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

[Roger]

John Hodrien wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Roger wrote:
> 
>> My guess is that most teachers neither know nor care about the M$ vs. 
>> FOSS issue.  Sad!
> 
> But should teachers care?  They've got plenty of other things to be 
> worrying about.  I think the software stack that schools use should be 
> considered much more seriously higher up, and *that* is where the 
> problems lie.  I think teachers should care about their IT kit about 
> as much as who their furntiture suppliers are.  School management 
> should take an entirely different view.

I agree about school (and national) management, but the difference 
between furniture and IT is that teachers don't take furniture home and 
expect it to fit that environment too.  That comparison can be stretched 
to show what I think is the problem...  Imagine that you've never 
realised that there was an alternative to paying more for your house, so 
you have a spare room in which to put the school furniture that you 
bring home every night, when, if the school bought its furniture from 
somewhere else, you could use the furniture you choose to have anyway 
(and you could get your furniture free).

>> 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).
> 
> I wouldn't expect teachers to care particularly.  If the software they are
> given doesn't suck, they don't care.  Give them stuff that crashes all the
> time and they'll quickly care.

Ah but they do care about what systems they have.  Specifically, I've 
heard three different teachers turn on interactive whiteboards with a 
muttered comment, "If the thing will work."

The big issue is, as Becta point out, interoperability - being able to 
use create stuff with one piece of software, then use it with another. 
And again Becta got it right: two different versions of Microsoft 
software are just as unlikely to be compatible as, say, Word and 
OpenOffice Writer.

> If they understood that they could simply hand
> out CDs to kids with all the software they'd need for the year with no
> licensing problems, then perhaps that'd appeal

I think that being able to update their own software free of charge 
would also appeal - if they knew about it, and if it were not the case 
that some suppliers produce material that won't work with the free software!

Roger