On Sunday 30 November 2003 22:52, Colin McQueen wrote:

ian wrote:

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On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 19:36, garry saddington wrote:

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We use Open Source almost exclusively to teach ICT and I have the idea that an alternative Open Source National Curriculum would be a good thing, what do others feel?

Good idea. Ideal project for SchoolforgeUK I should think.

I am unsure about what this means. Surely the National Curriculum should not be linked to any particular ICT tool provision. Freedom of choice and all that.

We have already talked about free transfer of software skills so it does not matter what we use. The idea is that Open Source gives us much more freedom to teach the foundations of computing that are denied to our students by using proprietary software. The present National Curriculum for ICT is limited in its content.

It was sensible for the KS3 streategy materials to be produced in MS office format (and pdf BTW)

Yes but is PDF open source and can you manipulate it as is required by the strategy? as they are the most common format in use in

schools AND Oo etc can read them. As I understand it the materials for special schools will use Macromedia Flash instead of Excel.

Flash is now a spreadsheet? There are

one or two other examples of none MS products that are suggested for use especially for sound/video and database work.

Only because there are now MS versions that are free to use (Audacity?) Anyway much of the

teaching is about K+U, content and process not application skills exactly because of the "What's going to be around in the future" argument.

Now if you mean produce materials and sample teaching units that use open source applications then fine. Good idea and I hope the emphasis is on K+U for ICT capability and not on skills in any particular Oo or open source application.

If anyone has info on a decent easy to use open source educational programming tool that can be understood by weaker visual learners (eg. similar to Flowol) then let me know where it is.

Similiarly we also need an open source gateway/portal product that uses decent encryption for schools to use as their communication and MLE tool. I have looked at Moodle but it has to integrate with the normal authentication methods. One login for everything. I'm obviously not an expert in these things but I need information to help me consider the options. Part of my work is in piloting the Microsoft Learning Gateway for schools (Basically a combination of Sharepoint and Class server). I'd love to have a better, faster open source alternative that integrated well.

try Plone regards garry

-- Colin McQueen

On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 08:08, Colin McQueen wrote:

garry saddington wrote:

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On Sunday 30 November 2003 22:52, Colin McQueen wrote:

...

ian wrote:

...

On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 19:36, garry saddington wrote:

...

We use Open Source almost exclusively to teach ICT and I have the idea that an alternative Open Source National Curriculum would be a good thing, what do others feel?

Good idea. Ideal project for SchoolforgeUK I should think.

I am unsure about what this means. Surely the National Curriculum should not be linked to any particular ICT tool provision. Freedom of choice and all that.

We have already talked about free transfer of software skills so it does not matter what we use. The idea is that Open Source gives us much more freedom to teach the foundations of computing that are denied to our students by using proprietary software.

But it does not give staff more freedonm as they will struggle to use the open source applications.

No-one says they have to use open source applications, but it would be a good idea to make it easier for them to do so.

Installing them as well as learning to use them. Adults find it harder to transfer skills. Those that can cope and don't mind changing (they enjoy using their free time this way) probably will anyway.

So we should not be transferring these adult problems to the kids.

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The present National Curriculum for ICT is limited in its content.

No its not. Have you been right through the KS3 Strategy materials? Its content is not defined in the statutory documents because it needs to be flexible enough to change with the development of ICT. Take for example the day we discover how to store graphics in a format that has the advantages of vector and bitmap.

Seems unlikely. In the meantime maybe we should just teach something about bitmap and vector file formats so the kids understand the issues rather than sweeping it under the carpet and pretending pictures are just pictures and all that matters is being able to stick them in Powerpoint and flash them up on an Interactive Whiteboard. I think this lack of attention to technical details is why the brighter kids often tend to see ICT as a bit of a joke.

...

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It was sensible for the KS3 streategy materials to be produced in MS office format (and pdf BTW) Yes but is PDF open source and can you manipulate it as is required by the strategy?

I wasn't suggesting it was, simply making sure I wasn't just in an anti-microsoft debate ;-). You can manipulate it if you have acrobat or the skills to use the reader to export the data.

I am beginning to more fully understand the debate now. I think there will be huge resistance to changing. Microsoft are so good at adding easily accessible function to their applications that excite people.

No more so than just about any other company or any FLOSS developers. They just chuck lots of resources at marketing. Educators of all people should be rather less susceptible to marketing hype and more focussed on function and value for money. In any case, its an open standards issue not a MS specific one although MS have great influence in this so its difficult to discuss such an issue without involving that company a lot.

Time is short for teachers. Having to spend too much of your free time to adapt and work around software to come up with the excitement is a block to changing to open source.

Time is money and money is time and £100m a year go on ELCs, similar order of magnitude on proprietary operating system and productivity software. This is an issue of political will. With that kind of money all the resources teachers need could be developed using open standards and made downloadable on these nice broadband connections. They could all be free for schools to use as is *or* modify to meet their individual needs and those modified/improved versions could go back to the central resource. Far from costing teachers more time, it would be less time and less restrictions.

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as they are the most common format in use in

...

schools AND Oo etc can read them. As I understand it the materials for special schools will use Macromedia Flash instead of Excel.

Flash is now a spreadsheet?

Whoa there... We don't teach spreadsheets in the NC we teach modelling.

Strange, I have inspected IT in many schools and I have seen a lot of teaching of spreadsheets. You can't create a model on a spreadsheet without knowing some of the basic attributes of spreadsheets and some of the quirks of the one you happen to be using. This idea that you can teach some higher order process without any specific skills or knowledge is not only nonsense, its dangerous. Anyone teaching science in the 70s knows that science went through exactly the same debates and the "process" only camp have long since been discredited. Similar attitudes in English and maths have resulted in national strategies to get the subjects back on course.

Special school pupils cannot handle spreadsheets for modelling so people are developing flash models because of the ease of doing this and because you can make it fun to use.

So if we don't teach anything about spreadsheets in secondary schools, the kids will fulfil statutory requirements and they won't have any trouble in the new pilot SATS in ICT because there won't be any questions that involve spreadsheets? They just need to know about some generic concept called modelling?

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There are

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one or two other examples of none MS products that are suggested for use especially for sound/video and database work.

Only because there are now MS versions that are free to use (Audacity?)

I think you missed out the word "none"?. But OK I no realise this is not simply an anti-MS debate.

Why did you assume it was?

...

...

Now if you mean produce materials and sample teaching units that use open source applications then fine. Good idea and I hope the emphasis is on K+U for ICT capability and not on skills in any particular Oo or open source application.

I'd be happy to lend my time to creating an alternative set of sample teaching units using open source file formats and applications.

If there was some incentive to do it, there would be many teachers willing to do this. Instead we just have a fragmented morass of everyone doing their own thing on the one hand and masses of money being channelled into proprietary software development, many people end up buying because they are effectively forced to, on the other. -- ian

"Darren Smith" wrote:

*can't get my email client to indent properly so I will use a * for my new content!!!

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No its not. Have you been right through the KS3 Strategy materials? Its content is not defined in the statutory documents because it needs to be flexible enough to change with the development of ICT. Take for example the day we discover how to store graphics in a format that has the advantages of vector and bitmap.

Seems unlikely. In the meantime maybe we should just teach something about bitmap and vector file formats so the kids understand the issues rather than sweeping it under the carpet and pretending pictures are just pictures and all that matters is being able to stick them in Powerpoint and flash them up on an Interactive Whiteboard. I think this lack of attention to technical details is why the brighter kids often tend to see ICT as a bit of a joke.

I wasn't implying you don't have this sort of rigour. Thje KS3 strategy DOES get teachers to explain things like vector/bitmap. The latest web technologies optional training has has vocabulary like .png and explains bandwidth packets teaches the use of the tracert command and so on. Its a start and in my view has to be applauded.

*I think you need to re-read the original paragraph again, Ian. The difference between vector and bitmap is in the bat strat - y7 off the top of my head. It addresses the issues of how they are made up, quality when enlarged, file size (i think) and suitability of purpose.

Yes all of these

...

I'd be happy to lend my time to creating an alternative set of sample teaching units using open source file formats and applications.

*I suggested similar on this list concerning GCSE with pretty much zero response. I'd be interested in free / open alternatives for both win and linux.

OK then who has the knowledge to get a project started? Wpould we use a website like Sourceforge? -- Colin McQueen

On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 15:28, garry saddington wrote:

On Monday 01 December 2003 08:08, Colin McQueen wrote:

...

garry saddington wrote:

...

On Sunday 30 November 2003 22:52, Colin McQueen wrote:

...

ian wrote:

...

On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 19:36, garry saddington wrote:

...

We use Open Source almost exclusively to teach ICT and I have the idea that an alternative Open Source National Curriculum would be a good thing, what do others feel?

Good idea. Ideal project for SchoolforgeUK I should think.

I am unsure about what this means. Surely the National Curriculum should not be linked to any particular ICT tool provision. Freedom of choice and all that.

We have already talked about free transfer of software skills so it does not matter what we use. The idea is that Open Source gives us much more freedom to teach the foundations of computing that are denied to our students by using proprietary software.

But it does not give staff more freedonm as they will struggle to use the open source applications. Installing them as well as learning to use them. Adults find it harder to transfer skills. Those that can cope and don't mind changing (they enjoy using their free time this way) probably will anyway.

...

The present National Curriculum for ICT is limited in its content.

No its not. Have you been right through the KS3 Strategy materials? Its content is not defined in the statutory documents because it needs to be flexible enough to change with the development of ICT. Take for example the day we discover how to store graphics in a format that has the advantages of vector and bitmap.

Yes but there is nothing in there that can't be done on the standard MS office products. What about creating graphics using bitmap and vector editors, making midi files, programming sequencers. Programming, SQL....the list could go on. ICT should be exiting, not just about finding, changing, refining and presenting information to various audiences and evaluating the worth of that information. Perhaps I am missing the point here, is there a subject called ICT that uses computers and a totally different one that is about computers and what they can do for us?

I think the problem is one of lines of least resistance. If you allow learning to follow a mediocre line of least resistance that is where it will go. Teachers know how to use MS Office so many if not most will simply use it at every opportunity rather than adding challenge and variety. We get all the excuses such as its what they will use, anything else is too difficult, too snowed under with work, we haven't the resources etc. What it really boils down to is its easier - this is no criticism of teachers as a group, its human nature. Perhaps we should plan a curriculum that avoids the comfortable cop out and actively encourages innovation and challenge, particularly for the most able. After all the people that really make a difference in the world are the ones that are prepared to go out on a limb and challenge the status quo. Very dangerous to encourage kids to be such in a school though ;-) -- ian

From: "garry saddington"

Yes but there is nothing in there that can't be done on the standard MS office products. What about creating graphics using bitmap and vector editors, making midi files, programming sequencers. Programming, SQL....the list could go on.

ICT should be exiting, not just about finding, changing, refining and presenting information to various audiences and evaluating the worth of

Why can't all of that be done within the current framework? that

information. Perhaps I am missing the point here, is there a subject called ICT that uses computers and a totally different one that is about computers and what they can do for us?

Yup. One's called computing ;-). Sad thing is you have to wait until sixth form before that can be taught fully :-( Darren Smith

Why...?

does [it] not give staff more freedonm as they will struggle to use the open source applications.

I agree that many teachers of ICT (and hence their students) would have considerable difficulty transferring their existing ICT skills to alternative open-source applications. But why? Is this an immutable fundamental characteristic of the learning process involved in mastering new applications? I think not. Rather the non-portability of ICT skills as taught in schools and elsewhere simply reflects the comparative immaturity of today's ICT curriculum. Let me explain why: To begin with some people (mostly those who work in commerce) do make the transfer to open-source applications with comparatively ease. Furthermore long time IT pros' like myself can usually master the basics of almost any applications that's thrown at us within just a few short minutes. Therefore in theory it must be possible to switch to alternative applications with comparative ease, if the original application has been taught in the right way. So what is it that IT pro's possess that school teachers and their students don't have? The answer is fluency in ICT as a living generic foreign language. But surely this takes years to develop, doesn't it? Well yes, at present it does... but it doesn't have to. That's because no one has bothered to prioritise the learning of basic ICT skills that have a strong commonality of function across a wide range of applications. Let me give you a concrete example. When teachers demonstrate to their students (or indeed their colleagues) how to use standard software applications, most tend to invoke functions by clicking on their icons displayed on a tool-bar or a pallet. Now on the surface this might appear to be the easiest and therefore the best option ...echoing how they themselves were taught. However tool-bars, pallets and even the images within icons tend to be unique to each individual application. Furthermore, tool-bars can be edited and pallets moved or even hidden. This serves to make common or standard functions non-transferable across applications. Independent use of a particular application may also become dependent upon how this has been configured within a particular school or even how this has been set-up on a particular PC. Teaching ICT in this restrictive way is somewhat akin to teaching what is claimed to be a modern foreign language, but in practice is no more than a miss-mash of slang, colloquialisms plus a selection of phrases from a highly localised dialect. What's a better approach? Well, almost every function within an application is readily accessible through the ubiquitous drop-down menu system. Furthermore most drop-down menu systems have an application-independent standard structure that's both consistent and highly logical -- 'File'; 'Edit'; 'Insert'; 'etc...'; '...Help'. Hence once a student has learned how to access a particular function via the drop-down menu system, this skill is immediately transferable to almost any other software application that utilises the same or a similar function. IT pros' such as myself instinctively tend to use the menu system, rather than pallets and tool-bars, when accessing anything other than the most obvious functionality. This makes perfect sense, given the menu system tends to closely reflects the functionality of the API (applications programming interface) used by the designer who constructed the application. In fact when adding functionality to an application, usually one links this first to the standard menu system. Linking to pallets, tool-bars and icons usually comes much much later. Now imagine what would happen if the writing of English prose was taught in schools without first teaching or making any reference to 'the ABC', part of speech (nouns, vowels, adjectives, etc), punctuation and sentence construction. Yet that's exactly how we currently set about teaching ICT in our schools! In conclusion; what's needed is a clear focus on teaching ICT from the perspective of a 'modern foreign language', rather that simply encouraging students to memorise and then parrot selected extracts from 'XYZ' School's '3rd-floor-ICT-suite' machine specific configuration of the 'MS-Word Phrase-Book'. ...and that's what I have been working on for some time now -- portable teaching skills that are fundamental to a far more mature future ICT curriculum. Furthermore it's also my intention to both develop and publish a sample 'ICT fundamentals' curriculum for use in schools on an open-source basis. This will feature teacher-friendly schemas, comprehensive lesson plans, teaching guides and support materials. Will this be fully compatible with the current statutory ICT National Curriculum? Yes it will. For I see no conflict whatsoever with the current NC including the standard 'Levels of Attainment'. In fact approaching ICT in manner similar to how a modern foreign language is taught will help to make the ICT NC a lot easier to implement in a meaningful way. Now if anyone on this list is interested in joining me in this venture then do please let me know. David Bowles TeacherLab / Education-Support db@educationsupport.fsnet.co.uk

Installing them as well as learning to use them. Adults find it harder to transfer skills. Those that can cope and don't mind changing (they enjoy using their free time this way) probably will anyway.

...

The present National Curriculum for ICT is limited in its content.

No its not. Have you been right through the KS3 Strategy materials? Its content is not defined in the statutory documents because it needs to be flexible enough to change with the development of ICT. Take for example the day we discover how to store graphics in a format that has the advantages of vector and bitmap.

...

...

It was sensible for the KS3 streategy materials to be produced in MS office format (and pdf BTW)

Yes but is PDF open source and can you manipulate it as is required by the strategy?

I wasn't suggesting it was, simply making sure I wasn't just in an anti-microsoft debate ;-). You can manipulate it if you have acrobat or the skills to use the reader to export the data.

I am beginning to more fully understand the debate now. I think there will be huge resistance to changing. Microsoft are so good at adding easily accessible function to their applications that excite people. Time is short for teachers. Having to spend too much of your free time to adapt and work around software to come up with the excitement is a block to changing to open source.

...

as they are the most common format in use in

...

schools AND Oo etc can read them. As I understand it the materials for special schools will use Macromedia Flash instead of Excel.

Flash is now a spreadsheet?

Whoa there... We don't teach spreadsheets in the NC we teach modelling. Special school pupils cannot handle spreadsheets for modelling so people are developing flash models because of the ease of doing this and because you can make it fun to use.

...

There are

...

one or two other examples of none MS products that are suggested for use especially for sound/video and database work.

Only because there are now MS versions that are free to use (Audacity?)

I think you missed out the word "none"?. But OK I no realise this is not simply an anti-MS debate.

<snip>

...

...

Now if you mean produce materials and sample teaching units that use open source applications then fine. Good idea and I hope the emphasis is on K+U for ICT capability and not on skills in any particular Oo or open source application.

I'd be happy to lend my time to creating an alternative set of sample teaching units using open source file formats and applications.

...

...

If anyone has info on a decent easy to use open source educational programming tool that can be understood by weaker visual learners (eg. similar to Flowol) then let me know where it is.

Similiarly we also need an open source gateway/portal product that uses decent encryption for schools to use as their communication and MLE tool. I have looked at Moodle but it has to integrate with the normal authentication methods. One login for everything. I'm obviously not an expert in these things but I need information to help me consider the options. Part of my work is in piloting the Microsoft Learning Gateway for schools (Basically a combination of Sharepoint and Class server). I'd love to have a better, faster open source alternative that integrated well.

try Plone regards garry

OK I'll have a look.

-- Colin McQueen

Christopher Dawkins wrote:

...

I agree that many teachers of ICT (and hence their students) would have considerable difficulty transferring their existing ICT skills to alternative open-source applications. But why?

Rather the non-portability of ICT skills as taught in schools and elsewhere simply reflects the comparative immaturity of today's ICT curriculum.

True. It reflect training rather than education, though we aim for transferable skills in most other subjects. It's as if we were producing mechanics who can only service Ford cars, historians who know only the late Victorian period, artists who can paint only in charcoal, philosophers who know only Kant. All this is fine as a specialisation or in old age, but we are producing young people (and young teachers, defined for IT purposes as under the age of fifty-five) who are not only restricted in their range but - much worse - who are determined not to learn anything else.

But this is exactly the point of the KS3 National Strategy ICT strand. To increase the rigour of knowledge and understanding. The move is away from training to education. I applaud the effort. -- Colin McQueen

On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 09:57:35AM +0000, Christopher Dawkins wrote:

...

I agree that many teachers of ICT (and hence their students) would have considerable difficulty transferring their existing ICT skills to alternative open-source applications. But why?

Rather the non-portability of ICT skills as taught in schools and elsewhere simply reflects the comparative immaturity of today's ICT curriculum.

True. It reflect training rather than education, though we aim for transferable skills in most other subjects. It's as if we were producing mechanics who can only service Ford cars, historians who know only the

Or even only current models of Ford cars...

late Victorian period, artists who can paint only in charcoal, philosophers who know only Kant. All this is fine as a specialisation or

Even specialist car mechanics, historians, artists, etc usually have some background as generalists. In the case of the example historian IMHO such a person would be of little use, since a lot of history is meaningless without context.

in old age, but we are producing young people (and young teachers, defined for IT purposes as under the age of fifty-five) who are not only restricted in their range but - much worse - who are determined not to learn anything else.

In some cases "determined not to learn anything else" (including the basics behind the tasks) ends up as "taking great pride in their ignorance". -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763

Would that it were so simple. The problem is that you know what you want to do, the difficulty is finding out what the application calls it.

Yes and no. To begin with it's not that difficult to make an informed guess as to the top-level menu item below which the function you are after is likely to reside. For example: 'File' menu child functions are usually concerned with operations that work on the document 'as a whole' ...such as 'New', 'Save', 'Save-As', 'Import', etc... 'Edit' menu child functions are usually concerned with making changes within a part of an existing document ...such as 'Copy', 'Paste', 'Find', 'Format', etc... 'Insert' menu child functions are usually concerned with adding new content to sections of an existing document ..such as 'Date & Time', 'Image', 'Object', etc... OK, so this tends to get less logical and more application specific as one progresses across the top-level menu items. But it only takes a few seconds to scan the cursor across the full-range of the top-level menu, and with practice you'll find the functions you are looking tend to 'jumps out' at you. Why? Because your mind soon learns to automatically ignore the unwanted functions that are already familiar to you, allowing you to quickly target the one you are after. Furthermore once you have mastered a few applications using this standard method of accessing their functions through the drop-down menu system, then when you start to work an a new application you'll quickly discover you already know how to access perhaps 80% or even in excess of 90% of it's basic functionality. Recognising the great similarities between supposedly different applications also provides the user with a huge psychological boost. For this serves to convince their all-powerful sub-conscious mind that every application is in essence basically the same. This sets in motion a 'virtuous circle' whereby any incongruity is quickly noted and dealt with on a sub-conscious level, which turns this similarity into a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is why old-timers such as myself are able to master new applications (that roughly conform to a standard drop-down menu format) so quickly and with such comparative ease. However this skill is not unique to those with years of experience, who usually got to work this way through trial and error (mainly error!). It can also be implicitly taught and quickly, in much the same way one can teach an modern-foreign language.

The help file is often worse than useless because it uses the application specific vocabulary.

Personally I don't believe this to be true, or rather it's usually possible to pick up the gist of how an application functions extremely quickly just from scanning the help system in the right way. Once you understand how a standard help system is laid out, then drilling down to a detailed explanation of the functionality you are after is 'easy peasy'! But I'll leave this lesson for a future posting... David Bowles TeacherLab / Education Support

Ref: the more or less standard layout of drop-down menu systems...

Is it a necessity that one should *standardise* menus in this way? I find it really limiting to think that.

Certainly not. For another concept that students benefit from being implicitly taught is there are usually many ways of invoking the same function. For example, the 'Paste' command is usually accessible thus; 1. On the drop-down menu select 'Edit...' 'Paste' 2. Type 'alt-E', 'alt-P' 3. Type 'crtl-V' 4. Locate the 'Edit' toolbar and click on the 'Paste' icon 5. Hold down the 'ctrl' key while you 'Drag & Drop' a highlighted copy of the object you want to paste. 6. Etc., etc., etc... Of course you are free to chose any method that personally suits you best. But when students first attempt to use an unfamiliar application the familiar structure that's inherent within the drop-down menu system makes this far easier, compared with trying to work out what those 'naff looking' indecipherable icons might mean.

One of the reasons I switched to using the CLI is that the CLI allows me to work the way *I* want to, rather than being restricted in this way.

Working with the CLI (command line interface) is fine if this suits your preferred way of working. But it just so happens that I'm diagnosed with a 'specific learning difficulty' that manifest principally as an almost nonexistent extended short-term memory capacity. I guess this renders me permanently in a state that's similar to most novices, in that I'm simply not able to remember even a small subset of the most commonly used CLI commands, let alone master the full complexity of CLI syntax. That's why I find working with Linux becomes just too frustrating at times.

So-called "point and click" junkies.

Yes, I guess this makes me a point-and-click junkie ...and I'm proud of it! I've even been know to proffer the opinion that CLIs' based interfaces which give little or no feedback until after it's far too late really suck! At the risk of starting as flame-war, give me a well-designed WIMPs based GUI any day! Actually, there are times when I get highly jealous of 'CLI' junkies who achieve so much with such ease. For they have the luxury of invoking feats of memory that I can only dream about. The synapses within my brain are simply not wired up so as to readily store and access information in the way that these CLI warriors do. I guess I could described manner in which my brain works as more akin to a powerful RISK based processor, restricted to working with negligible RAM and interfaced to ludicrously small hard drive. What ultimately makes this usable is the fast and powerful 'real time' interpreter based OS that my brain runs in the background. However this interpreter requires constant servicing with memory refresh cycles gleaned from looking at the screen. Without this feedback my brain quickly grinds to a halt or even crashes!

...

...when you start to work an a new application you'll quickly discover you already know how to access perhaps 80% or even in excess of 90% of it's basic functionality.

Which is the sad thing, because hidden behind all of that are some powerful tools to be had.

What you've written simply doesn't make any sense al all. Quite the opposite in fact. For once you know how to access the 80% to 90%, this frees up your mind to concentrate principally upon the really interesting new stuff you have alluded to, dummy! <VVVVBG> ;-) David Bowles TeacherLab / Education Support

On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 09:04:55AM +0000, David Bowles wrote:

Why...?

...

does [it] not give staff more freedonm as they will struggle to use the open source applications.

I agree that many teachers of ICT (and hence their students) would have considerable difficulty transferring their existing ICT skills to alternative open-source applications. But why? Is this an immutable

More to the point why is it an issue when it comes to transfering to any OSS applications, but not considered an issue when moving from one proprietary application to another. Even in cases where there is a much greater difference between two proprietary applications than between a proprietary and an open source application.

fundamental characteristic of the learning process involved in mastering new applications? I think not.

-- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763

On 2003-11-30 22:52:39 +0000 Colin McQueen wrote:

I am unsure about what this means. Surely the National Curriculum should not be linked to any particular ICT tool provision. Freedom of choice and all that.

Reality is that most material is produced for a particular tool at the moment. Is the NC developed in an open manner at the moment?

If anyone has info on a decent easy to use open source educational programming tool that can be understood by weaker visual learners (eg. similar to Flowol) then let me know where it is.

If I had any idea what you were talking about here, I might be able to make better suggestions. Can you try restating it, either without reference to other products, or giving readily-available citations for them? I think you may mean something like the Squeak smalltalk system from http://www.squeak.org/

I have looked at Moodle but it has to integrate with the normal authentication methods. One login for everything.

That should not be difficult, as long as your authentication service uses some reasonably documented protocol. What is it?

love to have a better, faster open source alternative that integrated well.

Surely free software is evidently better for integrating in a heterogenous environment? However, looking for a direct product replacement seems odd to me: it normally means that the spec has been written to fit a particular winner. </delurk> -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/