On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 05:01:46PM -0000, Phil Thane wrote:
I suspect it is like much education policy, (or any govt policy) civil servants playing safe and a dread fear of individual initiative. Heaven forbid that a teacher might actually know where to get freeware (even
I suspect your own company will be handing some out at BETT next month :)
Windows freeware), how to install it, test it, evaluate it and decide to use it, or not. There is a slight chance that he/she might download something
Except that this has nothing to do what teachers might try to install. Including "demo-ware", "cripple-ware" and even "fully functional" software handed out at some conference or other. Teachers get given Windows software which they frequently are expected to install and evaluate. Only after than has happened does the network manager get to hear about it. In order to try and find out if it can easily be deployed on a network and will play nice with all the other "usefull educational software". Some teachers even get regular mailings of such stuff. From the teacher's POV this is "freeware" since they are never expected to pay out of their own pockets for it and only rarely is the school likely to be invoiced. (Even if the school is invoiced there is now likely to be thousands of pounds which can only be spent on certain proprietary software.)
that screws things up, but so what? The worst that can happen is he/she gets to format the hard drive and re-install, which is a hell of a learning exercise. Teach them the importance of backups apart from anything else!
The restriction is on what software is preloaded and by implication what software is on the restore CD or partition. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763