Australian State May Give Students Linux Laptops 302
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re:The real reason behind this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The real reason behind this... (Score:3, Insightful)
They're giving these laptops to High School students.. the project has already failed.
Re:Times are different now. (Score:2, 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.
This is definitely where the hammer meets the nail-head as the biggest thing these types of initiatives will do is create awareness that there IS a choice to begin with. Most people i speak with who are not tech savvy assume that "Windows" is simply a property of any computer still.
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.
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.
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.
Re:In the middle of an economic crisis (Score:2, Insightful)
Please explain the economic policies put into place by the Liberals to "solve the problem"?
Most economists would say that it was resulting from a boom in the mining sector and a general global economic boom during the years the Liberals were in office... in fact the recovery had already started during Keating's term..
Now we are in a global downturn our economy is not going to do as well as it used to..
Blaming/rewarding either party for the economic situations in the recent past/present is just partisan politics and bears no relation to reality.
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.
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.
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?
Re:Gives, huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, that would make it so much easier for the schools to support. Everyone with different hardware, operating systems, installed software. And everyone would pay full retail instead of getting the massive discount that a purchase of thousands of laptops gets.
I'm not seeing it without rose-glasses. (Score:2, Insightful)
Can I mod the article summary (and everyone's pro-OSS hopes) down for a couple of reasons?
- The summary lets you read in an implication that it's being considered by the NSW Government. It's NOT, it's being suggested by the President of the NSW Secondary Schools Council, which REPORTS to the NSW government.
- Even if the NSW government WAS looking at it, that would still be irrelevant. State governments make noise about being standards compliant, but still stay fairly fierce about doing things their own way.
I say this as somebody who actually spoke to a representative of the Education Department (and other departments), in Government, in another Australian State. It was all part of one big "study" by this State Government. The single loudest speaker against adopting Open Source at this table was the Education representative.
At the same time, there was a domain name registered for www.opensource.nsw.gov.au. The site, during the time of this study, was never up. The NSW government doesn't necessarily take OSS seriously, let alone other states or Federal government.
OSS has already been examined somewhat, look in South Australia instead. Look for a 2004 paper by Hudson and Moyle, "What Place does Open Source Software have in Australian And New Zealand schools' and jurisdictions' ICT Portfolios? Open source software suitable for use in Australian and New Zealand School; A review of Technical documentation" published by the Department of Education and Children's Services South Australia. That spoke VERY glowingly re: OSS.
Note, however, that you don't hear screaming success stories of OSS all over Australian schools and governments. It's my opinion that Microsoft has the place mostly sewn up through the usual dodgy deals Slashdotters have come to expect; and that parts of the government are very firmly in bed with them.
As far as Australian PM Kevin Rudd's promise goes... well, let's just say we Australians still remember his predecessor's invention of the election term "non-core promise".
Posting anonymously, because although I'd like the karma, I'd rather not risk it. The "study" I did whilst with those government people in that particular state was shot in the face like an old man in front of Dick Cheney. There's a reason I subscribe to RMS-like principles of "anarchism" now.
Windows is a huge downgrade (Score:1, Insightful)
If you have a nice small laptop with Linux pre-installed (so that everything works ... "reduced hardware support" in Linux is a complete myth anyway), you need just one CD (and maybe a second one as a backup) to keep any number of laptops working. You install from that one CD to as many amchines as you want. No need to keep track of licenses. Huge cost savings, right there.
You can even make up your own master CD, with whatever application set you desire, and customisations such as a school backgrounnd wallpapaer, etc. (Google for Linux, LiveCD and "re-mastering").
No need to run anti-virus, or to make sure that anti-virus databases are up to date.
You can set up (a) Linux server(s) (no CALs fees either) and put software update repositories on your server, and point all of the laptops to accept updates from your server, so that all laptops were updated together. Easy maintenance.
You also have a huge software base to choose from, all available at zero cost, and all able to be installed on all machines overnight, at no cost, with no need to try to keep track of licenses.
Enormous savings.
Finally ... from an education perspective ... with open source you are actually allowed to study the source, and find out how it works. Make your own as well ... the tools are all provided.
Google for "squeak" and "sugar" in an education software context ... I'm sure there are lots of others as well.
Finally, read this:
http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html [edge-op.org]
It has some prfound things to say about software and eductaion.
Re:Times are different now. (Score:4, Insightful)
My nephew is a grade one student at a primary school in Victoria. The school uses macs so he has his heart set on a macbook for christmas.
My son is 7 and in year 2 in a NSW public school and they use Macs as well. He hasn't got his heart set on a Macbook for christmas because the school intends supplying all kids year 2 up with take-home / bring-to-school Macbooks. Years 4,5 and 6 have theirs already.
I can't see what a 7 year old will get out of a mac.
You would if you came to our school's open day, its amazing how creative these kids are on the right equipment. It would not have been my first choice (based on cost), but I have to confess the results speak for themselves. We have an iMac at home (which has left the poor *nix box a little neglected :( ), and our 7 year old taught his mother how to make a podcast on it last week. The little brat even solved a problem his grandmother was having on her macbook (something that needed to be set on the Dock of all places).
I have been trying to steering them towards an eeepc.
Well so long as you can get OSX running on it, he should be able to do his school work on it. It might be a little inconvenient working in GarageBand or iMovie with such a small screen though.
Re:To bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Whereas if it was ex-PM John Howard in charge, the kid would have been used as an example of the evils of technology, so that police need to be given unrestricted powers to access school and home computers to monitor children's surfing activities (they may turn out to be terrorists one day).
He would have also ridiculously blamed the previous two Labor governments for inventing computers and for making porn available on the internet.
Finally he would use it as a way of getting reelected by claiming that under a Labor government porn would be rampant, and that only under a Coalition government could it be safely reduced.
(I could also throw in analogies about the Tampa scandal, President Bush ass-kissing, climate-change denial and Iraq but lets leave that for another day)
Re:In the middle of an economic crisis (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, it could have been Keating's 'Recession we had to have,' but the only one term Labor government with a bad economic record I could think of was Jim Scullin. [wikipedia.org] Two days after taking office, the '29 crash occurred. Not an easy time to govern.
Re:Times are different now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Times are different now. (Score:4, Insightful)
The big advantage is students doing assignments can actually do work that is of benefit to the whole of society. There is more to open source software beyond the code (although suitably skilled students will be able to practice directly on open source code), there is usability analysis, documentation, administration, interface design, templates and well as teaching the principles of open source. These principles can then be extended into the preparation of open text books and other teaching resources and the updating of the same.
It is for more satisfying for students to see real world results for the academic activities. These advantages also extend themselves to the teaching staff, where their academic efforts can be directly implemented, not only within the teaching environment but also out into industry.
The long term goal of course should be for the government to create it's own standard Linux distribution, with input from all the public higher education institutions from all of the states, as well as from industry and, also of course also suitably individuals. Naturally enough this should also be done upon an international basis with other countries who also establishing an across the board open software technology infrastructure. The reason of course for a base standard is enable simple no cost compatibility as a basis for any commercial distributions, containing a service and support element.
Of course the only real difference in government distributions or even department of education distributions, is mainly that the computer is delivered in a known, controlled, complete state, ready to go and can readily be returned to that state. Of course it also looks better if all the suitably parochial logos appear in 'all' the right places, it does make a difference.
Re:Times are different now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your licensed copy of Leopard is surely licensed only for the machine with which it was sold
Awesome! I'm going to order ten of these $129 Macintoshs [apple.com]. Doesn't say what processor they use, but at the price I figure it doesn't matter...
Re:The real reason behind this... (Score:3, Insightful)
First, teach them to write. (Score:1, Insightful)
I hesitate to post this, but as a tertiary educator working at a leading Australian university, I would rather see this money being put towards reducing secondary school class sizes. Free laptops make a great headline, but our education system has larger issues. The proportion of Australian-educated students who have passed year 12 English but cannot write a simple one page report and make their point understood is far higher than their overseas-educated (and often ESL) counterparts. Similarly, overseas students have far higher levels of mathematical training, while locally educated students are often unable to grasp simple year nine trigonometry. Perhaps someone can explain to me exactly how free laptops can improve basic English and maths skills more effectively than reducing class sizes (or other more traditional methods)?
Re:Times are different now. (Score:2, Insightful)