On Monday 01 January 2007 06:30, James Tremblay wrote:
On Monday 01 January 2007 07:06, garry saddington wrote:
On Sun, 2006-12-31 at 18:15 -0500, James Tremblay wrote:
I can't think of a good reason to waste time with a windows anything. except maybe shades ;)
Heh - good one.
One of the main obstacles to anything open source in English schools (and this is the only area I know about) are the teachers themeselves. Recently, two senior employees of BECTA visitited my school to see how they could help us run the new key stage 3 on screen tests because we use Ubuntu exclsively and the idiots (RM) programming the tests would not support us. Anyway, during the discussion about the take up of Linux in English schools one of these gentlemen (who are extremely aware of what goes on in schools) said: "It does not matter how much anyone in a school wants Linux to succeed in that school, the teachers can always find a way to make sure that it does not" And from their experience this is what has happened! The main reason is that the teachers are used to Windows and very reluctant to change to anything else. This is why I suggest a Windows install initially will have more penetration than if you go Linux from the outset. Remove as many barriers first and then gradually add them back as you win converts.
Out here in California, the situation is not quite that bad. We are very used to a mixed environnment since many schools were supplied by Apple Computer with IIe and Macintosh systems over the years. This still occasionally happens. My son's school has almost 100 MacBooks (or whatever the Macintosh laptop is these days.) mixed with IIgs, Macintosh, and various Wintendo computers.
You and I seem to be on a different thought process about these programs. There are all web based programs and therefore the host makes no difference. The staff and students in my schools are still mostly on M$ machines and until I have a decent Client for Netware, are going to stay that way. What I want to affect is the way schools "run" there records keeping operations, If we can build an OpenSource admin suite, and the parts already exist, then we should try and help set a standard in place.
Being web-based, this will be an easier task to accomplish. With a cost of zero for the software, there is one less argument against such an implementation.
I'm not asking that this be done tommorrow, just asking that people join in and begin to participate, as you have done. Please do continue to keep me on my feet. Thanks James Tremblay
Heh! -- kai - theperfectreign@yahoo.com www.perfectreign.com || www.4thedadz.com www.filesite.org || www.donutmonster.com wo ist der ort für den ehrlichsten kuss ich weiss, dass ich ihn für uns finden muss... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@opensuse.org