Schools should be educating children to be honest citizens, that's all. A school should not be unwittingly complicit in illegal things.

Well all I can say to this is As with all schools we teach the kids the laws on data protection, copy write and event the new freedom of information act but...

You can take a horse to water but you can not make it drink. But you can show it water and stop it drinking! :-)

If you standardise on OOo the probelme evaporates. This is true to a degree, in so much as you must then also teach that not everything is free, just everything that we use here! e.g. the same software may not be free to use at home, or more likely in a commercial environment.

And to this I say yes but until we teach all the kids how to set up a mysql database we first need to teach the teachers and to do that we need to explain why to the senior management team which as stated do not see OO meeting its requirements for the school at present.

As for

Government would say that education is the school's responsibility ;-)

We have been teaching pupils to follow the law for many years and the crimes by people of the 11 to 19 age group are still on the increase and other crimes are given a much high priority at school surely parents must have some of the responsibility to educate there children in the right and wrong's both morally and law.

Dave Selby (B.Sc. Hons Dunelm) Network manager St Leonards R C Comprehensive School Tel: 0191 3755204 Fax: 0191 3755248 E-mail: IT@st-leonards.durham.sch.uk Web Site: www.st-leonards.durham.sch.uk

Any one else remember the good days when pupils where encouraged to thing outside the box!

-----Original Message----- From: Ian Lynch [mailto:ian.lynch@zmsl.com] Sent: 10 January 2005 10:55 To: David Selby Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 10:03, David Selby wrote:

...

Are they all legal? Well I can only speak for the one we have soled and as to weathered or not students have legal copies is down to them as it is not part of the school not my problem or my business

Schools should be educating children to be honest citizens, that's all. A school should not be unwittingly complicit in illegal things.

...

we do informed our year 12 and 13 about copy right and software piracy but there is little we can do to stop them doing stuff at home.

If you standardise on OOo the probelme evaporates.

...

Unfortunate most parents see coping software the same as copying tapes in the 60s and 70s and I really thing that the government is doing little or nothing to change their minds.

Government would say that education is the school's responsibility ;-)

...

For our part we do provide a recommend spec and provider for PC and software when asked.

What about those who can't afford it? For the puples who do not have a system at home we have school laptops that can be taken home by pupiles if it is nessessary. But to be hounest most of the pubiles have one PC per home most of wich are Windows XP or ME and form the iformatin we have been able to gather most have a ver of MS Office or MS works

Must be in a well off catchment! In any case they can run OOo on Windows. OOo is more compatible with MSO than MS Works is. All those with works should upgrade to OOo - its free so there is no reason not to.

...

Dave Selby (B.Sc. Hons Dunelm) Network manager St Leonards R C Comprehensive School Tel: 0191 3755204 Fax: 0191 3755248 E-mail: IT@st-leonards.durham.sch.uk Web Site: www.st-leonards.durham.sch.uk

Any one else remember the good days when pupils where encouraged to

Kids take the view that because they can, it's okay. Recent social changes towards minors make it very difficult to change this view, if they can get away with murder, then why not theft? Let's hang a few of them as an example :-) and not just the culprits, anyone we choose, because we can. May I have my medicine now? thing

...

outside the box!

-----Original Message----- From: Ian Lynch [mailto:ian.lynch@zmsl.com] Sent: 10 January 2005 09:36 To: David Selby Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 08:56, David Selby wrote:

...

Well the main reason for trying to use MS type clone is that most of my students have MS Office with Access at home

Are they all legal? What about those who can't afford it?

...

and so far is what is used at school as for "educate that minority to use what you use at school and use a proper database like most professional database people use?"

Its just amusing that that is usually the marketing guff given to justify paying for MS products in schools. "Its what they will use in industry"

...

Most parents would not know and do not what to know about what a Professional database is all they care about is that there children have access to a database that enables them to get the best grade the can get with the least amount of hassle for the child and them and given that the national strategy and the leave of database knowledge required to complete a cause makes most of the professional databases over the top

I don't doubt it, but then being a professional educator means knowing more than the average parent and guiding them accordingly. If you are not a teacher, its probably not your problem and most teachers of IT like the title and kudos but often lack the professional knowledge to back it up.

In any case I'm an OpenOffice.org advocate so I'm biased :-) -- Ian Lynch ZMS Ltd

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