Re: Open file formats and idiology - some thoughts
Hi All, Some thoughts for you re: open file formats ; At Work I use a Mac, I also use a PC, at home I use a Mac and a PC running Linux. All three run OpenOffice 1.0. I have no problems transferring files (in fact when I can download the newer Openoffice I'll have exactly zero problems, apart from databases that is!). On both my Macs I have MS Office X and, in work we have a deputy head using office X-pletive on Windows X-pletive. I can't get his powerpoint presentations to load properly on the Mac USING powerpoint! However, they work beautifully if I import them into Keynote! OpenOffice is free, it's inclusive, it's cross platform BUT, as our Deputy Head so eloquently phrased it - "I don't want to learn OpenOffice!". As a thought, ask your parents (and teachers) how many of them have a fully legal copy of MS Office and can prove that fact - I'm sure that the answers (truthfully now..) won't surprise anyone on this list but, they will be vigerously refuted by the powers that be. If you listen to your staff and parents then nothing can possibly be changed because MS is what everybody uses - I've already proposed what you have and been shot down. So, I've made my own decision - My home is now a Microsoft Free Zone - any complaints from the school that my daughters attend will be met with the statement " Openoffice is a free download with no catches and it's cross platform - if you want to read my childrens files then DOWNLOAD THE B****Y THING , INSTALL IT AND ACTUALLY TEACH THE KIDS SOMETHING USEFUL! " I'm sick of teachers (sorry to offend anyone here but it's a fact of life), I'm sick of management and governors who have little or no understanding of I.C.T. and I'm sick of being ripped off my Microsoft. During a time of falling roles and reduced budgets those of us who have children in school should remember that each child is worth approx £3K per annum to that school. As tax payers and parents WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HEARD ON THESE MATTERS. Maybe we should actually be considering the transfer of our children from non-oss using schools to oss using schools wherever it is possible. They'll understand a slap in the pocket far better than they'll understand a technical or ideological argument. My final thoughts come from some comments made by Mark Rogers, Apple UK Managing Director, made in MacFormat Christmas 2003 edition (An Apple For Teacher) - "The question is: what are we trying to prepare children for? It should be about learning and giving them the skills that they really need when they go into the workplace, such as being able to find information or being creative. It's not about teaching them how to use Excel. It's not about the application but the process, and we think that can be done on any platform." Alan
On Thursday 27 November 2003 15:46, Alan Harris wrote:
Hi All,
Some thoughts for you re: open file formats ;
At Work I use a Mac, I also use a PC, at home I use a Mac and a PC running Linux. All three run OpenOffice 1.0. I have no problems transferring files (in fact when I can download the newer Openoffice I'll have exactly zero problems, apart from databases that is!).
On both my Macs I have MS Office X and, in work we have a deputy head using office X-pletive on Windows X-pletive. I can't get his powerpoint presentations to load properly on the Mac USING powerpoint! However, they work beautifully if I import them into Keynote!
OpenOffice is free, it's inclusive, it's cross platform BUT, as our Deputy Head so eloquently phrased it - "I don't want to learn OpenOffice!".
Your deputy head should renamed the d**k head
As a thought, ask your parents (and teachers) how many of them have a fully legal copy of MS Office and can prove that fact - I'm sure that the answers (truthfully now..) won't surprise anyone on this list but, they will be vigerously refuted by the powers that be.
There is no place for MS rubbish on my machines. When my son was learning ITC he wasn't allowed to use MS Office at home
If you listen to your staff and parents then nothing can possibly be changed because MS is what everybody uses - I've already proposed what you have and been shot down.
This is a bit of an over generalization. I, my family and friends all operate a Microsoft Free Zone and have done for years
So, I've made my own decision - My home is now a Microsoft Free Zone - any complaints from the school that my daughters attend will be met with the statement " Openoffice is a free download with no catches and it's cross platform - if you want to read my childrens files then DOWNLOAD THE B****Y THING , INSTALL IT AND ACTUALLY TEACH THE KIDS SOMETHING USEFUL! "
Good for you. I did the same thing I'm sick of teachers (sorry
to offend anyone here but it's a fact of life), I'm sick of management and governors who have little or no understanding of I.C.T. and I'm sick of being ripped off my Microsoft. During a time of falling roles and reduced budgets those of us who have children in school should remember that each child is worth approx £3K per annum to that school. As tax payers and parents WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HEARD ON THESE MATTERS. Maybe we should actually be considering the transfer of our children from non-oss using schools to oss using schools wherever it is possible. They'll understand a slap in the pocket far better than they'll understand a technical or ideological argument.
My final thoughts come from some comments made by Mark Rogers, Apple UK Managing Director, made in MacFormat Christmas 2003 edition (An Apple For Teacher) -
"The question is: what are we trying to prepare children for? It should be about learning and giving them the skills that they really need when they go into the workplace, such as being able to find information or being creative. It's not about teaching them how to use Excel. It's not about the application but the process, and we think that can be done on any platform."
I totally agree and that is why we released Rekall as a GPL application. People need to know about physical and conceptual design (of databases) not how draw pretty input forms. Wha good are pretty looking forms and reports if the underlying database design is useless. Kids come to me for job interviews. They tell me that they how to design a database with MS Access, but when I ask them to explain what is meant by the term data normalization they haven't a clue. These are kids with A level ITC. If kida are not taught the basic concepts then what chance do have in the big bad world
Alan
-- Regards John http://www.totalrekall.co.uk For technical support subscription options, please visit our On-line Shop and help drive Rekall development http://www.totalrekall.co.uk/modules.php?name=CCart
On Thursday 27 November 2003 16:21, John Dean wrote:
On Thursday 27 November 2003 15:46, Alan Harris wrote:
Hi All,
Some thoughts for you re: open file formats ;
At Work I use a Mac, I also use a PC, at home I use a Mac and a PC running Linux. All three run OpenOffice 1.0. I have no problems transferring files (in fact when I can download the newer Openoffice I'll have exactly zero problems, apart from databases that is!).
On both my Macs I have MS Office X and, in work we have a deputy head using office X-pletive on Windows X-pletive. I can't get his powerpoint presentations to load properly on the Mac USING powerpoint! However, they work beautifully if I import them into Keynote!
OpenOffice is free, it's inclusive, it's cross platform BUT, as our Deputy Head so eloquently phrased it - "I don't want to learn OpenOffice!".
Your deputy head should renamed the d**k head
As a thought, ask your parents (and teachers) how many of them have a fully legal copy of MS Office and can prove that fact - I'm sure that the answers (truthfully now..) won't surprise anyone on this list but, they will be vigerously refuted by the powers that be.
There is no place for MS rubbish on my machines. When my son was learning ITC he wasn't allowed to use MS Office at home
If you listen to your staff and parents then nothing can possibly be changed because MS is what everybody uses - I've already proposed what you have and been shot down.
This is a bit of an over generalization. I, my family and friends all operate a Microsoft Free Zone and have done for years
So, I've made my own decision - My home is now a Microsoft Free Zone - any complaints from the school that my daughters attend will be met with the statement " Openoffice is a free download with no catches and it's cross platform - if you want to read my childrens files then DOWNLOAD THE B****Y THING , INSTALL IT AND ACTUALLY TEACH THE KIDS SOMETHING USEFUL! "
Good for you. I did the same thing
I'm sick of teachers (sorry
to offend anyone here but it's a fact of life), I'm sick of management and governors who have little or no understanding of I.C.T. and I'm sick of being ripped off my Microsoft. During a time of falling roles and reduced budgets those of us who have children in school should remember that each child is worth approx £3K per annum to that school. As tax payers and parents WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HEARD ON THESE MATTERS. Maybe we should actually be considering the transfer of our children from non-oss using schools to oss using schools wherever it is possible. They'll understand a slap in the pocket far better than they'll understand a technical or ideological argument.
My final thoughts come from some comments made by Mark Rogers, Apple UK Managing Director, made in MacFormat Christmas 2003 edition (An Apple For Teacher) -
"The question is: what are we trying to prepare children for? It should be about learning and giving them the skills that they really need when they go into the workplace, such as being able to find information or being creative. It's not about teaching them how to use Excel. It's not about the application but the process, and we think that can be done on any platform."
I totally agree and that is why we released Rekall as a GPL application. People need to know about physical and conceptual design (of databases) not how draw pretty input forms. Wha good are pretty looking forms and reports if the underlying database design is useless. Kids come to me for job interviews. They tell me that they how to design a database with MS Access, but when I ask them to explain what is meant by the term data normalization they haven't a clue. These are kids with A level ITC. If kida are not taught the basic concepts then what chance do have in the big bad world
A - level ICT syllabuses make a big point of extolling the virtues of client - server and distributed databases but then accept coursework projects done in Access (what is all that about?). I am really having a hard time with all the crap we are told to teach as a direct result of the MS monopoly and the legacy personnel designing these courses. regards garry
Alan
--
Regards John
For technical support subscription options, please visit our On-line Shop and help drive Rekall development
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 16:21, John Dean wrote:
On Thursday 27 November 2003 15:46, Alan Harris wrote:
Hi All,
Some thoughts for you re: open file formats ;
At Work I use a Mac, I also use a PC, at home I use a Mac and a PC running Linux. All three run OpenOffice 1.0. I have no problems transferring files (in fact when I can download the newer Openoffice I'll have exactly zero problems, apart from databases that is!).
On both my Macs I have MS Office X and, in work we have a deputy head using office X-pletive on Windows X-pletive. I can't get his powerpoint presentations to load properly on the Mac USING powerpoint! However, they work beautifully if I import them into Keynote!
OpenOffice is free, it's inclusive, it's cross platform BUT, as our Deputy Head so eloquently phrased it - "I don't want to learn OpenOffice!".
Fine, you (DH) pay for all the licenses out of your money and use MS
Office. The rest of us will provide value for money to the tax payer ;-)
--
ian
My home is also MS Office free but I use Windows and Linux (dual boot) on my home PC. My daughter,s PC is also the same (She is 10 yrs old). I purposly put Star Office 7 on her PC under linux and she started to use Linux and Star Office. She seems to prefer Star Office, and that is without any influence from me about the politics of it all. She says that it is much simpler to use Star Office, she likes the layout and many other simlpe features. She wishes that her primary school used Star Office too. My second though is on Higher education at universities. I heard that most universities use Open Source Office Packages. This is obviously a very important point to raise. Schools have a high percentage of their students moving on to Universities. I would like to use this as an argument at my school with the senior management. Recently we spent about £10,000 to buy MS Office licenses despite my fruitless fight to introduce Staroffice. I would like to prove that universities use Open source software but I need references. How can I get a list of Uni's that use Open Source etc.
There really has been a fantastic response to the post. Thanks one and all for comments so far... Don't feel you have to stop on my account... the more arguments the better. It's been assumed my situation in secondary - it's not, I teach in a primary school, which makes it all more incredible really when many haven't an office suite to speak of anyway. The inclusion argument is flippin' strong. The links (Govt. etc.) I've been posted are very handy in bulstering my case - not that I actually need to present a case as the SMT are all onside! Yes, folks, it's possible! They love the figures, you see. Just about to look at the evaluation version of Star Office just in case I've missed something. I thoroughly approve of OO.o, but need to get a flavour of the alternatives (database and clipart/templates I believe). -- Matt -- Matt Johnson ________________________________________________________________________ Download Yahoo! Messenger now for a chance to win Live At Knebworth DVDs http://www.yahoo.co.uk/robbiewilliams
On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 07:43:24PM +0000, Matt Johnson wrote:
It's been assumed my situation in secondary - it's not, I teach in a primary school, which makes it all more incredible really when many haven't an office suite to speak of anyway.
In which case the argument "that's what the kids will be using when they leave school" is utterly nonsensical. Since it's only applicable, at all, to year 10 and above. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763
Just a few points and requests.
1. OpenOffice.org community would like to have case studies of any
schools using OO.o for the Education project which I'm leading. Please
E-mail me with details if you use OO.o
2. We are running a competition for a mascot - like Tux but based on a
seagull for the OO.o Schools project the winning design will be adopted
by the project worldwide.
3. We are also interested in schools joining the community and involving
pupils. They can contribute clip art, document templates etc. ie joining
the OO.o community has a lot more educational benefit than the MS Office
community.
4. With China intending to deploy 200m desktops based on FLOSS in the
longer term, its very likely that by the time a year 7 pupil leaves
full-time education they will be using tools based at least on the OO.o
base code even if its in another product.
--
ian
Hi
I can only speak from what I know from my days with MySQL AB and what I know
about who is using my own app, Rekall
MySQL is/was used by Oxford University as part of there contribution to the
Human Genome Project - that's the biggy
Huddersfield and Sheffield Universities Computer Science Dept use MySQL
Nottingham Trent University use both MySQL and Rekall in preference to MS
Abcess
I believe one Dept at Cambridge are using MySQL and Rekall
The OU are trialling MySQL and Rekall for their course M358 Relational
Databases
Rekall is very popular in US schools and colleges. Big organizations like
Fujitsu, IBM and Vodafon are using Rekall
----- Original Message -----
From: "ICT Support Officer"
My second though is on Higher education at universities. I heard that most universities use Open Source Office Packages. This is obviously a very important point to raise. Schools have a high percentage of their students moving on to Universities. I would like to use this as an argument at my school with the senior management. Recently we spent about £10,000 to buy MS Office licenses despite my fruitless fight to introduce Staroffice. I would like to prove that universities use Open source software but I need references. How can I get a list of Uni's that use Open Source etc.
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help@suse.com
Regards John
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 20:19, john@rygannon.com wrote:
Hi I can only speak from what I know from my days with MySQL AB and what I know about who is using my own app, Rekall MySQL is/was used by Oxford University as part of there contribution to the Human Genome Project - that's the biggy Huddersfield and Sheffield Universities Computer Science Dept use MySQL Nottingham Trent University use both MySQL and Rekall in preference to MS Abcess
The argument for MS software is often "to prepare them for real world apps" If this is the case there is a strong argument to junk Access and use a SQL database since real data base work these days is much more likely to be web based SQL than just about anything else. The real reason for sticking with the same thing is the inconvenience of change, the rest is just excuses. Fortunately, change always carries on because a small minority are pioneers who thrive on being original, different and innovative and drag the majority along in their wake. Paradoxically, those most resistant to change are often inconvenienced in the longer term more than most. They lose their jobs or constantly have to play catch up - they are often those in the education world who preach things like lifelong learning and preparing kids to change careers 6 or 7 times in a lifetime. Its OK as long as its the kids, not them ;-)
I believe one Dept at Cambridge are using MySQL and Rekall The OU are trialling MySQL and Rekall for their course M358 Relational Databases Rekall is very popular in US schools and colleges. Big organizations like Fujitsu, IBM and Vodafon are using Rekall
There really is no excuse not to use open source apps in education apart
from apathy and ignorance both of which should both be banned word in an
education environment.
--
ian
On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 10:13:35PM +0000, ian wrote:
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 20:19, john@rygannon.com wrote:
Hi I can only speak from what I know from my days with MySQL AB and what I know about who is using my own app, Rekall MySQL is/was used by Oxford University as part of there contribution to the Human Genome Project - that's the biggy Huddersfield and Sheffield Universities Computer Science Dept use MySQL Nottingham Trent University use both MySQL and Rekall in preference to MS Abcess
The argument for MS software is often "to prepare them for real world apps" If this is the case there is a strong argument to junk Access an
Which isn't really the case in the first place. Even where the "real world" uses MS stuff it could be anything Microsoft has produced in the last 15 (or so years).
use a SQL database since real data base work these days is much more likely to be web based SQL than just about anything else. The real
But what might be the "norm" in 5-10 years? Predicting the future is a difficult task. The real task would have to be predicting what each student might be using when they leave school. But this is even more difficult than picking the modal model...
There really is no excuse not to use open source apps in education apart from apathy and ignorance both of which should both be banned word in an education environment.
Shouldn't the situation be more along the lines of OSS being the default option with proprietary apps only used if they can demonstrate a specific reason for use? -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763
participants (8)
-
Alan Harris -
garry saddington -
ian -
ICT Support Officer -
John Dean -
john＠rygannon.com
-
Mark Evans -
Matt Johnson