[geeks] Q: Regarding Linux in K-12 education

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 01:37:50PM +0000, Mike Meredith wrote:
>Teaching Microsoft Office skills is (unfortunately) pretty essential
>for a small number of pupils(*), but that means MS Office is a required
>application for one small course ... which isn't sufficient
>justification for enforcing a Windows desktop everywhere. 

Again we go back to the point of the original question. It was not
partial deployment, it was total replacment. Which in that case, I think
that you just agreed with me. 

The whole thing pivots on FOSS being forced to be a replacement for 
everything, not an integration of it and use where it would be best used.

I counsel people who ask not to go for a FOSS replacement policy, but a
phased approach. Replace the things that people don't mind using, such as
FireFox for IE, OO for M/S Office, Gimp instead of Photoshop and so on.

There are of course some places, such as M/S Office skills, where it won't
be a total replacement and the art department will have to stick with Adobe
CS, but that's a few computers among hundreds.


>> IMHO the post-Sputnik push for higher education has burnt out.
>
>Hmm ... well I pity any country that takes that attitude. 

I expect you are living in one. The only ones that are still going
strong are Israel, China, and India. Everywhere else is slowing down,
dropping their standards and reducing the money available for education.

Not only isthe California school system in trouble, but so is the whole
VC system. The US government has tried to regulate it out of existance
(to make it less risky) and California has both regulated and taxed it
to death.

Taxes may be high here and some regulation tight, but nothing like
Californina, considering that we have a better health care system than
99% of everyone else, and it's included in the taxes.



>*: As in the low-level office minions. Most people in other jobs will
>either receive enough on the job training to use whatever dedicated
>computer system they need to use, or will be expected to be able to
>generate and update Word documents but won't be asked "do you know
>Office".

I doubt it. If you think so, call any secretarial agency and ask if they
have work for you if you know Linux and OO, and not Windows and M/S
Office. Feel free to lie about your typing speed.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.