[nzlug] open source in NZ schools

[Mark Foster]

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Richard Thomas wrote:

>
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Andrew Farago wrote:
>
>> What can I say? Last year we had a big fight because a teacherstill
>> wanted to us a GIS application which was written for windows 3.1
>> Accounting means MYOB. Writing music is means Sibelius. Art = photoshop.
>> etc.
>>
>> We had a proverb; Money is talking, dogs are barking. :-(
>
> I think money does raise its head from time to time and things change.  A
> couple of years ago I was amazed to hear the local college was using
> Photoshop to teach graphics.  I couldn't see how they could afford it.
> Last year I found out that they were using GIMP so I suspect there was a
> licensing issue followed by a cashflow issue.

>From a practical Point of View often you need to teach a particular 
application - because from an assessment point of view you need to be able 
to assess their ability to deliver an output - so teaching generics is 
fine to a point but doesn't help them with details.

What is more important IMHO is that teachers do at least cover off the 
fact that there are many ways to skin a cat - and that the principles 
apply on a number of similar applications.  Exposure to more than one 
example greatly helps demonstrate this in a classroom environment.

My time in Polytech included papers that were specifically about the 
Microsoft Office suite.  I'm quite competent at most tasks in MS office as 
a result, but the principles also allow me to get around OpenOffice (etc) 
when I need to.  So again, its not allllll bad, as long as there is no 
one-track-mindedness about it.

(Had I been trained in OpenOffice back-in-the-day, i'd probably be in an 
inverse situation now; able to navigate MS office based on a 'derived' set 
of knowledge applicable due to 'enough' consistency between platforms.)


Mark.