On Saturday 04 October 2003 23:08, ian wrote:
On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 22:56, garry saddington wrote:
On Saturday 04 October 2003 20:28, ian wrote:
On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 17:16, garry saddington wrote:
I have used Knoda for AS and A-level project work and it seems to do all that is required. The only problem is that I am not sure that the examiners know what to make of it judging from some of the comments from moderators, but I am in the process of getting this sorted. They have really only ever seen Access and so are not used to the different design views in Knoda. Knoda differs from Access in that students have to write their own queries in SQL and this gives them a deeper understanding of the underlying table structures and also gives them some concrete skills from a qualification (ICT) that does not give them any experience of any programming or scripting, and seems to have evolved its practical aspects from parallel evolution with MS office. regards
Thing is we need something that is suitable for teachers who are not that expert for KS3 and KS4. If anything they will know Access so even if a bit distasteful it needs consideration. The OO.o project is committed to getting such a database solution. I have already commissioned an initial feasibility with Birmingham Uni. computer science department and we have an established dialogue with Sun engineers working on the OO.o project. However, this isn't going to happen overnight and its likely that some significant funding will need to be found. I have to let my head rule my heart to an extent on this. I can't afford to simply spend time doing these things because I have to earn a living too. Every day I spend out doing something like meeting the people at Birmingham Uni. costs the company £400. Although I got a grant for £3000 to commission the study it takes time to get these grants and to organise what is to be done with the money.
I know OO has database access that is fairly mature and I do believe that it has a role to play in certain aspects (mail merge and basic database access at table level) but it does not provide the Access-like metaphor with easily designed forms and reports that Knoda does at present,
No, that is why we are looking at developing it. It has to be cross platform though because we are not going to move everyone off Windows immediately. That is the real strength of OO.o, it provides a bridge to Linux making migration easier.
which will, with the upcoming Python scripting support provide a very useable Access replacement. I have KS3 and KS4 teachers using Knoda without a problem. Using native SQL is more logical and understandable than the drag and drop methods used by OO and Access.
To you perhaps, but not to the many teachers who think you need to be a programmer to do HTML and produce websites using Publisher. The reality is that most teachers want an Office suite and one that seems to them similar to MS Office.
Why don't you give Horst Knorr some reward for his work instead of spending money on feasability studies when worthwhile solutions already exist?
Because a) I don't know who Horst Knorr is, b) I'm the education lead for the OO.o project so I have some loyalty to it, c) The grant was for the purpose of a feasibility study not for general development, d) I know its going to be easier to get most schools I deal with to use OO.o with a simple and easy database on Windows than it is to get them to use the KDE desktop. e) I do have quite a few using the KDE desktop so I can use one solution to satisfy both sets of needs.
If there is a Knoda port to Windows it might be worth looking at but I think that the best chance of getting people off Microsoft products and hence over to FLOSS is to do it via OO.o so to me that's where my priorities and my money and resources will go first.
Thanks for your replies Ian, it has been an interesting exchange and I agree with your arguments regarding OO.I am not trying to detract from the project. Indeed, we use it throughout the school for our main office suite both in our Windows room and our two Linux rooms for exactly the reasons you state, and with the improvements in 1.1 we may use it for all our KS3 and KS4 database work. What I was trying to point out is that there is already a useable database solution, albeit running only on Linux at the moment. Perhaps I am being a little too simplistic when Open source to me means open source all the way, including the OS? By the way we do not use KDE but Icewm and students take to it very quickly and intuitively. My only concern is why are the teachers you mention teaching ICT, although I have come across this attitude with some younger pupils, one asked me "Why do we have to learn to use a word processor, can't I just use Publisher instead?" If I can be of any help to you, please do not hesitate to let me know. kind regards garry