Linux in Schools?
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Why is the tag-line so damn shor
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Posted: 24/05/2009 11:05 AM
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Argurios wrote:
.........and I'll tell you now that there is no way that Linux will be put into schools ..........because most of my fellow teachers DO NOT like any change no matter how small.
I'm sorry Argurios but I have some real problems with some of your statements, they reduce education to some sort of commodity delivered in bulk, by those with a like it or lump it attitude. (and in saying that I am not just being critical of front line teachers, I see narrow minded, incompetent and self serving politician and bureaucrats equally representative in this mentality of dumbing down the masses.)
Argurios wrote:
1. We use a lot of old computers and hardware and imagine having to get drivers for all that hardware. We also have over the years spent thousands of dollars on software which will NOT run on Linux machines!
While I can understand that an investment in Win32 software needs to be maximised, it ignores the availability of a plethora of open source equivalent options. An open mind towards software available from the public domain would ease the financial burden on scarce teaching resources for both staff and students. Education is about comprehending concepts and knowing how to select and utilise available tools, it is not just retention of the keystrokes for market popular software.
The reality in regard to drivers is that many of your older computer will be better served for Linux drivers than by Windows. Open source has no vested interest in obsoleting hardware to help flog off new versions of a program or OS. (Microsoft's deliberate incompatibility of older windows versions and its application of hardware restrictions to Netbook licensing confirms my assertion.)
Argurios wrote:
2. Teachers on the whole are very conservative and over 90%++ run Windows in their homes and expect the same at school.
That's a pretty damning assessment of those delivering education at the coal face. If you always do what you've always done how do you see you'll ever achieve better results? Isn't education about learning? And shouldn't learning be advantageous to teachers, parents, staff and the general community as well as students? Apparently not!
Argurios wrote:
3. They are not very computer literate even in the Windows world.
But many of their students are? When did education become a one way delivery mechanism? If computers in schools consists of monotone delivery from persons lacking enthusiasm and expertise in the subject why are we bothering at all? Kevin's big spend on his toolboxes of the 21st century may just as well have well been spent on wet weather school bus stops, if these are the prevailing attitudes.
Argurios wrote:
4. Teachers main job is to teach there priority is not to go out and learn all about a new operating system and different programs.
How can you teach if you are not prepared to learn?
I'm sorry but that one really sticks in the craw. Learning isn't about a transfer of a finite block of pre-packaged and out of date information, it is about instilling the ability in students to seek acquire and comprehend information. If a teacher does not want to learn any more, he should consider a sea change to horticulture, or something far less stressful. (shrubs and seedlings seldom spit, swear or answer back and are far better behaved) Human Learning shouldn't stop till they plant you in the ground!
Teaching MSword and MSpowerpoint to tertiary students who taught themselves far more advanced concepts years ago is nothing more than child minding and wasted opportunity for everyone concerned.
Argurios wrote:
5. Most are comfortable in using XP because they still use that at home.
The department even doesn't feel most teachers can handle a change to Vista or Office 2007 let a totally unfamiliar operating environment and programs.
Most are probably only confident with 4 function math, should we restrict the syllabus to those too? If the department and the staff are all working together to keep school education to the lowest common denominator then I'd like to see the minimum age for apprenticeships lowered to 11. At least for the most part tradesmen go out of their way to teach their charges and equip them to self sufficiency.
Argurios wrote:
6. We all help one another and imagine if Linux was suddenly dropped onto us. We wouldn't know how to get a printer operating or fix the small issues which now at least some one on staff can do. Schools do not have techies on hand even now. We muddle on as best we can.
Help one another with what? Excuses? Linux hasn't been suddenly dropped anywhere, it has existed and evolved for years and its origins are as established as anything else out there. Learning should encompass all available options? Or has learning now become simple retention?
Your argument regarding schools techies just illustrates my despair with the prevailing attitudes. Where do those techies learn? Does education just cease because our schools can't afford some modern day magician who fixes printers? There is a whole world of information, education and support sitting out there just waiting to be used? Wouldn't education in computing be instilling the idea of student help thy self?
Shouldn't the aims be towards teaching students to equip themselves and to fluently share and convey their learning with others?
How can you claim "muddling on as best we can" when a whole universe of educational resource is simply being ignored? That is not "as best we can"!
Argurios wrote:
It is a complete joke to imagine ....... schools suddenly being told we are going to use Linux.
It's not a matter of being told a winner, to restrict education to any operating system is to simply rob the opportunity to educate. Thankfully a good few students are prepared to educate and empower themselves. If we were relying on the education model you are describing entire generations are being short changed.
Argurios wrote:
There would be an uproar and I for one would be very angry.
Why? Because you'd have to learn? As a teacher you should want to learn every day? As human beings we should all want to learn, learning is what got us to the top of the food chain. Any person who has stopped learning you may as well chuck it all in? What would be the point in continuing without learning? Do teachers sign a declaration of cessation of learning on the day of graduation?
Argurios wrote:
I have never used Linux and I have not the time to try to "learn" it.
It's just as well learned folk of our species didn't have a similar attitude to fire or the wheel, someone took the time to master those and we never looked back.
Argurios wrote:
I couldn't suddenly tell my wife who is even less confident around computers we are ditching Windows at home and going Linux because that is what I now use at school!!
Why? When did learning require dumping one narrow way of doing things for another. Where did the concept evolve that to learn a new operating system or programming language involve removing all traces of others. The scary thing is not just a knowledge of computing but the idea that learning itself and the institutions that purvey it see education as transfer of a finite block of answers and information.
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Windows-free since '06
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58 posts
Posted: 25/05/2009 7:05 AM
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Hi Argurios, thanks, but, um,..... what Raindog said (damn, damn, damn).
Sadly, I think your comments about teacher/education system attitudes and capacities are accurate, and not just for Queensland.
The old addage "Those who can, do; those who can't teach" (to which I always add "And those who can't do or teach go into administration") has never seemed more appropriate.
My oldest kid was so looking forward to doing the "Computing" subject at high school (here in "world-leading" Canberra) - until he found out that a) he knew 1000% more than the teacher and b) the entire course for year 11 was about using Word and Excel (and they'd be moving onto MSAccess in year 12!). Wow! In year 9 he had already done night courses at TAFE on 3D animation, built his own systems and networked our house. He dropped out of high school completely mid way through year 11. And while that as a huge shock to me, his arguments for doing so (and his post-school life) have made me rethink my whole attitude to formal education (which I previously worshiped). He is a Windows user, by the way - hates Linux because he can't play the latest online games on it.
And MEinOz (Welcome back!) - since when was the ability to run and play (as opposed to develop) high-end computer games (as important as those skills undoubtedly are for a rich and fulfilling life) been an important criteria for education IT? They certainly pre-equip people for life in today's fast-paced, out-sourced, corporatised military - but I'm not entirely convinced that this is a Good Thing for the rest of us.
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3 posts
Posted: 27/05/2009 6:05 AM
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Can I clarify something. We as teachers do not have to move to Linux to teach better.
I work a long week and I am a dedicated teacher in a primary school. I teach eight year olds! I teach long hours (over 60 hours)and get good results.
It is not as if we are not teaching computing or not getting the kids to think but we can do all that in the Window's world.
My classroom has 10 up to date Dell computers running XP. We use MS Office 2003 but we also do a lot of online stuff. Our units are all online. I regularly communicate with my students online and I send and receive work online. We do online units.
Over the last couple of years our students have made movies using MovieMaker about the solar system, (they had to compare all the planets and decide which planet could support life). They narrated these and used appropriate music as a backdrop. We have done claymations and other types of animations, they regularly use PowerPoints for deliverings projects, we use digital and movie cameras images in our work.
Our students use learning objects, demonstrate skills using the interactive whiteboard and regulary are doing individual or small group work using computers/headphones. We are a very modern interactive classroom.
Also we do use open source software as well. We use audacity, irfanView, Wikipedia and a lot of the google software and programs. The kids love Google Earth.
Your arguments about using Linux are no better than mine for using Windows. They are after all both a tool for getting a job done!!!
I have not got the time to change everything over to linux to suit a particular hobby group because I can do the job well using Windows. Can you understand that?
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Why is the tag-line so damn shor
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209 posts
Posted: 27/05/2009 10:05 AM
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Thanks for the reply Argurios, believe it or not we may well have taken on board some of your issues, so I will reply some clarification of my own.
Argurios wrote:
We as teachers do not have to move to Linux to teach better.
That depends on what you are teaching, and upon whether you are referring to Computers in Schools as a subject in itself or merely as a teaching resource. The student and community expectation is certainly that education in computing is available within the syllabus. And any education based on a single stream of Manufacturers product is wholly inadequate.
Argurios wrote:
I work a long week and I am a dedicated teacher in a primary school. I teach eight year olds! I teach long hours (over 60 hours)and get good results.
Yeah, yeah, yeah the over-worked teacher. Well I'm sorry but welcome to the real world, you wont get much sympathy from me or any other small business operator or salary slaves of our fair nation.
It may be a complete surprise to the teaching body but most professionals are working similar or longer hours. And do remember that they are lucky to get at maximum two weeks of paid holiday. I'm not saying you don't work long dedicated hours but so does almost every other professional, so get over it.
Argurios wrote:
It is not as if we are not teaching computing or not getting the kids to think but we can do all that in the Window's world.
How can you be adequately be teaching computing if you are leaving out a massive chunk of it? You cannot!
Several generations of US teaching adequately taught geography to the extents of the US border, and we all know what the results of that was.
Argurios wrote:
My classroom has 10 up to date Dell computers running XP. We use MS Office 2003 but we also do a lot of online stuff.
Many would argue straight away that running XP is way out of date. And while I do not agree that XP is out of date I have to be concerned with the emphasis on MS office. The resources you have can easily be configured to run Windows AND alternate operating systems.
Argurios wrote:
Over the last couple of years our students have made movies using MovieMaker about the solar system, (they had to compare all the planets and decide which planet could support life). They narrated these and used appropriate music as a backdrop. We have done claymations and other types of animations, they regularly use PowerPoints for deliverings projects, we use digital and movie cameras images in our work.
Our students use learning objects, demonstrate skills using the interactive whiteboard and regulary are doing individual or small group work using computers/headphones. We are a very modern interactive classroom.
All very clever and valuable stuff, it's heartening to see the adaption of modern tools by students and them gaining a familiarity with the PC as something other than a child minding games console. But why limit the available range of tools utilised? Doing so is limiting the learning and creativity of students, and is helping foster the closed minded attitudes we see between those taught solely on Macs vs those taught solely on PCs.
Argurios wrote:
Also we do use open source software as well. We use audacity, irfanView, Wikipedia and a lot of the google software and programs.
That's great it's better utilisation of the scarce educational dollar. But why the limits of a Windows platform? The modern day equivalent of hunter gatherer tribe who would never look or speak to those who lived on the other side of the hill.
Argurios wrote:
Your arguments about using Linux are no better than mine for using Windows.
But your wrong! Very wrong. My argument was not insular, where did I suggest you must run Linux as an alternative? I did not! I suggested that ONLY teaching Windows and the use of Windows application was wholly inadequate! Where did we suggest windows was to be dumped? We did not!
My assertion was that teaching of computing without other operating systems was wholly inadequate, and that refusing to utilise Linux resources was robbing teachers and students of a whole range of opportunity.
By example, Open Office would more than adequately substitute for MS office (on both windows and Linux) at a zero spend. Just to adopt that would have left a lot of Dollars to improve those computer to student ratios. That is just one example. Learning on Open Office will still equip students with the skills to use MS Office. Why a mixed environment is so abhorrent to any educator simply beggars belief.
Argurios wrote:
I have not got the time to change everything over to linux to suit a particular hobby group because I can do the job well using Windows. Can you understand that?
At this point your argument becomes offensive! Hobby Group indeed? Sorry but I do this stuff for a living.
That statement demonstrates an absolute and well ingrained ignorance!
Ever considered how all those web-sites you teach the kiddies to click to are put together? Get yourself a little more familiar with what is serving those up to your comfortable little Windows world. You clearly do not have a clue and I hope to heck you are not instilling such ignorance in your charges.
Argurios wrote:
Can you understand that?
I work in a computing environment and I select the appropriate tool for the job. I don't choose a more expensive tool through laziness or bias. I do not select an open source tool that will inadequately replace a commercial equivalent. I have an open mind.
My own school education in computing was wholly inadequate as are those for children of current generations.
I abhor insular and ignorant attitudes, I cannot understand those who do not wish to learn or to find new possibilities and I find it tragic that it such ignorance has permeated our education system!
Can you understand that? Probably not. Sadly the lost opportunity isn't just limited to you.
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Windows-free since '06
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58 posts
Posted: 27/05/2009 2:05 PM
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Argurios
I'll leave the bit about "hobby group" to others - perhaps someone from Novell or Intel or Google could explain as they are the major forces behind Linux today.
My original question (oh so long ago) was not about teachers capabilities or preferences but rather about whether the total cost of ownership vs system specs and capability had been fully looked into in the education sector. I asked because I had seen a number of private schools and organisations in the not-for-profit sector seriously doing their sums and research and coming up with reasonably compelling case for Linux-based thin client networks. It need not be an either/or argument these days anyway. It simply seemed like one area where efficiency gains are possible - thus freeing up increasingly scarce education resources for other things - like, um, education or, um, more and better paid teachers.
I'm concerned at how slack the entire public sector seems to be in this area. Whereas European, South American, Asian and even US government agencies are opening their tenders to people other than MS, Australian bureacrats seem locked-in to an extent that I don't understand. I know that MS makes it easy to cosy up to then as a single supplier - just like heroin dealers do to their new clients. The price, however, is a long-term one - both in dollar terms and in undermining the system's ability to adapt and be creative.
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New user
162 posts
Posted: 28/05/2009 12:05 AM
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I'll just re-iterate that part of this discussion is about whether & where it might be appropriate to use Linux in a school situation. I'll go out on a limb here and say that in many situations with site licenses & CALS already purchased, it would be a somewhat pointless exercise to simply replace existing Windows or OSX installs with linux to somehow save money.
Offhand I can think of a few obvious examples where it might be very useful, cost-effective & practical to roll out linux. Say a school opens a new library with two dozen computers to be used for research, assignments & the library catalogue. What would ensue is all the hassle of a Windows rollout minus the risk of malware or the cost of licencing.
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CEO Home Computer Systems(HCS)
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50 posts
Posted: 28/05/2009 8:05 AM
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tim2hawkes wrote:
grammar is all he has.
LOL
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Why is the tag-line so damn shor
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209 posts
Posted: 28/05/2009 11:05 AM
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AndyCee wrote:
I'll go out on a limb here and say that in many situations with site licenses & CALS already purchased, it would be a somewhat pointless exercise to simply replace existing Windows or OSX installs with linux to somehow save money.
I'd agree with you to some degree although it's something that needs to be considered at upgrade time. With Windows you will keep on paying as you migrate through versions, many organisations have upon considering these costs (and they are substantial costs) have migrated to no Windows operating systems.
AndyCee wrote:
What would ensue is all the hassle of a Windows rollout minus the risk of malware or the cost of licencing.
what would happen is the cost and disruption of any rollout, ongoing operation can integrate with both Windows and non Windows hardware. Its a common myth that learning curve for Linux is
much higher, in reality the support pgrade.costs would be similar to those of a version upgrade.
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3 posts
Posted: 28/05/2009 5:05 PM
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Good to see the intelligent discussion returned after that gutter brawl in the middle there.
Just a brief comment on that: did anyone ever teach those of you slagging off the good old saying "if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all"?
Anyway, back to the topic:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most tasks that a computer would be used for in an educational setting would involve word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and web browsing, right? So, since all OSes, including linux, are fully capable of these tasks, in most cases, any OS would do. Surely then, under those circumstances, it would be best to sellect a Linux based OS as there would be no licences required, no financial outlay for software, and the option of support if required.
Obviously, as has been pointed out, there are situations where Linux does not provide a suitable application for a particular task. For these situations, it would then be necessary to use a Windows or Mac OS based system. If Linux was used for all other systems (which would not even have to be very powerful), the ones that had to run specialised software could, in theory, be upgraded with the spare funds so that they would not choke on the more resource hungry software they were required to run.
As for setup and general use of Linux based systems, it really isn't all that hard, and anyone with half a clue shouldn't have any trouble, IMHO (of course, I may be wrong, I'm not an expert).
Seems like an obvious solution to me...
Oh, and as for the denial of knowledge to one's children: i agree with Raindog, it's criminal.
I want to give my 2 kids the best chance in life, so I'm going to teach them everything I know! (shouldn't take long :P) And encourage them to learn as much as they can on top of that.
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Why is the tag-line so damn shor
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209 posts
Posted: 02/06/2009 12:06 AM
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hunter wrote:
Surely then, under those circumstances, it would be best to sellect a Linux based OS as there would be no licences required, no financial outlay for software, and the option of support if required.
I'd like to see Linux included in education butr I don't think the answer education wise is Linux only. I do agree and other have made the point too that adoption of Linux could stretch many tight budgets.
There is more than one way to solve most tasks and it would be helpful for students to be exposed to and to understand the differences.
A better exposure to all the predominant OSs would better equip students to make sensible comparitive evaluations rather than having them bound up in a one company mode of thinking.
There is no such thing as too much information.
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