On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 20:56 +1100, Jonathon Coombes wrote: > On 03/12/2007, at 7:58 PM, Ian Lynch wrote: > > > > > On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 17:45 +1100, Jonathon Coombes wrote: > > > >>> We need to come up with a campaign aimed at an 18 - 24 yr old > >>> demographic > >>> with best punch for a limited budget. > >>> > >>> The idea is to be ready with a pitch when or if further funds become > >>> available.in the next quarter. > >> > >> I agree with Graham in regards to getting in on the new school year. > >> One particular focus for Australia in particular is based on a new > >> government coming in and putting forward new education policies for > >> the coming years. A number of open source groups are combining their > >> focus on this potential market at the moment, both at the government > >> level and at the school level. It is currently aimed at primary and > >> high school level, > > > > The advantage of doing this is that if you hit an element of > > mainstream > > IT education and have a compelling argument to get it into the > > curriculum it will affect every person in the target group. FE and HE > > are strategically more difficult because the courses are specialist > > and > > fragmented into different departments. If you target eg computer > > science, it's a very much smaller number of people than the 5-16 > > school > > population. > > Agreed, but in these levels the computers are not used just for > computer science, but also maths, spelling, art etc. This means that > you have to have a solution to address the bigger area.
Yes, in schools nearly all teach general IT courses to all the students at some point so that is the place to reach the biggest market - English or maths would do too but the teachers are likely to give office software less of a priority in those subjects. > Of course this is true, but unfortunately they don't decide what > software the university uses or teaches. Doesn't really matter if they personally use OOo - and if 90% of students were doing that it's likely to affect the university decision making. Its going to be very hard to get a whole university to switch to OOo from the top down. Quite often departments can make individual procurement decisions so here at Birmingham the comp sci department use FOSS extensively but the rest of the uni doesn't. > If they are smart enough, > they can work within the confines e.g. OOo vs MS Office documents > etc, but if the university wants to teach MS Visual Basic, then no > matter how many Linux stations they use, they cannot convince the > university of its value. I think it's a lot easier to get 16 year olds in large numbers using OOo than to try and get Unis to change technologies such that it has the same effect on take up. > I think if we can provide an environment that works on both Linux and > Windows (and Mac as well) then the schools will soon realise that > they don't need to be forced into one operating system. This can be > done now for a range of applications as seen in the OpenCD project > which provides many applications that work across the platforms and > are suitable for school use. The added advantage FLOSS provides is > that you can give the applications to the students for use at home, > for their parents to use, their churches etc. Rather than being > forced to use what the students have at home. Agreed, but getting them to know and understand this exists is also none trivial. Obvious to us but not obvious to the people in control and to most of them fairly low down on their list of priorities. Ian -- New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications www.theINGOTs.org You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
