I've been asked to forward this to the PLUG list: ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<---
Hello, I'm a member of the North Wales LUG with an appeal to users right across the UK. Here in Wales the Assembly Government (WAG) is setting up a schools ICT Strategy group to produce a draft consultation paper. OSS is part of the remit, and as a result of some lobbying I've been invited to meet one of the group. Hopefully once I've got that far I can get to meet the rest. The meeting is not for about 3 weeks, but I don't want to go off half-cocked so I'm doing some research and collecting opinions. My starting point was to suggest that WAG (Specifically Jane Davidson's Education Department) look at the example of Extremadura in Spain and consider using/developing a distro for Wales. I got a bland civil service 'thank you for your suggestion' letter back. So I pursued it and was told there would be 'consultation'. I pointed out that 'consultation' usually means civil servants and ministers chatting amongst themselves, and that during many years as a teacher I've been told that as a result of consultation we've decided this, that or the other (or frequently this this year, that next year and the other after the next re-shuffle) but I've never met a teacher who was actually consulted. Result, they are calling my bluff and consulting me. I still think Extremadura is a good example, after all it's a semi-autonmous region with it's own language. It's bigger than Wales but has a similar size population. It's largely rural mountainous and wet. It exports food and water to the rest of Spain. It's IT industry was small and backward, but is gaining ground. WIth free software for the entire population IT usage is creeping up, benefitting employment and keeping rural areas in touch with the 21st century. OSS aside, there are other problems in schools IT. I spent eight years doing tech support for TechSoft. They supply CAD/CAM software for schools and colleges right across the UK. There are a handful of schools with excellent equipment and more importantly well trained staff, but most are frankly poor. My recent experience at schools around here shows them to be pretty average. Fundamental problem I see is that the kids (and staff) have a superficial understanding of MS Office, Paint and IE6. They grab a picture and some words off the web, paste them into Word and think they've done IT. Few understand anything about image resolution and just shrug when the image comes out with 2mm square pixels. No-one edits the words or uses what they've found to illustrate their own thoughts on the matter. No-one attributes anything. At an actual IT level, it's even worse. The syllabusses avoid mention of a particular OS or specific software, but in practice almost every school teaches basic Windows. WIndows is THE OS, Word is THE word processor, Access is THE database etc etc. To make life simple for the admins (who are usually over worked teachers with little IT training) the system is locked down tight, consequently the kids can't even see things like Control Panel, they certainly aren't going to learn about hardware, drivers, installing/removing software. Even screen res is usually set to the lowest common denominator 800x600 because it 'confuses the desktop' if the same user logs on to different size screens. Why not allow user access to 'Configure the Desktop'? - Too tricky. Please email suggestions, examples, links, published research etc. If we can make progress in Wales, maybe we'll let the rest of you join in later! BTW, for more info about me, see my website, url below. -- Regards Phil Thane Bryn Villa Penycoed Road (off Brook St) Llangollen LL20 8LR 01978 861677 07971 987623 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.brynvilla.llangollen.co.uk ---8<------8<------8<------8<------8<--- -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555 _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
