On 8/2/07 10:40 PM, "Tom Cort" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I think one of the biggest things to overcome in trying to get schools to >> use anything other than Windows is the community impression that students >> need to learn about what's most common. It's the reason that in our labs at >> CCV we have Windows and MS Office and Visual Studio and whatnot. Personally >> I'm a fan of open source and of the Mac. But the fundamental element of >> having to convince people you're teaching the students something worthwhile >> drives what's in our labs. > > When I was enrolled at Barre Town Elementary and Middle School, we had macs. > The main argument given was that there was a lot of educational software > available for macs. There may have been other arguments for them that I don't > remember, but perhaps you could ask the mac schools why they picked Apple over > Microsoft. Then present those as reasons to choose Linux over Windows. Show > off the educational goodness of Edubuntu or other education oriented distros.
I think the "show off" element here is critical. In order to get people to think seriously about Linux, I think they have to see it, in action, and have it demonstrated that it's easy to use, easy to maintain, and does everything they want it to do with a minimum of fuss. If we can prove that and get the message out, it will overcome a LOT of the resistance. > I also find that most skills transfer pretty easily between platforms. If you > can use the spread sheet application in ClarisWorks, then you can use the > spreadsheet in OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Office. I don't think people should > be worried about their kids not knowing how to type a letter in Word. The problem, of course, isn't that skills don't transfer easily. You're right, they do. The problem is that a whole lot of people believe that they absolutely have to learn only on the program, and even the version of the program, that they'll need to use in business. We get people who complain that we're not using Office 2007 yet and how can we possibly teach people to use Word if they're learning on Word 2003. Right now people see OpenOffice and they think "that's not Microsoft Office, so it's worthless to learn anything with it". Even though we try to focus on teaching people how word processing works and make the skill transportable, that understanding of transferability of skill hasn't really permeated the community yet. > When you talk about price, you could try to mention what switching to Linux > will do for the school's budget. Don't just say it'll save us $20,000/year, > say you can save the music department or provide additional after school > activities with the money saved from not buying Windows. Half of the question is certainly showing the cost savings and what could be done with that money instead. That will buy some positive reaction. But I still think the other half is showing that the kids will get just as good and usable an education, or even better, and that it's transferrable to any business or college related use they'll need it for. Otherwise you'll just get people saying so what if they save the money by providing teaching that won't help the students in the real world. I think what we have to do is answer that part, proving that it's actually a better education than they'd get otherwise, and then school boards, PTA groups, parents, etc. will be willing to listen. -- Tony Harris Assistant CTO Community College of Vermont [EMAIL PROTECTED] (802) 241-3535 Dwirze skí, évárre kólex. (One by one droplets, eventually an ocean.) ------------------------------------------- PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged, confidential, or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any other use of an email received in error is prohibited.
