[Lias] An opportunity to grab!

[Andrew Dorrell]

Go for it,

However I think there will need to be more than just FOSS.  One of the 
things they (teachers) fear is having their schools results compared to 
private schools where students are issued (or more often required to 
purchase) a laptop *each*.  Availability of hardware is clearly an issue.

Where FOSS could arguably help is in addressing the concern that:
"The State Government has not ensured ... that there has been enough 
technical support for the computer systems to work properly."

Centralised systems (such as LTSP) make this task much easier.  In our 
local promary school, class computer maintenance is simplified by 
proividing a standard HDD image on a central server.  If a machine gets 
corrupted (and these are Macs) they can be network booted and a clean 
image reinstalled with the press of a couple of buttons (restart while 
holding doen magic keys).  All files are keps on a central server so 
there is no data loss.  Solutions for teachers in public schools need to 
be this simple as there are no staff dedicated to IT maintenence.

Further, be aware of some teachers seeing the FOSS platform as a second 
rate solution and that their kids need to have equitable access to 
mainstream platforms.  This is (apparently) a very reasonable argument 
that most will agree with (unless they are reasonably computer 
literate).  A clear demonstration needs to be made that computer 
literacy is != windows literacy or ms word literacy for the FOSS 
community to be confident that they have the right argument.  Perhaps 
there are schools out there that use FOSS already that can lend weight 
(one way or another) to this argument.  It would also be worth comparing 
results in Aust schools computer competitions for kids from schools that 
have predominantly Mac computers vs Windows computers - does platform 
choice impact the all important test results here?

Finally teachers clearly want more money from the government here - for 
hardware but also for training and staffing.  It will be equally 
important to work with government to explain the cost benefits of FOSS.  
If they can afford the training because of a FOSS choice then there may 
be a path forward.


BTW, even in homes where computers are available, software choice at 
school impacts on parents budgets.  If the kids are required to deliver 
"powerpoints" then this may have the effect of pushing parents into 
expensive software purchases that they can ill-afford (or using illegal 
SW copies).  FOSS software can be provided by the school, free of 
charge, too all students who will then share a common computing 
experience - eliminating this inequity and providing a much higher 
degree of compatability than is currently available WRT computer based 
homework.

 (BTW OOO for mac sux a bit. google neooffice for a more native port)


just my (still interested) thoughts

Good luck - and keep us posted.



Pia Waugh wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I've cc'd all the FOSS education lists I know as I think here is a good
>opportunity for us to approach the education scene and solve the real
>problem of inequal access to technology. If you haven't seen the news yet:
>
>http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/teachers-revolt-over-computing-test/2006/03/11/1141701732607.html
>
>  "TEACHERS have voted to ban the year 10 Computing Skills Assessment test,
>  which was due to be held for the first time this year in all NSW schools.
>
>  They blame a shortage of computers in schools, a lack of teacher training,
>  poor technical support and "dinosaur technology that should be thrown out"."
>
>So, I'm going to call the NSW Teachers Federation on Monday, but I think we
>should all be thinking about this as a chance to talk about FOSS as:
>
>1) a way to deliver sustainable and cheap technology to all students in
>Australia
>2) a huge resource of information, documentation, software, code, and other
>tools to both help teachers teach and help students learn
>3) a community of people who share information that would be a valuable
>resource to plug our IT students into at a young age
>4) a HUGE amount of free software without license restrictions which both
>restricts the students ability to learn ("DON'T install that, we don't have
>an licence for it!") and restricts the functionality they have access to ("we
>can't afford that, sorry")
>
>Anyway, thought I'd bring up the idea, but this could be a great opportunity
>to present FOSS as a practical solution to a real problem. What do you all
>think?
>
>Cheers,
>Pia
>
>  
>