On Thursday 27 November 2003 14:13, Matt Johnson wrote:
Hi all,
A rallying cry for some assistance in a scary world.
We're thinking of replacing MS Office here (97) with Oo.o 1.1 (to be honest, it's going to happen!). I've received a letter from a parent who is "alarmed" that we may be considering any alternatives to Microsoft, expressing how important it is for her child to be in a Microsoft environment because of the real world (I'm paraphrasing - not her words).
By the time her "precious" is out in the real world, the real world will be OpenOffice.org! I had an occasion last year where I recieved a lot of complaints from a particular pupil about having to use OO and Star Office. This pupil left for university and in her first term asked me for SO becauase thay had to use it in her course. The last laugh and all that. Don't be too alarmed at these complaints, there are plenty of these types of people around. Lastly, try this: We are teaching ICT not Microsoft computing and this covers all aspects of ICT, including generic software types of which MS office is only one example. Also, our teaching should be capability based (as the KS3 strategy instructs us) and if her precious is attentive to her lessons should pick up the capability to drive any software, including Microsoft's. Therefore the vehicle used to deliver the capability is not important, as the software skills developed should be transferable. This is what I had to endure this week - Comment from fellow teacher: Linux is crap because I don't understand it and anyway I don't like the way it looks. regards garry
I'm arguing along three lines...
*Practicality (cost/budget/product features).
*Educationally (we're teachers not trainers)
*Idiologically (free thinking, open standards and specifically open file formats).
Could anyone point me to some web resources for the definition of "educating" rather than "training" that would enhance my point. And also resources that support the case for "open file formats" versus proprietory (and thus I suppose opensource in general versus proprietory - although maybe this wouldn't directly help as we're at least "looking at Star Office". Hmm). The more professional the body of any report's author, the better I suppose (do Becta cover this stuff?). Any articles at all would be great.
Cheers
-- Matt Johnson
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