to printing to logging in.
Change the OS, change the cheat-sheet, the teachers still fumbles along without too many problems. You can actually watch them and see just how quickly they relearn how to work when you go from standalone to networked, PC to laptop, 95/98 to XP/2000. This happens almost every year for a decently-funded school.
The problem is 90% political, 10% technical. Convincing a school to go against the grain is hard. Cost savings are easily countered by hiring of technicians to replace lost support, previous expenditure on software and licenses. School's have little to no interest in moving to a "unheard-of", non-popular, finnicky, incompatible, new operating system with no "groundbreaking" features for themselves.
Existing software is pretty much Windows-only, even with Wine, and hardware is very below-par (some schools still have PC's with 233MHz or less). But most hardware is Linux-supported, even down to things like SmartBoards, microscopes, printers etc.
Teachers know nothing about software compatibility and will expect to be able to pick up Rainbow Fish/Barnaby Bear/Tweenies etc. and just plug it in the network for it to work. This will not happen with Linux. It barely happens with Windows.
No major educational software distributor that I am aware of supports Linux in any way, shape or form.
Saying that, I have slipped a Linux machine or two into schools but as kiosk-style machines for things like the Intel QX3 microscopes, exotic printers without XP drivers, etc. but these are expected to run pretty much unattended and unserviced for years and, when they stop working, it's no great loss to throw them away.
In short, get rid of RM, make boroughs and those higher-up in educational terms learn what an ass RM are making of them, encourage most educational software creators to support Linux, let ICT Co-ordinators/Heads/Governors know that this "Linux" thing exists and THEN try for a push.
Schools should be teaching children "concepts", and not "programs". ie, the concept of a GUI, the concept of an email application, the concept of a web browser.
That way, the students are equipped to move from os to os, platform to platform without prejudice.
It's how your user who has never seen anything other than MS products can move from XP to OSX or KDE with little difficulty without complaining about the missing start button and throwing up their hands in horror.
It's how they can deduce how to browse the web, write a letter or send an email based on experiences in other systems.
Platform independence comes naturally once you understand the underlying concepts. This is what should be concentrated on rather than "product X".
That schools may be using OSS is not the point and it shouldn't be championed on that aspect alone. Get a mix in there, let the kids see all sorts.
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Re:Discount (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, even if you get MS software for free, you still have the costs associated with mitigation and damage control for the zillions of exploits that will dog your network.
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:5, Insightful)
If kids get used to using OpenOffice.org, etc at school, then they're going to go home and tell their parents about it at home, who might decide to go for it on their next computer. When those kids get their own computer, they also might decide to try OpenOffice over MS Office. Same for teachers who get used to it at work - if they start saving their files in OOo's format, they want to be able to open them when they get home, etc.
Especially when it comes to what the students are using, most schools only have a couple dozen computers for all the students to use. So by giving away 30 or so copies of MS Office, MS could be preventing a couple hundred kids from telling their parents about OOo.
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know where you're from, so I'll let you off, but in the UK most schools don't have "a couple of dozen computers" - I worked in a primary school doing IT support for a while, and for the 5-8 age range there was a machine in every room, 5 support machines for staff, and a suite with another 10 in it.
And I've been saying what this article has been ever since I started working there
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:4, Insightful)
Well... sometimes it works, anyway. We in my CS dept are still using win2000, apparently because MS hasn't given us XP and we have no intention of paying for it. The tactic hasn't worked for us yet... but then, it doesn't really harm us either.
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:5, Interesting)
MS WANTS it's software in education so that Windows and MS Office are the only things young people entering the workforce know. Apple's educational programs are really the only thing that kept them alive all these years (although OS X has finally given them a true technological edge over MS so it's not Quite as important, but is still important. Pre-OS X MacOS was truely horrible.)
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
bollocks (Score:5, Interesting)
These come with a client licence for XP as well.
Bash MS all you want, suggest schools use Linux/Open Source, but don't set up a straw man argument that's clearly false.
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Discount (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Great opportunity for OSS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great opportunity for OSS (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
dupe..... (Score:5, Informative)
Does it all come down to money (Score:4, Insightful)
Is our school's education all related to money? do we just want to make it cheaper?
Or make it truly better. As much as I don't like Microsoft maybe there are situations where their software is best.
Just saying to dump them because of cost to save 24% sounds appealing at a first glance, but then replacing teachers with babysitters at half the wages would save 50%.
But it's not doing much good for the kids. Maybe a less broad "Microsoft is 100% evil" attitude would help the kids. Their the ones learning
Re:Does it all come down to money (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Does it all come down to money (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Does it all come down to money (Score:5, Insightful)
The report says to dump microsoft. What happens when microsoft do make the best tool for the job? It seems too broad to me.
Maybe linux is good for 80% of things and MS good for 20%. maybe the other way around or some other combination. Is it certain that open source software is always the best use for our kids? always? without fail and no MS ever again?
Parent
Well, as an educational software developer. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The real trick is in the tools market. Educational software is a special class of software. It's very different from say engineering or scientific software. It's not like networking applications or graphics or text editors. Those are all software applications, but in the bbrave new world of edutainment you tend to think of the software in terms of "titles" or at least in subject matter categories because subject matter or content is the emphasis rather than usage or applicaton.
Most adults who don't have kids in school simply rely on their memories and think that computers in school are about teaching typing or perhaps even programming or maybe using the Net. Well, that' certainly can still be the case, but in the 90s, things changed and software pervaded education in a way that it never did before and a lot of people aren't aware of the extent to which that happened. In many schools entire curricula are computer based and a very small set of companies has a major chunk of that market.
The major tools providers in this market create tools for "non-programmers" because they're meant to be used by "content specialists" and specifically that means teachers. This class of development tool is not a popular one among open source enthusiasts particularly because they build their applications around runtime applications that are guaranteed to lock-in the products.
THis is the reason I have long insisted that education will ironically be the last bastion of closed source. It's a systemic issue with roots in the tools market.
The one thing that could change this sad situation is precisely the sort of thing being proposed here. That is, with a bit of encouragement of this sort, companies like Macromedia with an elephant's presence in educational software might be more likely to release Linux runtimes which would allow existing projects to be re-packaged as Linux native apps.
And, since Adobe has recently purchased Macromedia, perhaps such a change might be even more likely as Adobe proceeds to "enter new markets" as they have stated they plan to do.
Luckily, it's not that urgent either way because most of those eudcational apps built with Macromedia tools like Director and Authorware can already be run under Wine.
Then coming back to your point about "best tool for the job" it is really just about OS's rather than the apps since, with the help of Wine, the apps tend to work both ways. And with some pressure, a native Linux run-time could change those apps into native Linux apps at the click of a button as long as the original project files were saved and typically a big project gets archived.
So, it's really about what OS to use simply to hold the content. If you seriously think Windows is a better tool in this case then I would simply say that if it's my tax dollars you're dealing with, you're wrong.
or say text editors or , tends to be very heavy on repetitive GUI interaction with an emphasis on displaying multimedia content and creating easy-to-use interactions that make use of moving graphics and animations and the like. The goals of educational software are very different from most software applications.
Parent
Re:Does it all come down to money (Score:5, Interesting)
For Linux there are educational distributions (in Germany for instance ask Schulen ans Netz e.V. [schulen-ans-netz.de]), which take care of the special problems of educational computer labs. You can create workable computer images with ease, and without violating the license agreements that came with the software. You have a very good set of computer work related tools already within every distribution, so there is no cost for additional software.
And: for a school it could be very important: You keep a lot of computer players out of the lab and thus are freeing seats for people who might actually do their homework or class projects after regular hours.
Parent
Or they buy it.. :( (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Or they buy it.. :( (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Or they buy it.. :( (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Does it all come down to money (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Does it all come down to money (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, how much "Microsoft Experience" did *you* need to be able to say "Do you want fries with that?"
Parent
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Schools should not be Microsoft training centres anyway. We pay for schools with our Council Tax, and this particular Council Tax payer resents having my hard-earned spent on consolidating a foreign monopoly.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools should, in theory, be pushing what is best for the pupil, not what is cheapest. So whilst there is an argument for using free software to teach, for example, programming, a course which teachs pupils spreadsheets or word processing could, arguably be using the most widespread software.
Oh and the article title isn't exactly truthful. "Told to Dump Microsoft" makes it sound like it's an order from on high; it's not. It's a recommendation, not a government mandate.
Parent
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
So whilst there is an argument for using free software to teach, for example, programming, a course which teachs pupils spreadsheets or word processing could, arguably be using the most widespread software.
Why? They should teach a generic use of a word processor, I doubt the goal it's about becoming an expert in an especific product. Then why should they teach expensive programs that students possibly can not afford to use at home legally or share between them?
Parent
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time these children have to "work" whatever version of software they learned their skills on will be outdated. Schools should learn general skills, not specific software or versions.
Parent
Chicken or the Egg? (Score:4, Interesting)
Chicken on face? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have this exact problem. In school we were only given LUMOCOLOR pens. Now when I look for work and they ask me if I know how to use Blic pens I just break down and cry. I blame my education for my inability to adapt to change. I think schools should do something about this!!
Parent
erm, no it doesn't (Score:5, Informative)
Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
However, don't overlook the wider politics of the matter. To some degree, what employers want is a trained workforce (as opposed to an educated one), and in that case it makes lots of sense to train them with the exact same tools they will be expected to use in employment. Which means Windows, MS Office, etc.
Also, don't forget that it will surely be so much in Microsoft's interest to get those youngsters to equate software with Microsoft that they will provide exceptionally deep discounts to education purchasers - probably as far as giving the stuff away.
It will take some principled political leadership to enforce an OSS policy on education in UK, and I really can't see much prospect of that coming from the current government.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
I was taught DOS when I was in elementary school. When I graduated and got a job, what use did I have for my knowledge in DOS?
This argument you have is absolutely moot since the landscape of operating systems are changeing so fast.
Parent
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids these days do not know the difference between a program and a file. Double clicking on a file is "starting the program", they often don't know where exactly on the filesystem they have saved their file, they don't know what a file type is (Text file? That must be Word, right?) and I could rave on. I see this every day, and it is absolutely maddening.
Parent
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Into the minds of the young (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer is PC and PC is Windows.
This is actually a really bad sign, since one tends to like what you are used to. If you learn on the one OS and get into computers only on this road, than everything else you cross by later will only be 'Not as you know it.'
We hear that argument ever so often, especially in the context of Office programs. People dislike OpenOffice not because it does not do the job for them, but because '...it is not like MS-Office'.
'In Word I can do this and that...'
Using MS Products in schools cements their Monopoly in a way that no other marketing campain could achieve.
-jsl
Re:Into the minds of the young (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly, and it goes much deeper than that. My girlfriend (there goes my slashdot reputation) was absolutely amazed that I had something non-Windows. (I run: Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and also Windows 2000). Before she knew me she bought a (much too expensive) Windows machine for her needs. She only got trouble with it. She was absolutely amazed at what my iBook could do. Needless to say that she was pretty much pissed that she didn't know about Apple. Why didn't she know? Simple: she schooling she had was Windows-only. Even though some teachers told her to get a Mac, it didn't stick with her. (After all she never saw one before meeting me).
So when the time came to buy a computer, she looked at the advertisements. The only thing you see there were... you got it: Windows machines. She bought that (and upon the advice of her former boyfriend, she bought the most expensive one that was sold at the time). For the same price she could have gotten a fully loaded Apple. She doesn't need much: she's a kindergarden teacher and has to write the occasional letter to parents and surf the web and email. The machine she had (before buying her new computer) would have been more than adequate with some added RAM. (The old machine now is used by her mom after I added RAM and reinstalled it... It works *just fine*)
Only after I cleaned her new machine and secured it (which took a lot of time) her machine is now usable. I already tried to convince her to buy a Mac Mini to replace her P-IV machine, but she doesn't want to spend money on new computer hardware anymore. Very understandable.
As for Microsoft in education. I am an (apprentice-)teacher since january this year. Everything I (have) to teach is 100% Microsoft. The school-programme itself never mentions "Microsoft" per se, but if you read the programme and know what software is installed on the machines, you know exactly what is meant. Up until now, I managed to survive with my own Office 97 copy to prepare courses. Alas, I now have to do databases, which means "Access". I found out the hard way that Access 2003 (what the school runs) is incompatible with Access 97. Today I asked the computer-department to get a copy of Office 2003 in order to upgrade my own machine. (Note: this is completely legal in the context of their contract). It absolutely sucks. Personally I write all my stuff (courses, tests, etc...) in OpenOffice, but course preparation without the software that is run at school is pretty much impossible. I fear that Office 2003 is going to a dog on my P-III 600Mhz laptop that I have dedicated for schoolwork.
Of course, schooling in this country is completely sold to Microsoft. :-( I'd rather teach the kids the basics, but as I understood, the school programmes are written by asking companies what they want from people that have a certain diploma. The companies obviously want Microsoft, because that will give them people that are nearly immediately productive. It's sad... Perhaps some day this will change, but for now I'm stuck with that kind of mentality.
Makes me wonder why I actually wanted to become a teacher. :-((
Parent
Only in case of equivalent quality (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent news, but replacements for s/w? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are there OSS equivalents for titles like The Way Things Work, or science lab programs, astronomy simulations, or all those Director based multimedia titles, etc?
OSS is great at replacing an office suite, email program, graphics editor, etc.
But are there a lot of OSS educational programs out there, or educators going to rely on web site content?
Just curious.
It's about time! (Score:4, Interesting)
What this really does do, though, is break the lock step routine that has been going on for a while -- the schools teach MS specifics because Business uses MS, while Business says they use MS because that's what new hires know, so the new hires won't waste a lot of time having to learn new tricks.
I hope to see more of this, because for too long MS has been "locking" students into their way of thinking and of doing things. Bravo for the folks with enough courage to stand up to the MS juggernaut!
Speaking as a UK tax payer, this is a good move (Score:5, Insightful)
I recognise that sometimes this is unavoidable - for example, hospitals need computers and those computers need to be bought from a PC supplier like, say, Dell. But I would alaways hope that in such a curcumstance, the best deal possible has been negotiated.
In the case of software in schools, I do not understand why commercial software is purchased when viable free alternatives exist at the level at which they are used in schools - for example, if a schoolkid is being taught how to use a word processor or how to create a spreadsheet, why do they need MS Office when OpenOffice has more than enough functionality for the level they need?
What's more heartbreaking is the fact that companies like Microsoft suck money out of the system which can instead be put to better use training and paying teachers more, on books, etc.
No, I'm not blaming Microsoft alone or directly, they're just a business trying to make money after all, but Open Source software can also serve as an example to kids to show them what can be achieved when people put pure financial gain to one side and just work together for the purpose of making something good.
Saving Money (Score:4, Informative)
IT'S NOT. Schools (in the UK at least) have a very limited budget to spend, which doesn't just cover software - it has to manage teachers (of whom we currently have a shortage due to the abysmal wage they get), school dinners, visits and trips - even things like the bus to school in some places. Now, if this was aimed at the government as some "magic tax-saving measure" (get OSS for schools, save £1-2Bn tax) then I'd be worried. However, as it's aimed at schools, it means that they can free up sizable chunks of their budget to concentrate on other areas (Teachers for instance) - other areas which, in all honesty, probably do more for a childs education than M$ Super-dooper-text-ed-2025++ edition OR Open-tux-GNU-codehacker-6000.
What about the staff training? (Score:5, Interesting)
The report may well be perfectly valid, but I'm a little suspicious of it without further information, if only because the main cost normally hyped for Open Source Software tends to be the training cost. (I'll welcome being corrected.) From the article:
It's difficult to judge this because the report hasn't been released and the article isn't very specific. I'd be interested, however, to know what kinds of prior skills the people at the 15 OSS schools had before they began, versus those at the 33 Microsoft schools. For all we know from the article, these 15 schools had the only 15 staff who are at all familiar with open source software in the entire UK education system. This is unlikely, but my intended point is that the actual cost could be dependent on what skills are available to the school within their existing staff.
If the IT staff at the OSS schools were already confident with installing, configuring and maintaining OSS software, it may be that it was no problem and they could have the low-cost benefits of free software. For all we know, however, the staff at the Microsoft schools might have been regular teachers with more important teaching responsibilities than how to administer the computers. Using Microsoft software would clearly cost more, but what matters is how it'd compare with training all the necessary staff to use OSS.
Staff at Microsoft schools may have had little or no OSS experience, and almost no hope of successfully setting up or administering an open source system without some serious help from an expert. This would be compared with plugging in a pre-installed Microsoft PC similar to their home PC, and running a few setup programs for various educational software, that is.
What's the current status of random people being able to randomly install and use open source software in useful ways? Without having had to go through an installation from that point of view for some time, it's hard for me to know.
Anyway, this isn't to say that the OSS installation and configuration issues couldn't be bypassed in some other way that might still work out to be cheaper. Perhaps it's still not too expensive to simply train people. Alternatively, depending on how serious the curriculum was, an education department might offer a service to configure computers for schools, and perhaps even administer them remotely.
a step in the right direction (Score:5, Interesting)
only one of the windows machines is covered by their office licence, and their other licences for educational software. the other two windows machines were pretty useless until i installed abiword on them.
the SuSE machines are definately the most popular amongst the kids (aged 10-11); partially due to the selection of games that came with the distro, but mostly because its something new and different. this effect will obviously ware off after a couple of months but it will be interesting to see which machines they favour in the long run.
The worst that can happen is that they'll know that non-MS operating systems exist.
Old-think to worry about Microsoft training (Score:5, Insightful)
It is only people who lack much experience with a diversity of technology who think you need to be trained how to use each specific task keystroke by keystroke.
Young people who have grown up in a technological enviroment have much more powerful mental paradigms relating to computers. Truly proficient computer users do not need to know specific details about what menu to use or what button to press. They have a higher level understanding of the general design of user interfaces and can jump with little effort from windows to mac to linux to xbox to ps2 to nokia to motorola and so on.
Increasing exposure to more types of technology is in the end a better education than intensive study on one particular (soon to be obselescent) technology.
shock horror. no microsoft didnt do me harm! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you have individual boroughs who will ONLY supply/support RM stuff, so you're fighting a losing battle.
The borough I work in has no non-MS schools to my knowledge, there are no borough tech's supporting non-MS stuff (in fact, support for any non-RM stuff is almost nonexistent hence my employment). Borough support has been effectively removed for any school which dares go non-RM (I kid you not).
Schools with even just plain Windows 2000/XP setups are abandoned and have to employ people like me to do silly things like add printers, block websites, fix paper jams, etc. as well as keeping the network going in all weathers.
Convincing a school in such a borough to go non-RM (and therefore possibly non-MS) means possibly removing any sort of borough support, having to coexist machines (the borough I work for can do finances, classlists etc. **only** via a piece of arcane Windows/DOS software), replacing every piece of software and all their paid-for expensive site licenses with an equivalent via Linux, or getting Wine to work with programs that cause no end of trouble even in Windows-only environments.
Training of staff/students is a minor matter, despite some posts on here, because most primary school teachers are nowhere near proficient on computers (I've met 2 or 3 across 6 different schools, and that's using a definition of "can install printer on standalone Windows PC by self given instruction manual and driver disks"). Some staff I know have cheat-sheets for almost every action from saving to printing to logging in.
Change the OS, change the cheat-sheet, the teachers still fumbles along without too many problems. You can actually watch them and see just how quickly they relearn how to work when you go from standalone to networked, PC to laptop, 95/98 to XP/2000. This happens almost every year for a decently-funded school.
The problem is 90% political, 10% technical. Convincing a school to go against the grain is hard. Cost savings are easily countered by hiring of technicians to replace lost support, previous expenditure on software and licenses. School's have little to no interest in moving to a "unheard-of", non-popular, finnicky, incompatible, new operating system with no "groundbreaking" features for themselves.
Existing software is pretty much Windows-only, even with Wine, and hardware is very below-par (some schools still have PC's with 233MHz or less). But most hardware is Linux-supported, even down to things like SmartBoards, microscopes, printers etc.
Teachers know nothing about software compatibility and will expect to be able to pick up Rainbow Fish/Barnaby Bear/Tweenies etc. and just plug it in the network for it to work. This will not happen with Linux. It barely happens with Windows.
No major educational software distributor that I am aware of supports Linux in any way, shape or form.
Saying that, I have slipped a Linux machine or two into schools but as kiosk-style machines for things like the Intel QX3 microscopes, exotic printers without XP drivers, etc. but these are expected to run pretty much unattended and unserviced for years and, when they stop working, it's no great loss to throw them away.
In short, get rid of RM, make boroughs and those higher-up in educational terms learn what an ass RM are making of them, encourage most educational software creators to support Linux, let ICT Co-ordinators/Heads/Governors know that this "Linux" thing exists and THEN try for a push.
Re:Save money now!!! See what happens later. (Score:4, Insightful)
That way, the students are equipped to move from os to os, platform to platform without prejudice.
It's how your user who has never seen anything other than MS products can move from XP to OSX or KDE with little difficulty without complaining about the missing start button and throwing up their hands in horror.
It's how they can deduce how to browse the web, write a letter or send an email based on experiences in other systems.
Platform independence comes naturally once you understand the underlying concepts. This is what should be concentrated on rather than "product X".
That schools may be using OSS is not the point and it shouldn't be championed on that aspect alone. Get a mix in there, let the kids see all sorts.
Parent