reply from edexcel uk
<me> Here is the reply from edexcel about using Linux in their gcse courses. It's worrying. Please tell me our opinions. </me> Date: 29/10/03 Ref: SS/CSS Dear Steve Sheriff, In response to your email, as per advice from the Principal Moderator, I can confirm that the GCSE course is not dependent on any particular software, therefore centres can use any platform they like. Examples of standard and extended are microsoft based so your centre would need to be careful in their justification of Extended project work. I hope you will find this information helpful, but if you require further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us. Regards, Seyi Salawu Customer Relations Co-ordinator International Customer Relations Unit
<me> Here is the reply from edexcel about using Linux in their gcse courses. It's worrying. Please tell me our opinions. </me>
I think that you are reading more into the response than actually exists.
In response to your email, as per advice from the Principal Moderator, I can confirm that the GCSE course is not dependent on any particular software, therefore centres can use any platform they like.
There will be centres using non mainstream platforms like Apple and Acorn, it may be worth your while trying to find such a centre and asking them how they cope. It would not be acceptable to pin a course onto a single operating system.
Examples of standard and extended are Microsoft based so your centre would need to be careful in their justification of Extended project work.
The above statement is merely factual. The exemplar work is Microsoft based simply because it is the most popular operating system in use in schools at the moment and as such, the exemplar material needs to be sympathetic with the user base. Exercising care in the justification of extended project work is applicable to all projects irrespective of the operating system/platform/software. Good quality documentation and annotation as always will guide moderators to the marks. I re-iterate, you have read too much into the response. If you and your pupils are confident users of the software that you intend to use for the projects, then there's nowt to worry about. It's your responsibility to make sure that the coursework matches the specs and there's nothing standing in the way of Linux and Linux applications doing so . Just do it!
On Thursday 30 October 2003 08:28, vernon LEVY wrote:
<me> Here is the reply from edexcel about using Linux in their gcse courses. It's worrying. Please tell me our opinions. </me>
I think that you are reading more into the response than actually exists.
In response to your email, as per advice from the Principal Moderator, I can confirm that the GCSE course is not dependent on any particular software, therefore centres can use any platform they like.
There will be centres using non mainstream platforms like Apple and Acorn, it may be worth your while trying to find such a centre and asking them how they cope. It would not be acceptable to pin a course onto a single operating system.
Examples of standard and extended are Microsoft based so your centre would need to be careful in their justification of Extended project work.
The above statement is merely factual. The exemplar work is Microsoft based simply because it is the most popular operating system in use in schools at the moment and as such, the exemplar material needs to be sympathetic with the user base. Exercising care in the justification of extended project work is applicable to all projects irrespective of the operating system/platform/software. Good quality documentation and annotation as always will guide moderators to the marks.
I re-iterate, you have read too much into the response. If you and your pupils are confident users of the software that you intend to use for the projects, then there's nowt to worry about. It's your responsibility to make sure that the coursework matches the specs and there's nothing standing in the way of Linux and Linux applications doing so . Just do it!
Thanks for the encouragement. It's hard working in isolation here in Spain as there is no one to compare notes with and rumours about us changing os get the better of us at times. Still, it would be good to see how an extended piece of coursework looks on microsoft. Cheers. Steve.
fsanta wrote:
Thanks for the encouragement. It's hard working in isolation here in Spain as there is no one to compare notes with and rumours about us changing os get the better of us at times. Still, it would be good to see how an extended piece of coursework looks on microsoft. Cheers. Steve.
I also thought you read a little much into the response :-) although exam boards should really provide examples across software suites rather than one (especially as choice justification gets points!) If you want to see the things being done using MS then get hold of ICT projects for GCSE which is reasonable (actually essential) and the only book available of this type for this course. You can look at the book and download examples at http://www.payne-gallway.co.uk/ If you want to see more examples of the actual projects (eg an excel spreadsheet) then email me off the list and I will send some to you next week (with documentation if you like). Which type of software / projects are you (thinking of) using for the 4? I don't want to flood everyones inbox but I am curious as to how many people out there are teaching gcse edexcel and using either linux / openopffice.org? If we have a reasonable number it could be worth our while us getting together to produce implemenation examples using such software. Darren
It is really sad the way Microsoft products are being pushed into schools. Schools appear to be struggling with their finances in UK and not one senior voice have I heard that maybe it is time to push Microsoft out of schools. Imagine how much money can be saved and used in other projects, for example renewing hardware etc. My school recently paid about £10,000 just to renew Microsoft Office licenses. I obtained a site license for Staroffice for free from Sun but the total inflexibility from senior IT teachers was a fight to lose for me as the network manager. I sometimes wonder why some teaching staff are called IT teachers when they know very little of IT but earn high salaries. Education authorities are also to blame as I believe they probably receive a slice of profits from industry by pushing commercial software into schools. There is so much free and fully functional software out there for education. I must repeat, I am so saddened to see so much money from schools being "wasted". M Gural
On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 09:05:26AM -0000, ICT Support Officer wrote:
It is really sad the way Microsoft products are being pushed into schools.
Even when they hardly appear to be the "best tools for the job" in many cases.
Schools appear to be struggling with their finances in UK and not one senior voice have I heard that maybe it is time to push Microsoft out of schools.
Quite a few voices appear to be calling for more Microsoft in schools.
Imagine how much money can be saved and used in other projects, for example renewing hardware etc.
My school recently paid about £10,000 just to renew Microsoft Office licenses. I obtained a site license for Staroffice for free from Sun but the total inflexibility from senior IT teachers was a fight to lose for me as
Was this for the *same* version of MS Office. Or is this an example of where Star/OpenOffice is "too different", but the differences between MS Office 97, MS Office 2000, MS Office XP & MS Office 2003 are not considered an issue. (So much so that I ended up having to "downgrade" Office XP on one of our LFTs to Office 2000...)
the network manager. I sometimes wonder why some teaching staff are called IT teachers when they know very little of IT but earn high salaries.
If they were being asked to cough up 10 grand it might be a different story.
Education authorities are also to blame as I believe they probably receive a slice of profits from industry by pushing commercial software into schools.
Whilst there might be some backhanders involved most of it appears to be more a matter of mentality. With LEA advisors being familiar with all the latest buzzwords in proprietary software. But often ignorant of anything to do with open source software. (At times ignorant of fairly basic issues surrounding ICT usage in schools.)
There is so much free and fully functional software out there for education.
To muddy the waters futher we have "Curriculum Online" and E-Learning "credits" which amount to public funding of proprietary software. (Including stuff which no-one would actually buy if it came directly from school budget.) Also purchasing with these "credits" easily winds up going to subject teachers who know little about software licencing or getting a badly written piece of software usable by a class of students.
I must repeat, I am so saddened to see so much money from schools being "wasted".
The financial regulations under which state schools operate should make buying proprietary software very difficult. But in practice things appear to work rather differently. If anything schools would have difficulty paying someone to write/alter open source software. Even though the result is far more of an "investment" than handing over thousands of pounds to some (quite possibly foreign) proprietary software company for the "privilege" of using software which could easily be sub-optimal in the first place. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763
--- vernon LEVY
It's your responsibility to make sure that the coursework matches the specs and there's nothing standing in the way of Linux and Linux applications doing so . Just do it!
I've been looking into the GCSE and A level coursework and OS issues, and I'm relatively convinced that there is nothing in the specifications to prevent use of any reasonable OS. Linux/oo is just another platform. The moderators may not know precisely what the pupils have done with oo/MySQL or whatever, but <i>they don't really know what the kids are doing with M$ Access either</i>. The point about the Acorn / Mac fraternity is well made - maybe we should be making sure they are involved in this debate. One of the meanings of "Open" is inclusive, so if we are campaigning we should be defending the rights of individuals and organisations to make the chose to use what ever software they want. all imho of course Richard Rothwell Head of Computing Handsworth Grammar School Chair Schoolforge.org.uk ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk
participants (6)
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Darren Smith -
fsanta -
ICT Support Officer -
Mark Evans -
Richard Rothwell -
vernon LEVY