I think the idea of the government using OSS (eg Linux OS) on school desktop computers is slightly narrow sighted for education is there to allow people to go forth and gain employment and as most workplaces don't use Linux as the OS for there desktop machines it would not really be following that ethos. How ever as some one who has just started to use Linux i am gradually finding windows terrible. i use Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer in Windows as it dose not crash when ever i get a popup ad also the GUI of Linux is so much nicer than Windows exspecaly with the built in multiple desktops and the ability to have more than one taskbar, however i think what Linux needs is easier software installation (tarballs etc. scare me) and better device/games support and then it would really be truly superior to Windows in every way (from a user point of view). What it needs to solve all of these is probably better reconition in the business arena on desktops which would at least force the government to teach people how to use it.
Yours S Hammond
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On 2003-12-05 17:27:05 +0000 Stuart Hammond stuman_uk_42@hotmail.com wrote:
I think the idea of the government using OSS (eg Linux OS) on school desktop computers is slightly narrow sighted for education is there to allow people to go forth and gain employment
How is general education meant to do that, though? It's not meant to be about learning specific tool skills: that's apprenticeship and vocational education. Any specific computer tools taught now are likely to be very obsolete by the time today's 10-year-olds join the workforce. That's even more true when you remember that school systems are often 3 years old before upgrade. What workplaces are using now is pretty irrelevant.
General education is meant to be about education in general. If they can work input devices and have the general concepts about different types of storage (permanent, volatile), processes, communication and so on, then they have general computing education. Working a specific word processor really won't be that complicated if they have the basic concepts and its interface is good.
So how do you spin this out into years of study without going into programming skills, ergonomics and so on? Don't teach them too many general concepts. Teach them specific applications and let them guess at the general things. There's always another specific application to teach and they'll screw up because they guessed the wrong underlying concepts.
Really, using the best value tools for general computing education instead of trying to mimic businesses will free up money for education. I expect we can all think of some uses for it. It will also help our businesses. Some of them use Microsoft products simply because that's all the new employees have been taught. That is: their employees are not sufficiently educated to adapt! (in their opinion) It's more expensive to generalise a vocation education than to specialise a general one. They're not the general education service, after all.
On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 17:27, Stuart Hammond wrote:
I think the idea of the government using OSS (eg Linux OS) on school desktop computers is slightly narrow sighted for education is there to allow people to go forth and gain employment and as most workplaces don't use Linux as the OS for there desktop machines it would not really be following that ethos.
Well i was at high school until Summer 2000 and we had been using Acorn and Mac computers until 1999 so i dont see that this realy matters. My School also didnt offer any Computer related GCSE's. I do believe it would be difficult for Schools to move away from Microsoft products as some syllabuses require the use of certain MS Office products. I'm not 100% sure about this but i do remember someone who wrote course outlines and material specified MS Word and MS Access. I tyred to get her to have a look at OpenOffice but when i mentioned StarOffice she wasn't interested(She seemed to really not like it).
How ever as some one who has just started to use Linux i am gradually finding windows terrible. i use Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer in Windows as it dose not crash when ever i get a popup ad also the GUI of Linux is so much nicer than Windows exspecaly with the built in multiple desktops and the ability to have more than one taskbar, however i think what Linux needs is easier software installation (tarballs etc. scare me) and better device/games support and then it would really be truly superior to Windows in every way (from a user point of view).
Mozilla seems to be doing very well on windows, I dont have much room on my Windows Partition as games are getting bigger and bigger recently(1.2Gb... and it still wants a cd in the drive?!?!) so i haven't installed it. Games are slowly coming to Linux and most drivers are already available but more use of Linux will bring more drivers and Games.
What it needs to solve all of these is probably better reconition in the business arena on desktops which would at least force the government to teach people how to use it.
Yours S Hammond
I say get um' while there young! ;) Well if Schools started using Linux then when the kids go out and get jobs they'll want to use what they know and its what they will use on there home computer. This will then create a bigger market for the games and drivers Linux still isn't getting.
As a side note what about getting university's to use Linux? My last university(APU) had a few Linux computer rooms(still only for Computer Science students) but the UEA seems quite lacking, id be happier if they even had a windows version of GCC(like www.mingw.org) but nope just fancy MS Visual Studio.
- Dennis Dryden
Dennis Dryden wrote:
I say get um' while there young! ;) Well if Schools started using Linux then when the kids go out and get jobs they'll want to use what they know and its what they will use on there home computer. This will then create a bigger market for the games and drivers Linux still isn't getting.
Of course that would be ideal. But schools just do not think like that. In the immediate future, if their students are to be looking for a job where they need basic IT skills in an office - in the vast majority of cases they will be required to use Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, perhaps Sage and then one or two applications that are specific to the company they're working in.
As far as they're concerned the best way to prepare their students for the future is to teach them to use the tools they're most likely to use.
In the current environment, for a school to choose Linux over Windows (or even Mac OS) for the desktop would be a real hassle. For a start, all the teachers probably use Windows at home and they're reluctant to change. The students would probably be less reluctant to having Linux installed at home, but at the end of the day their parents probably use Windows too.
It's also harder for schools to get cheap support for a Linux system. Technicians who can just about cope with a Windows NT/2000 network and keep the printers topped up with ink are easy to come by and relatively cheap to employ. A Linux system adminstrator is not. The ISP being used by pretty much every school in Lincolnshire (my home ground) does not support Linux and the proxy software, firewalls etc. which they actually go to the school to install run on Windows. Buying a dedicated 2 meg ADSL line for the school from any other ISP would be a bad move for the school and their finances.
And of course the other factor is that all the software that is written specifically for schools, to be used in the classroom is written in Windows and at the current time there just aren't Linux based alternatives - although schoolforge.net has a growing list.
Projects like Computers For Schools provide only Windows Software if IIRC.
The truth of the matter is that if a school were to switch all its desktop machines to Linux today, it would be left out in the cold.
Perhaps with organised support from their local Linux User Groups and with a bit more education for the schools themselves this transition can begin to happen. The schools need to be made to realise that teaching our children to passive purchasers of closed, proprietary solutions to problems is not enough. Educators should take little convincing that that sharing information, as opposed to concealing information is a good thing. The FOSS development model sits much more nicely within the principles of education.
Ben Francis wrote:
It's also harder for schools to get cheap support for a Linux system. Technicians who can just about cope with a Windows NT/2000 network and keep the printers topped up with ink are easy to come by and relatively cheap to employ. A Linux system adminstrator is not.
I disagree, IT people are plentiful in Norwich, and as IT jobs become more and more scarce this going to more so.
On 2003-12-07 11:53:55 +0000 Ben Francis ben@franci5.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
As far as they're concerned the best way to prepare their students for the future is to teach them to use the tools they're most likely to use.
This may work for the 15-18 age range and equip them for a couple of years, but that is still only a small fraction of school students. It's a very short term view, not really preparing for the future.
It's also harder for schools to get cheap support for a Linux system.
How do you know this? Generally, they don't even seem to look.
The ISP being used by pretty much every school in Lincolnshire (my home ground) does not support Linux
Is that legal? Smells anti-competitive to me if this is a formal undertaking rather than just informal pressure.
The truth of the matter is that if a school were to switch all its desktop machines to Linux today, it would be left out in the cold.
Is Skegness Grammar out in the cold?
[...] The FOSS development model sits much more nicely within the principles of education.
I agree and hope to see some from your area at FLOSSIE (see http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/ for info).
On 2003-12-07 00:56:23 +0000 Dennis Dryden ddryden@ntlworld.com wrote:
i do remember someone who wrote course outlines and material specified MS Word and MS Access.
I'd love to know what rules that breaks. "Mathematics with Pepsi" is surely forbidden by something. I remember "Tilt" soft drink appearing in some lessons because of those rules.
I tyred to get her to have a look at OpenOffice but when i mentioned StarOffice she wasn't interested(She seemed to really not like it).
Some of the early versions were a little rough, so maybe it's not the best marketing ploy.
the UEA seems quite lacking, id be happier if they even had a windows version of GCC(like www.mingw.org) but nope just fancy MS Visual Studio.
Last I heard, some outposts still exist, but the masses definitely don't have access to them and even the computing lot don't do desktop unix for undies any more. I'd love to hear that I'm wrong.
On Mon, 2003-12-22 at 22:55, MJ Ray wrote:
On 2003-12-07 00:56:23 +0000 Dennis Dryden ddryden@ntlworld.com wrote:
i do remember someone who wrote course outlines and material specified MS Word and MS Access.
I'd love to know what rules that breaks. "Mathematics with Pepsi" is surely forbidden by something. I remember "Tilt" soft drink appearing in some lessons because of those rules.
This is a very good point, but i guess people(regulating body's) just don't know there is an alternative so they let it slide.
Last I heard, some outposts still exist, but the masses definitely don't have access to them and even the computing lot don't do desktop unix for undies any more. I'd love to hear that I'm wrong.
Its a bit sad when a University computer science department does not even have any Tux'en (GNU/Linux Box's) when some high schools are giving Linux it a try. Well for now i have Mingw(win32 gcc) and Scite on a zip disk its slow but i can still mess around with my code. Before i started at the UEA i was under the belief that there were some Sun Solaris box'en in one of the lower floors of CMP(the department formerly known as SYS) but if there are i can't find them and there is no mention of them =(.
- Dennis Dryden
On Tue, 2003-12-23 at 16:49, Dennis Dryden wrote:
Its a bit sad when a University computer science department does not even have any Tux'en (GNU/Linux Box's) when some high schools are giving Linux it a try. Well for now i have Mingw(win32 gcc) and Scite on a zip disk its slow but i can still mess around with my code. Before i started at the UEA i was under the belief that there were some Sun Solaris box'en in one of the lower floors of CMP(the department formerly known as SYS) but if there are i can't find them and there is no mention of them =(.
I got my first taste on Unix and X from those Sun SGI boxes in SYS, can't really comment on whether they were any good but they looked damn sexy ;-)
Since when did they change the name of the school?? SYS is much better than CMP - does that mean they've changed the name from School of Information Systems then too?
Nick
- Dennis Dryden
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On Tue, 2003-12-23 at 18:14, Nick Heppleston wrote:
On Tue, 2003-12-23 at 16:49, Dennis Dryden wrote:
Its a bit sad when a University computer science department does not even have any Tux'en (GNU/Linux Box's) when some high schools are giving Linux it a try. Well for now i have Mingw(win32 gcc) and Scite on a zip disk its slow but i can still mess around with my code. Before i started at the UEA i was under the belief that there were some Sun Solaris box'en in one of the lower floors of CMP(the department formerly known as SYS) but if there are i can't find them and there is no mention of them =(.
I got my first taste on Unix and X from those Sun SGI boxes in SYS, can't really comment on whether they were any good but they looked damn sexy ;-)
Since when did they change the name of the school?? SYS is much better than CMP - does that mean they've changed the name from School of Information Systems then too?
I did my Masters in SYS and the whole department was run on Solaris boxen. The NT boxen were just dumb terminals. Everything went through SAMBA shares onto your Unix account. E-mail was done through telnet onto the server and using Pine. Then there was the room full of the SGI Irix machines. I finished my Masters in 2000 so it's not that long ago.
When I was in the bowels of the department writing up my thesis, many of the PHDs were using Linux (RedHat 6.2 was the flavour of the month then if I recall).
So the question is, where the hell has Tux/Unix gone in 3 years???
Matt
I did my Masters in SYS and the whole department was run on Solaris boxen. The NT boxen were just dumb terminals. Everything went through SAMBA shares onto your Unix account. E-mail was done through telnet onto the server and using Pine. Then there was the room full of the SGI Irix machines. I finished my Masters in 2000 so it's not that long ago.
When I was in the bowels of the department writing up my thesis, many of the PHDs were using Linux (RedHat 6.2 was the flavour of the month then if I recall).
So the question is, where the hell has Tux/Unix gone in 3 years???
Matt
Well SAMBA and email are still running on UNIX (DEC i think) and there is ssh to the DEC UNIX box'en but i want some tux'en in the lab's, i want tabbed browsing and no popup's. Thinking about it the only thing i really miss is a nice console and web browser(in the user agreement we cant install software onto the boxen).
- Dennis Dryden
i want tabbed browsing and no popup's. Thinking about it the only thing i really miss is a nice console and web browser(in the user agreement we cant install software onto the boxen).
Well,.. you obviously dont spend enough time in the lewellin lab then, where you see people (like myself) running NON INSTALLEd software such as firebird, winspice, trillian, and ssh to allover the smellynet...
J
Ahh crapper I had to get involved somewhere.
As a current student of CMP... there are many unix boxes availible to log on from your lots of XP labs, all labs have putty installed, with the logon to stuwebs (for web development (javastuff)) and things like radon and oxygen saved in their quick load bars.
UNIX based work is promoted in certain modules (especially those run by the "better" members of staff ie the nongraphics dudes, and my third year project (work on Taurus) is only in posix enviroment.
the move back to CMP is due to them cutting the Systems courses from their catalogue (or so we like to say)...
J (or alternativly 0162817 as the registry see me)...
Dennis Dryden ddryden@ntlworld.com wrote:
Its a bit sad when a University computer science department does not even have any Tux'en (GNU/Linux Box's) when some high schools are giving Linux it a try. Well for now i have Mingw(win32 gcc) and Scite on a zip disk its slow but i can still mess around with my code. Before i started at the UEA i was under the belief that there were some Sun Solaris box'en in one of the lower floors of CMP(the department formerly known as SYS) but if there are i can't find them and there is no mention of them =(.
They killed the linux lab just before I got there, in '99, just before I left (2001, ish) they'd threatened to kill the SGI lab, and promptly did as soon as I left. They've gone all winshite on everyone, and most of the lecturers are still clueless (one or two know what they're doing, but even then, stick 'em infront of a machine that's not redhat and tell them to configure anything and I reckon they'd struggle ;). Oxygen and Radon are apparently still laying about, only for remote access though, apparently they don't believe in desktop unix, which is annoying. Wouldn't it be a good plan for them to, at least in sys, make the labs dual boot, debian/NT. That way they could also schedule updates, etc, etc and keep the majority happy, while keeping configs in sync and generally running a reasonably tight ship. Ho hum, it just appears that sys (sorry, cmp) are either too lazy or too incompetant, or maybe a mixture of both. Never mind, if M$ is what your taught, M$ is what you'll use, which is a damned shame really, computing graduates coming out with nothing more than a course in copy paste code, and M$ practice.
Erm, OK, I wasn't planning on ranting that much :) Time to get ready to go to 80s night ;) see some of you 'orrible lot tommorow at the ol' narch meeting.
Just my 2p worth, feel free to ignore :)
Brett.
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Ben Francis -
Brett Parker -
Dennis Dryden -
J -
Matt Parker -
MJ Ray -
Nick Heppleston -
Stuart Hammond -
Tarquin Mills -
Wayne Stallwood