[Opensource] Each to his own

[Cameron Bell]

Couldn't agree more Roland. My approach to supplying and meeting the 
needs of staff at my school is to get what will "enable them to carry 
out their job effectively and efficiently".  This differs from person to 
person and hence we don't mandate a particular OS or hardware. As I find 
that more teachers are maturing (in approach - not age  ;-)   ) they are 
recognising the advantages of being able to work across platforms and 
take advantages of the things that each does well. Most still stick to 
Windows, but as more are turning to Macs and Linux, I am explaining to 
staff that, if we want to allow this freedom and flexibility to 
continue, then have no choice but to adopt open standards.
At a staff meeting last week, I had enough copies of The Open CD to 
enable each staff member to have one. Unfortunately I was third on the 
Agenda - after such pressing issues as the latest bloody VIT 
requirements. I didn't have much time, and staff were tired and sleepy 
but I explained the need for the school to adopt open standards for 
x-platform compatibility and for future readability. The staff did 
generally see the sense in this - I mentioned the development of 
"digital portfolios" and the need to be able to guarantee being able to 
read the digital work (as opposed to being able to simply store it) in 
as little as 6 years time. They certainly took this onboard.
The theme - each to his own applies to schools as well - and I have 
concerns about Ultranet. I am concerned that the track record of DEECD 
indicates that we are in for a proprietary solution that will lead to a 
de-facto mandate for a particular platform and file formats. I have seen 
nothing official (has anyone?) and I am not trying to bag something I 
haven't seen - (I am simply wondering if this concern will be addressed) 
- but if you want to utilise this multi-million dollar project in a 
manner to improve curriculum access and sharing of resources, how can 
you not require it to adhere to open standards? To truly ensure access 
and sharing of resources across schools-regardless of their 
infrastructure, surely you can only use open formats and standards. To 
ensure that 20 years of our digital history doesn't disappear into the 
ether after the upgrade to version 45 of whatever, we must voice our 
concerns that schools should have the freedom to use whatever they want 
and not be mandated by stealth to proprietary formats via the Ultranet.
Cheers
Cameron

Roland Gesthuizen wrote:
> Just thinking through a debate on another list about what to recommend 
> for retiring staff that wish to buy a replacement laptop. My elderly 
> parents and students are not smaller versions of office secretaries or 
> corporate CEOs. It is worth carefully thinking through the real needs 
> of each user. Each to his own.
>
> Other teachers choose the Apple Macintosh for their laptop, hardware 
> support and configuration isn't an issue with these robust units. 
> Recently we have had a surge of interest from English teachers about 
> purchasing the eeePC  or for personal use, weight and bulk is less of 
> an an issue (although colour was). Apart from the standard issue,some 
> IT teachers in Victoria switched the base operating system on their 
> department laptops to a linux distribution such as Ubuntu and run 
> Windows in a partition or dual boot. Software support isn't an issue, 
> they manage it themselves.
>
> I mention real needs. Most users are not drawn to things that "just 
> work" but to those that "just work" and also are pleasant to use. 
> Buying an device with redundant capacity is not only wasteful, it 
> ignores that things have changed with power applications and features 
> working online using just a standards compliant and upgradeable web 
> browser.
>
> In some ways, this reminds me of the Australian military purchase of a 
> fleet of M1A1 Abrams tanks, fully functioned combat brutes that that 
> too heavy to take anywhere but mainland Australia.
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.edulists.com.au <http://www.edulists.com.au> - FAQ, 
> resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> Open Source Mailing List kindly supported by
> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au <http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au> - Victorian 
> Curriculum and Assessment Authority and
> http://www.vitta.org.au <http://www.vitta.org.au> - VITTA Victorian 
> Information Technology Teachers Association Inc