RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT
Point by point rebuttal for your school management... (1) *Only* by using OpenOffice can you satisfy the file transfer requirement. Given the price of MS Office, it is inappropriate to assume that all households have access, particularly to the latest version. While de facto most do, it is common in less well off households for the copy of MS Office (and indeed Windows) to be illegal. By adopting an office suite that is free to use, and moreover uses a published file format, you ensure all students can have easy file transfer i.e. those who do not already have an (licenced) office suite that can read the OpenOffice file formats can be simply given a copy of OpenOffice. (2) To assume a permanent commitment to SIMS as the school management system is, to say the least, unrealistic. Limited at best, it is written on a proprietary backend which locks the organisation into additional expenditure. To get a glimpse of one possible future, go see http://schooltool.org. (3) Most schools demonstrate very limited skills in the use of ICT i.e. what they do know is immediately transferrable to OpenOffice/KDE with only minimal training (30 minutes plus a cheat sheet). Industry reviewers concluded only advanced users Of MS Office would be penalised as the more complex functions are harder to reproduce in OpenOffice etc.. Conversely advanced users adapted easier as they were often the people prepared to try things out! Tests on KDE (3.2 from memory) found with careful setup, many users failed to even notice they were not on Windows. (4) As you say, Karoshi, or for those who need commercial involvement to be comfortable, Novell do a very nice line in config tools. Further, managing a modern, complex MS setup requires skills most schools choose not to pay for, and either struggle along with a system that is either full of holes, unchanged since a company installed it (and thus no longer meeting the real ICT needs of the school) or has a third party software package managing the configuration. Many schools still working with NT4 and 2k at the backend are going to be shocked to find running 2k3 needs support staff to be retrained. The current issue in schools is that they are protected from proper ICT audits. Were a non-education IT consulting firm charged with evaluating the average school's implementations, I assure you they would be less than complimentary ;-). Cheers Chris -----Original Message----- From: David Selby [mailto:IT@st-leonards.durham.sch.uk] Sent: Fri 1/7/2005 12:13 PM To: 'Thomas Dyer' Cc: 'SuSe' Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT Well me and by ITC coordinator tried to go MS free 3 years ago and was shot down in flames by the county and senior management team we thing it's the only way forward for schools and school budgets but they came back with the following requirements that we need to meet before they would even consider It 1. you must be able to covert files easily between home and school i.e. MS office 2. sims must work on the system. 3. no loss of present skills 4. ease of set up so the skills required can be easily be found in other people. IE should the present Network team leave Now star office has most of the MS office problem solved Karoshi has 4 sorted with some not tec written how to's if I should leave And works with a sims server not sure how yet but am looking at this That leaves access and no lose of skills if star gets access sorted my team can soon show how present skills are not lost but enhanced with the migration we are going to try and get them to go MS free in our next up date faze which is In 3 years. So I am starting to but together the information I need. It would be nice if some people in my county would let us know if they are even looking in to the feasibility of Durham schools going Linux but our support team has just lost its only real Linux champion to RM -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Dyer [mailto:dyert@xdevelopment.co.uk] Sent: 07 January 2005 09:55 To: David Selby Cc: 'SuSe' Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT David, I'd suggest that Rekall is actually a better "database" teaching tool than MS Access, and might fit with the requirements of the AS / A2 courses. I've done quite a lot of testing of it with a highly customised linux distro (based loosely on SuSE 9.2) which we're using for some office desktop installations. Alternatively, OpenOffice 1.9x has some interesting ideas at "database" in the latest beta, which show some promise.
From a "commercial" point of view, I'm interested in finding out how many schools are actually currently rolling out Linux onto their desktops.
Thomas Dyer Xdevelopment llp On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, David Selby wrote:
Karoshi is grate where were you 3 years ago before we went down the Microcost line.
The only thing missing is an Microsoft access clone to do the database section of the AS and A2 courses
You would still need some Linux knowledge to set up a relational database which is simple to use.
I will be upgrading the whole school again in between 3 and 4 years funds depending and will be watching this project with interest
-----Original Message----- From: linuxgirlie [mailto:linuxgirlie@gmail.com] Sent: 06 January 2005 13:51 To: SuSe Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT
linuxschools.com will be there, paul and I haven't got a stand but we will be wandering around on thursday 13th with a laptop in tow, if anyone wants a demo of Karoshi.
Can't think at the present time of anyone else who sticks in my mind.
Jo
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On Sat, 2005-01-08 at 17:06, Chris Puttick wrote:
Point by point rebuttal for your school management...
(1) *Only* by using OpenOffice can you satisfy the file transfer requirement. Given the price of MS Office, it is inappropriate to assume that all households have access, particularly to the latest version. While de facto most do, it is common in less well off households for the copy of MS Office (and indeed Windows) to be illegal. By adopting an office suite that is free to use, and moreover uses a published file format, you ensure all students can have easy file transfer i.e. those who do not already have an (licenced) office suite that can read the OpenOffice file formats can be simply given a copy of OpenOffice.
Social inclusion. It is a government policy ;-)
(2) To assume a permanent commitment to SIMS as the school management system is, to say the least, unrealistic. Limited at best, it is written on a proprietary backend which locks the organisation into additional expenditure. To get a glimpse of one possible future, go see http://schooltool.org.
Risk of lock in is given as a specific consideration for procurement by the National Audit Office.
(3) Most schools demonstrate very limited skills in the use of ICT i.e. what they do know is immediately transferrable to OpenOffice/KDE with only minimal training (30 minutes plus a cheat sheet). Industry reviewers concluded only advanced users Of MS Office would be penalised as the more complex functions are harder to reproduce in OpenOffice etc.. Conversely advanced users adapted easier as they were often the people prepared to try things out! Tests on KDE (3.2 from memory) found with careful setup, many users failed to even notice they were not on Windows.
We should be education kids to be comfortable with technological change, not breeding a dependency culture that perpetuates the hang ups of the current adult population.
(4) As you say, Karoshi, or for those who need commercial involvement to be comfortable, Novell do a very nice line in config tools. Further, managing a modern, complex MS setup requires skills most schools choose not to pay for, and either struggle along with a system that is either full of holes, unchanged since a company installed it (and thus no longer meeting the real ICT needs of the school) or has a third party software package managing the configuration. Many schools still working with NT4 and 2k at the backend are going to be shocked to find running 2k3 needs support staff to be retrained.
I predict BECTA studies of TCO will reflect others that demonstrate savings of the order of 30% + in costs with FLOSS compared to proprietary software. I have done tenders that consistently demonstrate this *if* they are generic and allow bids from both Windows and Linux based solutions and stick to functionality rather than assuming specific bits of technology at the outset.
The current issue in schools is that they are protected from proper ICT audits. Were a non-education IT consulting firm charged with evaluating the average school's implementations, I assure you they would be less than complimentary ;-).
You really just need clued up education people to d these. Sadly the
main auditors are accountants who know nothing about technology and
OFSTED inspectors the great majority of whom are not technology
specialists and know a limited amount of curriculum stuff and almost
nothing about infrastructure and technology management.
The only real rational for not going Linux entirely is that there are
many desktop titles that curently only run on Windows. If the government
think these are important they should be providing incentives to port
the most important ones to stimulate competition in the market to get
overall costs to the tax payer down. There is an election coming up.
write to your Labour MP and say that if they don't do this you will vote
for someone else.
--
Ian Lynch
Hi, I usually lurk on this list, but I have just read a mail where Ian Lynch mentions School Tool. Our school uses SIMS.Net - and we have had tremendous bad luck with it since it was implemented several weeks ago. Unfortunately, even though I am the Head of ICT, and the Network Infrastructure manager, I have no input into the admin side of things. Shame. My question is simple - does anyone here use School Tool, or has anyone managed to convince their SMT to adopt this open source installation? I could push all I want in my school, but unless it was able to import from SIMS, which is still used by our feeder primaries, I cannot see our school move. Best wishes Gareth Edmondson Head of ICT Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr Swansea
On Sat, 2005-01-08 at 19:22, Gareth Edmondson wrote:
Hi,
I usually lurk on this list, but I have just read a mail where Ian Lynch mentions School Tool. Our school uses SIMS.Net - and we have had tremendous bad luck with it since it was implemented several weeks ago.
Luck? That's generous :-)
Unfortunately, even though I am the Head of ICT, and the Network Infrastructure manager, I have no input into the admin side of things. Shame.
Maybe you are better out of it ;-)
My question is simple - does anyone here use School Tool, or has anyone managed to convince their SMT to adopt this open source installation? I could push all I want in my school, but unless it was able to import from SIMS, which is still used by our feeder primaries, I cannot see our school move.
To be honest, I have been far too busy with OpenOffice.org and the INGOT
scheme to do much else FLOSS-wise. To me school admin packages are just
databases, I can't see how they cause so many problems! Ok, time tabling
software could be a bit complex but the basic data things should be just
data files, surely. Why it takes Capita years to design a new version is
beyond me but maybe I'm missing something. I don't really have the time
or desire to get into school admin systems.
--
Ian Lynch
Ian Lynch wrote:
To be honest, I have been far too busy with OpenOffice.org and the INGOT scheme to do much else FLOSS-wise. To me school admin packages are just databases, I can't see how they cause so many problems! Ok, time tabling software could be a bit complex but the basic data things should be just data files, surely. Why it takes Capita years to design a new version is beyond me but maybe I'm missing something. I don't really have the time or desire to get into school admin systems.
As ever, the problem with these systems is not the database, but the GUI that is tacked on top so that the admin staff don't know that they're using a database. I sometimes think that it'd be easier to teach people SQL than have to cope with the instabilities and idiosynchrasies of each new generation of GUI... One of the biggest problems in deploying SIMS .Net is the move from the software being distributed via a network share (which allowed it to be hosted on a Samba server) to a central MS SQL database. So, although the system of file locks could be a PITA to work with in the old version, the reliance on a single system to perform the processing that every workstation in the school did previously means that most schools are having to upgrade their SIMS servers. Our LEA recommended that every secondary school spend £5k on a new server to run SIMS .Net. That's a lot of cash that could have been spent elsewhere. As far as the complexities of the software go, you're right in that most of the functions are relatively simple, but there are some more advanced features like talking to OMRs. Cheers, Tony
participants (4)
-
Chris Puttick -
Gareth Edmondson -
Ian Lynch -
Tony Whitmore