[Wylug-discuss] PDA's in schools

[Rob Hall]

On Wednesday 10 January 2007 20:52, Mike Goodman wrote:
> Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:36:21, Anne Wilson wrote
>
> > we are not particularly
> > good at 'selling' and we are disorganised
>
> Agreed. And to get us either or both of selling and organised it would
> take resources, not simply good will, because we are at such a low level
> of skills in these areas. How many members of this list would enjoy
> selling? Some of us do it, but as a matter of necessity, in order to get
> what we would rather do into the market.

And after watching the "selling" that the chumps were doing on the MIcrosoft 
site today at the BETT show, I'm bloody glad that we don't. The "Right John, 
what feature can you show me now then". "OK, Tim, I'll simply click here on 
this personalty-less sharepoint site and you can do blah" "Wow, John, that's 
simply amazing and another reason why you should buy our stuff"

<Fingers_down_throat> Bleurgh </Fingers_down_throat>

Now the marketing I noticed from the Edubuntu guys was _very_ interesting! 
During said Bill and Ben patter, they were quietly dropping Edubuntu CDs into 
people's bags, even subverting the M$ stall and putting them on their display 
stands!!

Let's be fair and honest. Open Source software has (and this is a sweeping 
generalisation I know) only in the last 2 to 3 years been anywhere near 
useable by the "average person". By that I mean, teachers, students, mums, 
dads, 11 year olds and dyslexic teenagers. That is something that we should 
be applauding. We've matured very, very quickly and we remain responsive. 

Heck, I've even managed to get Linux installations done as part of ICT lessons 
in school and the experience documented and submitted as coursework and we 
have a Linux hosted Moodle site (an Open Source Virtual Learning Environment 
for schools and colleges)

Small but significant gains to real users.

Rob Hall