Hi Daniel,
I am a former educator at a post secondary institution in North
Carolina who has used OpenOffice.org extensively in an education
environment. Not only did I distribute copies of OpenOffice.org to
students, but also installed OpenOffice.org on workstations within
the institution's computer lab(s) and utilized it for instructional
purposes.
During the one and half years of using OpenOffice.org in the computer
lab, we never experienced any problems or conflicts with it. The
workstations within the lab were also installed with Microsoft Office
and AbiWord. If your school is having technical conflicts with
OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office residing on the same workstation,
I would suggest disabling OpenOffice.org from automatically opening
Microsoft Office files. This can be done either by deselecting the
appropriate options during the installation of OpenOffice.org, or by
disabling it from the Add/Remove Programs control panel on Windows-
based workstations. This is how I configured OpenOffice.org on the
workstations in the computer lab(s), and resulted in trouble-free use.
If you are unsure how to complete this process, you can refer to
pages 18 or 173 in my new book "A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org
2.0". A free evaluation copy is available for download at http://
www.conciseconceptsinc.com/. The book was written specially for use
in an educational or government training environment. The
overwhelmingly positive experiences my students had in using
OpenOffice.org in the classroom inspired me to write this book.
Moreover, OpenOffice.org became a valuable tool for use in distance
education courses, where students had to complete assignments at
home. Many of the students didn't have a copy of Microsoft Office at
home and couldn't afford to buy a copy. Instead of having the
students travel to campus to use the public labs to complete their
assignments, I distributed copies of OpenOffice.org to them.
Hope this information helps. If I can be of further assistance, feel
free to contact me.
Best regards,
Gabriel
Gabriel Gurley
Concise Concepts, Inc.
PO Box 31252
Raleigh, North Carolina 27622-1252
Phone (USA): 1-919-341-2718
Phone (Canada): 1-613-482-1496
Fax (USA): 1-919-341-5976
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.conciseconceptsinc.com
On Mar 28, 2006, at 11:44 AM, Daniel Currier wrote:
I am a student at Illinois State University and am trying to get
all the computers switched over to OO but what I have been hearing
is that the school has contracts with Microsoft and can not switch.
Is there any subjection for encouraging this project along?
The school has presently a CD that they hand out to any student or
facility at ISU containing programs like Mozilla products. The web
site can be located at http://www.ilstu.edu/helpdesk/downloads/.
Next year they might put open office on this CD. The below quote is
from the Tec dept. after I suggested it to them:
"Thanks for your suggestion. We actually had a student technology
advisory committee review OpenOffice for use in University Computer
Labs and possible distribution on the itools cd. Unfortunately
though it was decided not to offer OpenOffice on the next release
of the Internet Tools CD or in University labs, due to unknown
conflicts with other programs. We've heard many good things about
OpenOffice though and I'm sure the use of OpenOffice on campus will
be revisited next year after more testing and research has been
done with the software. Please let us know if you have any other
suggestions. Thanks."
Is there any way to help them with these "unknown conflicts?"
Also is there any way to upgrade the OO spell checker?
How can I help the two points on you web site:
"Walking post-secondary schools through the process of including
OpenOffice.org in their portfolio of applications
Resolving questions related to using and deploying OpenOffice.org
by faculty, students, and staff”
Thanks, Daniel
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