[Wylug-discuss] "Microsoft Office 'not the only way for schools' "

[Roger]

Jeremy M. Harmer wrote:
> Silicon has a story today listing 'six credible alternatives to 
> Microsoft Office', listing OpenOffice as one:
> http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39165225,00.htm

The report itself is referenced at 
http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=28199&page=1835
it's a pdf file - and 
http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=1835&audGroupID=1 has 
links to a number of other apparently FOSS-friendly pages.

> I am interested in MS's reply - "Teachers are pushing Office 2003 hard" 
> - I know they do not push it hard at our kids primary school... ok 
> perhaps not what MS meant but I wonder just how 'hard' Office is pushed 
> in any school.

I'll just refer you back to my last post - media and middle-ware are, I 
suppose, what M$ is proud of...

> My kids told their teachers about Linux and Open Office and received a 
> blank reply - possibly because at 7 and 8 years old no-one expected the 
> question from them.
> Does anyone actually have a feel for this from their own schools?

As I'm still doing my PGCE, 'own' school goes further than I like, but 
following my first secondary placement (see previous post) I've just 
done a week in a primary school, which was illuminating.  Of the 5 
teachers I saw, 3 didn't actually use much ICT at all and what I saw the 
other two use was done via M$ products, but needn't have been, since 
they both simply used the Web (CeeBeebies site with a Reception class 
and http://www.educationcity.com - a commercial, paid subscription site 
- with years 3 & 4).  M$ simply seemed an unthinking mechanism to access 
the material.  (The school server runs under M$ too.)

My guess is that most teachers neither know nor care about the M$ vs. 
FOSS issue.  Sad!

 From what I've seen so far, FOSS would be fine for a lot of what 
happens, but either simply hadn't been considered - or was rendered 
impractical by media suppliers/system installers.  Only one of the 
teachers I've seen was even aware of the alternatives - and he didn't 
seem to care (though perhaps he used to).

Roger