Phil Scarratt wrote:
In any case, as you say, students are far more adaptable than staff (generally of course).
In support of staff (experiences relate to NSW Dept Ed);
I guess most of my experience is with private schools, with limited public.
1) staff are now required to do more administrative work, hence less time and energy to try out something.
It's the same across the board. I wasn't trying to be overly harsh on teachers. As I've said before, they just want it to work with minimal fuss and effort on their part - mostly cause they don't have the time to do otherwise. Having said that, I still think teachers _on the whole_ are somewhat recalcitrant when it comes to learning new things in their workplace. But this can be overcome with appropriate approach and allowing them time with "in-service" training.
2) whomever is the teacher supporting the computers in the school doesn't get paid for it and rarely gets release time to deal with them.
This is something I think needs to change. Whilst it is true, with the level of computers in schools these days and considering where it is headed as well as the curriculum changing to more computer usage (there is hardly a subject in which the curriculum does not use the computers in one way shape or form), expecting a teacher to maintain computers is ridiculous. But that's getting somewhat OT.
Except for one thing: the current curriculum (computer subjects - not sure about others) is very MS oriented. Certainly some of the VET courses are as are a lot of resources available from the Dep Ed. I heard rumours that the Dept Ed was addressing that but I have no basis for that.
3) It is ALL (compulsory MS tax out of their school budget) or MAC's.
4) The MS Tax is charged on EVERY computer in the school, hence there is no money saving incentive to replace MS with FOSS/Linux.
Ahh...now that's interesting. Certainly removes the money incentive.
As far as educational software goes, it really is mickey mouse. None of it does exactly what is (currently) seen as "educationally best", but it helps relieve teachers stress {:-). If you want to write classroom software, you really need someone who can tell you exactly what they need. Be prepared for a number of rewrites.
However, that doesn't remove the need for this same mickey mouse to exist for Linux. Or maybe it's a matter of generating top quality stuff for Linux, but I think when it boils down to it, the people who are making this stuff need to be pushed to create cross-platform versions. A lot of stuff is flash based these days anyway. It's just their package that can't run on anything but windows.
And as far as I am aware, the greatest use of computers in the primary classrooms is for "publishing", i.e. word processing and phamplets.
Someone who wants to dabble in this area with FOSS might consider making a Live CD, especialy for simulations, demos, etc.
I've thought before a Live CD is a great way to demonstrate or allow people to dabble. But ultimately in my experience it's the "educational software" and unwillingness to "learn" (although this can be dealt with relatively easily) that stops FOSS.
Fil -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
