On Monday 01 December 2003 08:08, Colin McQueen wrote:
garry saddington <garry@joydiv.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
On Sunday 30 November 2003 22:52, Colin McQueen wrote:
ian <ian.lynch2@ntlworld.com> 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? regards garry
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