Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (29 mails)
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Re: [opensuse-edu] What is a verticle solution for education?
- From: James Tremblay <jamesat@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:16:11 -0400
- Message-id: <1186661771.3841.153.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 02:22 +0100, Matt Johnson wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I'm the Deputy Headteacher at a UK Junior school (ages 7-11).
>
> I am intentionally asking these questions from a school management
> and teaching perspective. These comments apply as my experience of
> the Primary education system in the UK (5-11 year olds).
>
> On 8 Aug 2007, at 13:10, James Tremblay wrote:
>
> > In education a "vertical solution" could be defined as a set of
> > software pieces that encompass all of the tasks an Educator is
> > confronted with daily, i.e. a teacher needs an attendance module,
>
> We use SIMS (Capita) for attendance. We have no reason to change. The
> cost (yes financial, but more importantly the cost in time of the
> teachers learning to take a register) of retraining outweighs the
> cost of 8 classroom computer clients and an office SIMS server.
>
> > grading module,
The electronic gradebook in Centre is tied to attendance, scheduling,
the Nursing module, and more.... It offers those who have to make a
choice (all US schools and more I'm sure) the ability to choose a
fulling integrated administrative suite
>
> What does this actually do? For senior management? For teacher? For
> pupil? It's just a place to store and analyse progress data, right?
> We are provided with tools for this that have little or no cost to
> the school.
>
> > course management,
>
> What does this do for me as a Primary teacher?
as the "Headmaster" for the school if you only have one course like
"homeroom" it is the foundation for your other records management and if
you employ a broader schedule of courses or Moodle each of your subject
areas can have online assignments and record the "achievements" of the
participating students.
>
> > reference materials management
>
> A what? A shared library of resources across teachers across a
> school? Accessible from anywhere?
Yes, openbiblio is a web based library automation system it can be
customized to catalog anything, it could even be employed to manage a
conference room.
> > and
> > reporting\assessment module, etc.
with "open reports" configured to access the data stored in Centre\SIS
any assessment or achievement data that you store can be extracted on a
classroom or grade or school or district level. i.e. how many girls take
advance science and what is the average "grade" they get and does that
differ from teacher to teacher.
>
> What's the difference between this and a "grading module"? My
> experience of a report module is a report writing assistant tool. At
> a Primary level these can be as much of a bind as a help.
>
> > A school needs a desktop OS, server
> > OS, web applications, e-mail, firewall, etc.
>
> Our email services and firewalling is provided at a County level at
> no additional cost to the school if we use it or not. Every child and
> teacher receives a free email account (web-based and pop) and support
> is at no cost to the school. County have also bought into a "Learning
> Platform", which if we take it up, is at no cost to the school. The
> "LP" is a term that is being used here to define a web-based
> interface to shared school calendaring, file storage, a news portal,
> resource/room management, attendance etc.
>From what I'm reading from you and Ian, it sounds like the UK has
decided to build an education infrastructure at the "state" level, this
is not the case in the rest of the world. Here in the US we regard
education as a local (town\city) responsibility. It is only partially
funded at the state and federal level and the choices about how to
support the school are made by the community that school supports. This
makes cost a very important factor in any decision. Having the ability
to circumvent the added "Tax" of dealing with Microsoft and it's minions
is highly coveted.
>
> ----
>
> I am a very enthusiastic advocate of OSS. I have installed linux
> servers and desktops, and installed OpenOffice, Firefox etc, migrated
> schools websites to Plone etc, in schools for 10 years. But at a UK
> Primary school level (5-11) a lot of the service decisions are taken
> at a County level, and purchased at a County level. I can't abide
> SIMS, but it's functional for the limited use we put its way, and
> it's supported remotely at a very reasonable rate by the County. I
> don't like the company that provide our email service (negotiated at
> a County level), but the service is fine, free at the point of use,
> and well supported. I don't like the company that provide our
> connectivity or webhosting (negotiated at a County level) - but the
> service and support are very good.
>
> The problem for us is that schools have very little financial or
> functional reason to implement change on the services/products
> outlined above. Perhaps this is vastly different across the globe...
> perhaps we could hear some examples. Certainly for me, the work must
> be done above school level in order to affect change on the vast
> majority of the services outlined.
>
> Kind regards.
>
> --
> Matt Johnson
--
James Tremblay
Director of Technology
Newmarket School District
Newmarket,NH
http://en.opensuse.org/Education
"let's make a difference"
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi.
>
> I'm the Deputy Headteacher at a UK Junior school (ages 7-11).
>
> I am intentionally asking these questions from a school management
> and teaching perspective. These comments apply as my experience of
> the Primary education system in the UK (5-11 year olds).
>
> On 8 Aug 2007, at 13:10, James Tremblay wrote:
>
> > In education a "vertical solution" could be defined as a set of
> > software pieces that encompass all of the tasks an Educator is
> > confronted with daily, i.e. a teacher needs an attendance module,
>
> We use SIMS (Capita) for attendance. We have no reason to change. The
> cost (yes financial, but more importantly the cost in time of the
> teachers learning to take a register) of retraining outweighs the
> cost of 8 classroom computer clients and an office SIMS server.
>
> > grading module,
The electronic gradebook in Centre is tied to attendance, scheduling,
the Nursing module, and more.... It offers those who have to make a
choice (all US schools and more I'm sure) the ability to choose a
fulling integrated administrative suite
>
> What does this actually do? For senior management? For teacher? For
> pupil? It's just a place to store and analyse progress data, right?
> We are provided with tools for this that have little or no cost to
> the school.
>
> > course management,
>
> What does this do for me as a Primary teacher?
as the "Headmaster" for the school if you only have one course like
"homeroom" it is the foundation for your other records management and if
you employ a broader schedule of courses or Moodle each of your subject
areas can have online assignments and record the "achievements" of the
participating students.
>
> > reference materials management
>
> A what? A shared library of resources across teachers across a
> school? Accessible from anywhere?
Yes, openbiblio is a web based library automation system it can be
customized to catalog anything, it could even be employed to manage a
conference room.
> > and
> > reporting\assessment module, etc.
with "open reports" configured to access the data stored in Centre\SIS
any assessment or achievement data that you store can be extracted on a
classroom or grade or school or district level. i.e. how many girls take
advance science and what is the average "grade" they get and does that
differ from teacher to teacher.
>
> What's the difference between this and a "grading module"? My
> experience of a report module is a report writing assistant tool. At
> a Primary level these can be as much of a bind as a help.
>
> > A school needs a desktop OS, server
> > OS, web applications, e-mail, firewall, etc.
>
> Our email services and firewalling is provided at a County level at
> no additional cost to the school if we use it or not. Every child and
> teacher receives a free email account (web-based and pop) and support
> is at no cost to the school. County have also bought into a "Learning
> Platform", which if we take it up, is at no cost to the school. The
> "LP" is a term that is being used here to define a web-based
> interface to shared school calendaring, file storage, a news portal,
> resource/room management, attendance etc.
>From what I'm reading from you and Ian, it sounds like the UK has
decided to build an education infrastructure at the "state" level, this
is not the case in the rest of the world. Here in the US we regard
education as a local (town\city) responsibility. It is only partially
funded at the state and federal level and the choices about how to
support the school are made by the community that school supports. This
makes cost a very important factor in any decision. Having the ability
to circumvent the added "Tax" of dealing with Microsoft and it's minions
is highly coveted.
>
> ----
>
> I am a very enthusiastic advocate of OSS. I have installed linux
> servers and desktops, and installed OpenOffice, Firefox etc, migrated
> schools websites to Plone etc, in schools for 10 years. But at a UK
> Primary school level (5-11) a lot of the service decisions are taken
> at a County level, and purchased at a County level. I can't abide
> SIMS, but it's functional for the limited use we put its way, and
> it's supported remotely at a very reasonable rate by the County. I
> don't like the company that provide our email service (negotiated at
> a County level), but the service is fine, free at the point of use,
> and well supported. I don't like the company that provide our
> connectivity or webhosting (negotiated at a County level) - but the
> service and support are very good.
>
> The problem for us is that schools have very little financial or
> functional reason to implement change on the services/products
> outlined above. Perhaps this is vastly different across the globe...
> perhaps we could hear some examples. Certainly for me, the work must
> be done above school level in order to affect change on the vast
> majority of the services outlined.
>
> Kind regards.
>
> --
> Matt Johnson
--
James Tremblay
Director of Technology
Newmarket School District
Newmarket,NH
http://en.opensuse.org/Education
"let's make a difference"
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-edu+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-edu+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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