How Schools Can Get Free Software 170
RicJD writes "The BBC is reporting on a school in England which has found a way to save money through Open Source Software. It goes on to explain the idea behind OSS, and briefly how they've incorporated it into the school system. Could this be the way to show the UK government that savings can be had through OSS?" Likely an adoption spurred by the education report we reported on earlier this year.
How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:5, Insightful)
(Submit your school's "migration plan" to the BBC. Just in case Microsoft doesn't read that, Slashdot the story!)
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:5, Funny)
Next thing you know these crazy kids will be downloading free copies of Boy George hits, drinking excessive amounts of YooHoo, and having parties where more than 10 people watch a movie on DVD without paying royalties!!!!
This needs to be stopped now! Ship windows! Ship windows!!!!!!! Why isn't Geldoff taking up this cause!
Do you ever get the feeling that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kjella
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:1, Insightful)
Dont teach them english, they might learn bad words.
Dont teach them how to write, they might write a microsoft's patented word.
Mr. Alex P. Keaton, dont let a computer raise your kids, teach them moral values, be a good father to them and they will be allright. And you & your family will be having a great time using open source and spending the money you've saved on whatever you and your family desire
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:2)
Actually, I have a question about that. Is there a limit to the number of people that is considered to be a private viewing? Seriously, if I had a party and had 20 of my friends over to watch a movie, would I *technically* have to pay royalties? Or does the public/private debate end when I start charging to see it? (though does that include BYOB)
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:2)
No. At least not under US law. "Private viewing" is not directly defined... only public performance or public display is restricted. The law defines that as follows:
To perform or display a work "publicly" means--
(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered
(2) to transmit... [
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:2)
I wrote a far more detailed answer, complete with legal definition, in reply to the original question post. [slashdot.org]
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Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:2)
Yeah; if we're not careful, they might also discover that there are these subversive places called "libraries", where you can read entire books for free. They've been operating in the open for years, despite all the efforts of the publishing industry to shut them down.
Wouldn't want those kids getting any radical idea
The biggest danger in bringing FOSS to schools (Score:2, Insightful)
Younger minds can have novell ideas. FOSS needs them. School kids getting involved can bring new ideas. Perhaps even non-geek participation in designing GUIs.
I like to call it "the coolness factor" in OSS. If kid
Re:The biggest danger in bringing FOSS to schools (Score:2)
And Novell is into Linux, which we all know is a communist plot to destroy Patriotic Red-blooded American Companies(tm) like Microsoft!
This menace MUST be stopped!!!!
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:2)
InnerWeb
Re:How Schools Can Get Cheap Software: (Score:2)
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Schoolforge-UK (Score:5, Informative)
The are organizing a conference [schoolforge.org.uk] in Bolton next week: on Thursday 14th & Friday 15th July 2005.
Re:Schoolforge-UK (Score:2)
Re:Schoolforge-UK (Score:1, Informative)
As such, I've watched the rest of my class 'learn'. Most work is done in Access, Excel and Word and a little bit of Outlook.
I can say hand on heart as a Linux user most of what they would of learnt in the *nix land would of not been applicable to the Windows world. Access especially - the tools on Linux don't match up at all from what I've seen.
Even more importantly they would really, really strug
Re:Schoolforge-UK (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the tools being different in the Windows world and the Linux w
Re:Schoolforge-UK (Score:2)
A school should a place where students are taught to understand the concepts behind things, not a place where they are trained to push buttons.
I for one, agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:5, Insightful)
IT is pervasive in modern society. It not only runs our work lives as a tool, it is also recreation and education. The more exposure you have to more kinds of software the better equiped you are to deal with more situations.
If we use your arguement then we should not require all students to take science courses as they will not all be using the knowlege of what a mol is in their every day lives.
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1)
You apparently have more skill the (sadly) dozen of people I help at my University. Well done.
Re:I for one, agree (Score:3, Insightful)
That reminds me, I need to get back to my first-draft manuscript of "The Start Button for Real Dummies".
Yea, I think that most X users can handle a Start menu. A more likely complication of learning Linux and then switching to Windows are screams of frustration at the bone-headed limitations inherent in the Windows environment. (Like the fact that you have to essentially run as root to do anything.)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Besides that, with all the copying that KDE and Gnome have done of Windows, the differences really should not be that hard to overcome. Computers are a needed skill now just like reading and
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Who can avoid learning how to "competently work with the Start Menu" in this world of pervasive Windows? My six year old daughter can just by watching me. What yo
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
You've just demonstrated that some people ALREADY have problems with using Windows; yet paradoxically use this as an argument against even trying anything else. No interface is instinctive, users have to invest some time to use them effectively. At a university this should not be a burden. Pres
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:3, Insightful)
A better background in what? Using OSS software instead of Microsoft software? In the real world (yes, there are some exceptions) people use Microsoft Office. HR drones and automated readers reviewing your resumes aren't going to understand that Open Office is like Microsoft Office. They want to see Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access on your resume, not their OSS
Re:I for one, agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Correcting the use of Microsoft software and switching over to a Unix frame of mind could potential aid in fixing the larger problem.
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
"Unix Frame of Mind".. You mind explaining exactly what you mean by that?
There are lots of references art of unix programming [faqs.org] has a good summary of some of the major ones.
Basically building systems with the assumption they will be incorporated into other systems in unexpected ways. This forces a flexible frame of mind which is very unlike what the GP was complaining about.
Just because it's open source doesn't a
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
The NT revolution with the locked down systems and management by "IS Helpdesks" was hor
Re:I for one, agree (Score:3, Insightful)
If schools all use free software (as they should, I don't see why my taxes should go to Microsoft) then the HR
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Just my experience:
a) I don't have a single class that specifies it as using Microsoft tools.
b) If you have the office skills, check off for MS Office. You'll adapt quickly.
c) Even if the above were not true, only the last school matters. If I had used OpenOffice from 7-16yo, then MS Of
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1, Interesting)
Why? Because with F/OSS the students will be able to afford the same software that's being used in school. How many elementary students can afford SQLServer? Or Visual Studio? Or even Microsoft Office, to use your example.
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually in the real world (when I was at school), people use WordPerfect for MS-DOS, and smaller companies were starting to use Lotus Ami Pro.
How would it have helped if I'd learned those applications?
We even had a fairly-major CS test at school, where one of the questions was 'what keystroke is used to right-format a line in Ami Pro'. How is information like that going to help me now, typing into a Slashdot textbox using FireFox (neither of which could even have been imagined when I was learning IT/CS)
How would teaching people Word help now? The next generation of business technology seems to be influenced by what CS graduates are using at home today, and recently that's been Linux, Free Software on Windows2000, and we're starting to see some Mac OS. If you wanted to teach in school "for business", then you would start by thinking what people will find useful in 5-10 years when they get their first jobs.
And even if you're "living in the present", why would you standardise on something that requires the parents to pay hundreds of pounds extra to do computer-related homework, when you could select an almost-identical program that you can distribute for free?
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1)
They want to see Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access on your resume, not their OSS counterparts.
My brother just graduated from high school on a partial scholarship, and he barely knows where the Excel icon is.
Truth is, high school isn't the place for kids to develop intermediate or advanced skills in office productivity software; their needs rarely extend beyond the basics, such as how to indent a paragraph or use the sum() function.
For those purposes, OSS solutions are fine. Anyth
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Do you reall believe this tired "real world" argument? Does a high school diploma plus MS office on a resume land a good job? Will it in 10-15 years when grade school students enter the workforce?
In the real world most users of office don't use any more than the functionality that is available for free in OpenOffice.
There is no point in teaching grade school students all the nuances of the latest Microsoft offering. Unless of
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
Well done, an astoundingly shortsighted comment there.
Any measure of thought reveals that F/OSS enriches education far more than that of their proprietary counterparts: god forbid should there ever be a time that a student does become inquisitive as to how the machine called a 'personal computer' actually works, they can browse source, read manpages and learn how they might adapt the system to their (shock) individual needs. Kids are innately inquisitive - give them a chance and they will never cease to d
Take the time to teach software freedom to kids. (Score:2)
With regard to the popularity of certain software, you're positing a circular argument. You're talking about the status quo as if it has always existed and should ever be thus. Nobody need challenge the proprietor's popularity because they have arrived. I see things differently; the more we use free software the more popular we help make it. When we don't cave in to pressure to give a proprietor more control. But we should not do this for mere popularity. We should do this to build a better community.
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
It's always funny to see idiots say that because Microsoft is a monopoly and most people are taught to use Windows software, that therefore it will never be any different and it's completely useless to try to teach anyone anything else but Microsoft.
Tell that to the IBM System/34 programmers from back in the 1970's.
Fucking moron.
If the educational system was worth a shit in the first place - which it is NOT - people wouldn't be taught ANY particular system. They would be taught the PRINCIPLES of systems
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
This might very well have been part of the test. It's been my experience that non-savvy Windows and Mac users often
have no concept of what "plain text" files are.
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
The question boils down to how the producers of "free" software make a living. If they have a low enough cost of living to spend their free time writing software to give away, then this is great. This is actually whay I think is happening, because folks w
Re:I for one, agree (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:1)
Re:I for one, agree (Score:2)
How Schools Can Get Free Software (Score:5, Funny)
Oooooh you mean the other kind of free.
Re:How Schools Can Get Free Software (Score:2)
um, rtfa? (Score:2, Informative)
"What appears on screen - the so-called desktop - for ordinary users is the familiar, paid-for Microsoft Windows.
The software used by staff and students includes the content management system Moodle, which is open source, and Microsoft's Word, Excel and Powerpoint."
The administrator claims over 30,000 pounds yearly are saved by using OSS servers. That seems a tad high for a single high school.
Re:um, rtfa? (Score:2)
Re:um, rtfa? (Score:1)
- Actually I am Tim Fletcher as mentioned in the article
Re:um, rtfa? (Score:3, Interesting)
it shows exactly how a single high school saves 40,000 pounds a year (approximately), or $70,000. It's not rocket science; the biggest saving is in staff costs by not needing more technician support.
Interestingly, licence fees are only a moderate part of it.
Re:um, rtfa? (Score:3, Informative)
Some other interesting "F/OSS in schools" articles (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html [gnu.org]
My school uses Linux too! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My school uses Linux too! (Score:1)
Re:My school uses Linux too! (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, the BBC article specifically states that the school IT administrators now have enough time on their hands that they can help out in local primary schools as well (if I'm reading the article correctly). It's hard to see how that tallies with the higher administrative cost you mention.
Re:My school uses Linux too! (Score:2)
If you lock both workstations down and have software deployment they are both about the same.
If you've got unlocked workstations that people can do anything with then I'd agree that Linux would cost more (It's less restrictive and gives the user more power).
The thing is these are Thin clients which has always been be
Re:My school uses Linux too! (Score:2)
I don't know where you get that from. With Linux, not only updates, but also upgrades can be free (just choose the right distro). Also, in my experience, Linux machines require a lot less maintenance. No virus definitions to update, no bazillion different places to get updates for every application, just a single command can do the trick, and you can run that from a cron job.
You can even have all the software on the server with Linux (clients
Re:My school uses Linux too! (Score:2)
Case in point: our org has made a huge shift from a (very out of date) Novell network to AD and all of MS's other good stuff. The new network performs much worse than the old one, is much more expen
Re:My school uses Linux too! (Score:2)
Gives a rough estimate on sizing of the server.
In my experience, anything at least pentium1 class works fine for a client.
Also, if you want to get up and running quickly, be sure to pull down the K12LTSP [k12ltsp.org] distro. Its basically the latest fedora with ltsp pre-configured and a bunch of educational software thrown in.
Cheap software for schools AND students? (Score:1)
Money saved, but only to be wasted elsewhere (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, the best reason for using open source has nothing to do with saving money.
It's the opportunity to get a look inside at how the machine works.
Anyone that's taken apart a toaster or washing machine timer, etc, understands how valuable a thing it is to be able to see how it works.
That's why open source belongs in schools.
Re:Money saved, but only to be wasted elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, yes. Yes it will. Is that a bad thing? Why save it otherwise?
Re:Money saved, but only to be wasted elsewhere (Score:2, Insightful)
What about books? Higher teacher salaries?
Of course this is not all about saving money, it is about allocating it. Money could go to far better places than microsoft's and other large companie's deep pockets.
Your point is still valid, just modified.
In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
But that's most likely because they don't need it. For most people, open source means that they get it for free, they couldn't care less about having access to the source code. Even most admins I know do not really know or care about programming anywa
Re:In other news... (Score:1)
The switch isn't that bad (Score:4, Interesting)
(if you care Redhat in 2001, and Suse in 2003).
I have tried Ubuntu and the installation went smooth, the applications work easy, and haven't even seen the comand line once.
Everything works, that wasn't true before, The installation was easier than the last windows install I did, and for a school enviroment being somewhat incompatable with most games (and Viruses) seems like a huge plus.
I think It's ready and everything works just the way I am used to, (except that the status bar is at the top wierd how much that bugs me).
The kids shouldn't have any problems doing what they are supposed to with the computers.
Re:The switch isn't that bad (Score:1)
It's a windows emulator for linux, based off of WINE, Cedega has been specialy adapted for gaming, up to date to work with even with Half-Life 2
I being a High School student have heard of it and promise you that Linux in NO WAY would be the limiting factor on games.
Edubuntu (Score:2, Insightful)
We've also been able to do far more in-house than we'd have been able to with MS stuff, I have a strong sense of ownership, and of kinda understanding how everything fits together. This last year we've been exploring web-based technology, such as the incredibly brilliant
Money (Score:1)
I used to go to this school... (Score:2, Informative)
All the computers there are old business ones that are now running Red Hat (they even got a little plaque from RH to put up in the lobby) with Citrix connected to Windows NT Terminal Server on top of that.
I used to help out the head IT guy (Tim) at lunch (my nerdishness was secure even back then) by installing RH over the network for the new computers, fixing the mouse if it ever stopped working (by reinstalling the drivers usually) or just copying down
K12LTSP (Score:1)
K12LTSP.org
B-)
Funnily enough...... (Score:2)
From what I can make out, MS are targetting ICT specialist schools because they are the ones who would most likely benefit from the open source code and free development tools that OSS provides. Obviously, the temptation at such schools would be to develop code that woul
Re:Funnily enough...... (Score:2)
Ooops, should have read:
From what I can make out, the suspicion is MS are.... etc....
Although any anecdotal evidence would help show if this suspicion is correct.
Duh! (Score:2)
Help me build my list.. (Score:1)
Re:Help me build my list.. (Score:2)
NOrway (Score:1)
OSS in school mentality (Score:1)
Anyway, they sent out a newsletter which said something to the effect of "Summer is here and your kids need to learn how to type." It went it to how the future is here, blah, blah, blah...Interweb...computers and kids. It said that we should buy our kids one of those great typing tutor programs. And it h
How Schools Can Get Free Software (Score:2)
Convincing management to let you download/install it is another ball game entirely, but they can get it just by downloading it.
Free educational resources (Score:2)
Computers have been shown to actaully reduce the performance of children. I guess there's nothing to compete with the teacher and child relationship. A computer after all can't adapt to the needs or explain something in an alternate way.
It's not even news anymore ;-) (Score:3, Informative)
The Ubuntu [ubuntu.org] lot have a link into the SchoolTool efforts [schooltool.org] of Mark Shuttleworth [markshuttleworth.com], and anyone who's followed the FLOSS in Government [flosspols.org] trails will know about the fantastic work that has taken place in the Extramadura region in Spain. Link to all the presentations. [flosspols.org]
There is far, far more happening out there than the UK Government seems to know - I wonder when they finally try and spend some money efficiently and emulate what the Spanish did. Could be a new concept: actual *efficient* use of tax money...
But Moodle is really a Course (Score:2)
It does get pretty confusing. A CMS is usually a content management system outside of education. But withing
So now CMSs (course MS), are often called LMSs (learning MS), though this is a bit confusing as LMSs were supposed to deliver learning c
Re:huh? (Score:1)
Re:MS For Schools Is Cheap (Score:2)
Re:MS For Schools Is Cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
1. As opposed to $0 a workstation. Times a bunch of workstations.
2. Yeah, 'cause MS's current OS is just what these kids will be using when they enter the workforse in 10-15 years. Right. Crap argument. Teaching them to USE and UNDERSTAND COMPUTERS is far more important than teaching them about one particular OS that will have changed significantly by time they are entering the real world, supposing it's still dominant. This can be done just as effectively (perhaps moreso) on
Re:MS For Schools Is Cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
SOmetimes you get what you pay for. The place to cut money in schools is not in the teachers. Look further up the chain at the school boards. For a big city its as highly paid as a CEO, despite being even less useful. Cut there, and higher more
Re:MS For Schools Is Cheap (Score:2)
Well this is a story about UK schools. So were you trying to say that the UK is pulling ahead? Grin.
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Re:Dear Children (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dear Children (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dear Children (Score:2)
Iz you from da east of town ?
Re:Argh, they'll be scared of the gnome foot. (Score:2)
I remember once many years ago I was a member of a "guerilla" Linux installation group of about three people, which was offically sanctioned, and given a kind of "research" carte-blanche. The rest of the systems ran on NetWare using IP/IPX tunnel; occasionally, we'd run X servers on these boxes and deploy our favourite applications to the Windows-based teaching rooms, and it used to amuse us when the paid admins asked why we just pumped 40 Mb through their server in one go.
Then one day we decided to flood