On Sat, 17 Mar 2001, Grainge, Derek wrote:
We have two philosophies: those who want to integrate IT into school life, where ease of use is paramount; and those who want to prepare for an uncertain future where it's important to look at alternatives. Given this is a linux-based thread, the latter predominates this group.
I'd like to claim allegiance to both philosophies, please! They are not mutually exclusive.
The problem is simple: most schools don't have time to do both; some don't have enough time or money to do one as well as they'd wish.
*cough* Managed service *cough* :-)
The arguments over Office compatibility are spurious. Yes, Star office can read MS office files. However that doesn't extend to making sense of embedded objects like charts and graphs,
Does when I've tried it. Many times. Using documents that people have sent me blindly assuming that I will have MS Office.
Now for the 'years away from employment' argument. No: some students will leave school and go straight into using IT seriously. We don't have time to teach to professional standards (how acceptable are ECDL and CLAIT or a GCSE?) but what experience such students pick up at school can make a significant difference.
You seem almost to be advocating training instead of education. If you have taught someone how to use a word processor, they will be able to use MS Word. Ditto spreadsheets and MS Excel, databases and MS Access, etc. The converse is not necessarily true - if, for example, you have only trained someone how to use MS Access then they will not necessarily know how to construct a query using another database access tool.
Most Universities expect pupils to arrive with sufficient skills to use machines from the moment they arrive. Yes, many more universities use Unix, but we are still referring to basic abilities rather than technical skills. There is just as much reason to teach someone word-processing using MS Word as any other package. Reasons for teaching generic word-processing should not be seen as bashing any one particular product.
As far as I recall, no-one has been bashing MS Word. The argument is that since you aim to teach generic word-processing, it is not *necessary* to use MS Word.
If you argue that we should not use industry-standard products you are on shaky ground:
Again, the argument is not that we "should not use industry-standard products", it is that we are not *constrained* to use only 'industry-standard' products. (BTW, it would be difficult to claim that Word has been 'industry-standard' since version 1!)
I have used Word in particular since version 1 and it's recognisably the same product. It's unlikely to change significantly in its next iterations (as far as most users are concerned). I realise exactly the same argument appies to *any* of the popular word-processors. I believe experience my students pick up at the age of 14-16-18 *will* impinge on the early parts of their careers in business or at University.
Yes - if they have been educated (rather than trained) then they will be well-equipped to use whatever systems and new applications are thrown at them.
If you deny that, you are saying we might as well use Wordwise on a BBC. </troll> The argument surely isn't about 'industry standard' it's about the functionality and compatibility of product A against product B?
Well, on functionality I have never noticed any significant differences between e.g. MS Office and StarOffice. Except that one has a well though-out, context-sensitive help system and the other has an annoying little animated paperclip! Compatibility with what? You can't have "compatibility of product A" - on its own; you need something for it to be compatible with. Compatible with applicable open standards? Compatible with the file formats of other applications doing the same job? Compatible with various operating systems? Michael Brown Fen Systems Ltd.