[Wylug-discuss] PDA's in schools

[John Hodrien]

On Fri, 12 Jan 2007, ALLEN, David wrote:

> Notwithstanding all the other comments made which I agree with, what
> anoys me the most was how the project was railroaded using Microsoft
> software, with no other technology considered. Maybe Gbdirect should
> give them a ring?

Most of the things they appear to have done with them are generic tasks, apart
from some things produced for them through microsoft and three other partners.
At least one of them (espresso) appear to be OSS users, and some of the tools
used (like flash) would work just merrily on a Nokia linux based device.

Syncing with computers in school (and using excel spreadsheets) inevitably
continues the microsoft lock-in, but is that the fault of this, or the over
reliance on Microsoft products within the state primary/secondary education
sector?

If there wasn't such a lock-in already as a result of volume licensing fun
with microsoft I'd be more critical of this, but if I was going to run a pilot
like this I'm not sure what I'd end up selecting.  Their criteria for picking
the PDAs doesn't appear to be documented much more than that the PDAs should
be VGA and be able to run portrait and landscape, although I admit I've only
skimmed the report.

jh

-- 
"It is not extraordinary that the extraterrestrial origin of women was a
  recurrent theme of science fiction, though I have never seen their imperfect
  grasp of their native language put forward as one more piece of evidence."
                                                      -- Sir Kingsley Amis