On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 23:03 -0500, Peter Kupfer OOo wrote: > Ian Lynch wrote: > > On Sun, 2005-07-24 at 00:22 -0500, Peter Kupfer OOo wrote: > > >>The later would be much quick and > >>therefore more economical & efficient, > > > > > > Quicker does not necessarily mean economic or efficient. > > I guess my point is given a 1 hour in service on district technology, > you need to pick your battles.
Agreed, but really that goes back to planning INSET properly in the first place. Probably you have no control over it but if we use language like efficient and economic, the people that have power over the resources will assume that what they are doing is fine. These people are very encouraging of "training" and "technology is just a tool" (read you don't have to understand it). Why? Because it makes their decision making easier. It comes down to lines of least resistance in the end. Same reason why there is so much reluctance to try say OOo over MSO. Short termism, they don't want disruptive change now, they don't want pressure on to-day's budget. They haven't the imagination to see that there are different ways of going about it. The UK spent a billion pounds on teacher training in IT that is largely agreed to have been a complete waste of money because the people devising the programme simply didn't understand the nature of the need. > Breadth might be more attractive than > depth. If I can get them using a digital camera and putting a picture on > a web page, I don't care if they understand what a flash drive, FTP, jpg > mean. So if you end up teaching them Word, you don't care if Writer is a long term better solution? That is really what it comes down to in the end. Unless we change these attitudes it will be a lot harder to get OOo into schools because people become entrenched and dependent on what they are trained to use, or worse, what they use by default. > I would prefer that we have time to teach teachers this, but in my > experience this time doesn't exist on the school's dime. :( So let's not just accept it, let's try and change it. A design goal of the INGOTs is to tackle this specific point. Change these attitudes by providing teachers with a tangible reward. Well two really. A certificate for them as an assessor if they take on board some issues about open source and open standards etc and better motivated pupils that are easier to teach. Also, being conscious of time constraints we make the bulk of the qualification basic generic skills that should be being taught in any case so we don't have to set aside masses of additional time. INGOTs are not so much a certification programme, more a strategy for change ;-) > Keep up the good fight. -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMSL --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
