[SLUG] Linux In Schools

[Paul Teasdale]

On Wed, May 3, 2006 12:31, Chris More wrote:
>
> If it were simply a matter of saving money then the answer is simply to
> remove
> all computers from schools.
>
Yes, that would be little bit extreme in this day and age.

> As someone who has two children in the school system at the moment I can
> honestly say I think they are doing a good job.
>
I'm sure they do their best with the resources they have at hand.

>
> We should aim to keep our kids on the leading edge of technology and not
> let
> them 'make do' with older machines running non-workplace software.   At
> secondary level  they have such a vast curriculum to cover the easiest,
> most
> usable and most common software is the only sensible option for the
> classroom.
>
I cannot argue that Linux (especially at desktop level) is currently not
very common in the work place. Also I am not saying that schools should
dump Microsoft altogther but perhaps make some sort of a compromise. I
wouldn't even argue too much with kids having to 'make do' with old
technology if budget was available for better systems.

I would however like to make the following points. Firstly it doesn't
really need much computing power to browse the web (to do an online
learning course for example), generate documents (word process some
coursework for example) and perhaps run a few educational programs for
younger children. I know your going to say that they do so much more but
that's where the better PCs could be allocated. Linux generally appears to
harness the power lower spec PCs better than Windows 98 does for example.
This means you can give a new lease of life to older equipment for the
more meanial computing tasks.

Secondly our company writes industrial (petrochemical) and pharmaceutical
software. To be fair I must say it's all Microsoft based and I say this
because I am not anti-Microsoft in anyway. It amazes me that when you get
onto a customer site (especially in the petrochemical sector) how many
older PCs are still in use due to budget cut backs and what not. The users
of these PCs are having to 'make do' and they'll happily tell you that.
Perhaps it no bad thing that kids learn they can't always have the best of
everything and sometimes a compromise has to be made that might not be so
bad after all.

Regards,
Paul.