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59 Comments
- DrBob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I can vouch for this. I'm currently studying for an AS-level in "computing", and it's complete rubbish. They talk about filesystems, except all the questions are based around Microsoft's drive letter system, and use backslashes. The only real operating system to do that is Windows, and yet they persist in saying that the exam is completely brand-neutral. I call BS.
- BobbyShaftoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Also, it would be a travesty if the kids actually got to learn about the computers that they're using
/end sarcasm
The government can't do anything right. - BobbyShaftoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Open Sauce: Looks good, but if you find it, don't eat it.
You don't know how long it's been open. - towner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I run a company that donates, free of charge 150 computers a month to 2 UK charities for use in schools in Africa. The dopes who install the systems buy (Yes even in Africa they have to buy) Windows 98 and 2000 licenses to install on the computers. I've tried to nurture the idea of Open Source Software, but these buffoons think that free software equates to crap software. Also teaching curriculum is Microsoft centric.
They even refuse all Apple hardware. I'm thinking about giving my hardware to a smarter bunch. - Easty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9My school actually uses Firefox on all computers. They also all dual boot with Ubuntu, but that's for A level students.
- stuffhappens, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Hmmm - my Son's school was in a dilemma because they had an ancient Win98 'server' sharing its disk for the ICT suite and classroom computers. When the disk in this died, they stuffed an XP-based machine in its place and soon discovered that it would only allow access to 10 concurrent users.
They didn't really want to 'go back' to 98 (which would have been simple, but 'ancient') so they asked a 'Major supplier of IT equipment to the education sector' to quote. After they had recovered from the shock of the quote - a £6K W2K3 server (yep, even with 'education pricing'!) - a 3GHz Xeon with 2GB RAM, mirrored 73GB SCSI disks and Sony AIT Tape drive ("standard model - we quote this for all schools"), I helped them dig out a 1.7GHz Celeron desktop, shoved 512MB RAM in it, 2 x 160GB IDE disks (mirrored) and installed CentOS (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). A f ew minutes later, we had Samba up and running and sharing some disk space - total cost about £60 for the new hard disks. For backups, they hook up an external drive (they have two which they alternate on a daily basis) and we rsync to them + they take a weekly backup to DVD+R.
Job Done + They also have their own Intranet to play with and since they self-manage their ICT system (rather than have it supported by the County Council), there's no problem with Linux being there - that's the general problem with schools that rely on Local Government to support their kit; if they purchase or use anything that's not on the approved list (which is basically, MS, Research Machines, Viglen and a few others) then they get the cold shoulder. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yes XP, so brilliant you have to hack it just to make it useful. Besides I assume they're glad to have a stable server. Not even the most idiotic Windows fan boy can claim XP is a better server solution than RHEL (or CentOS in this case, same thing different name).
- Dundasbro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7My school is so locked down we can't even right click on the desktop. It's getting really hard to screw around with the computers with all the measures they are doing to stop us. Though one day for some reason we got admin access to one of the computers so we screwed with the sounds, now every time you do anything it plays a recording of some guy going "...Chicks...". Still hasn't been changed after 3 months.
- localzuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6What? Teaching people that not all computers are the same is a bad thing? The idea of ICT in schools is to teach the fundamentals behind using IT - not to teach someone how to use Windows and Office. Just because the 'Start' button doesn't look the same doesn't mean a pupil will get confused. I went to high school in a school that had a mix of Apple computers, PCs running Windows, Archimedes for running lathes etc... and a couple of Linux boxes - no one 'got confused' by this. Give the kids more credit, they aren't all as stupid as you.
- motters, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I started writing computer programs from an early age. Rather than being locked down kids at school should be encouraged to "screw around" with computers, because that's really the only way that you can get a thorough understanding of how they work.
- Ashex, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8"Windows is by far the most common OS in a work environment"
Um, not really. The company I work at, a large chunk of the employees use a unix desktop, our developers all use debian along with a few other employees, everyone is given a windows user and a unix user since they're often switching back and forth. And for those that are stubborn about using linux, we just give them putty. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5When I did my A-Level computing I used Borland Turbo Pascal on a 66Mhz machine running Windows 3.1. The sad thing is this was 2002 and I couldn't do much work at home because the damned compiler didn't work properly on my machine since it was running a blisteringly modern Win 98 machine. This was before I entered the wonderful world of OSS.
Still its better than the people who spent 2 sad years fiddling with Access. Entirely a waste of time, at least I had my first introduction to programming as opposed to an introduction to a dead database package. - Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Trust me, in an ICT GCSE course you will NOT be doing that.
- localzuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Working in a school in Somerset as the ICT Manager I can say that the reasons why MS software is so obsessively used is:
1) Most schools already use the stuff, so the idea of moving away from it is a daunting task
2) I would say that a large percentage of ICT technicians/managers in schools have no computing background or training, so they just know how to do a set of tasks and thats it
3) Support for it is limited in terms of schools - ie. Most of the education suppliers do not provide linux/open source support contracts
4) LEA's are useless at supporting proprietory software, so assuming they started moving over the O.S stuff my guess would be that they would just fail miserably
5) No-one in schools knows about it! I have introduced our ICT teacher to 'nVu' because she wanted us to buy a site license for Dreamweaver. She said it is just as good! Other members of staff have wanted things like simple photo editing tools, so I showed them Gimp and they are happy that they don't need to buy licenses for PSP or Photoshop.
6) MIS system - are there any Open source school management packages similar to Sims.net by Capita and the like?
7) Fear! They fear things that are free for some reason (the 'no such thing as a free lunch) thing
8) Legalistic reasons - such as 'is the code secure so the kids information won't be stolen' etc...
I have now successfully moved our (used to be externally hosted) website to a linux server, implemented Nagios and Cacti for monitoring, introduced packages such as nVu and Gimp, implemented a Jabber server. I am now looking into implementing an Asterisk based VOIP phone system, replacing our external pupil mail providor with an internal box (we pay a fee per pupil!!) and am looking for open source educational apps that will run on windows.
Also, to the above pupils who are commenting about locked down computers - I used to think the exact same thing, but now I actually work as an ICT manager I think that they should be locked down. Computers are in school as a resource to aid the teaching of all subjects - not just computing/ict! If some little brat comes along and messes around with a computer so that it doesn't work quite the same as before - it means that computer has to be taken out of action until it is set back to its normal state. This costs time and money to do - something which school's don't have lying about in abundance. As the others have said above - mess with your own computers, not the school ones.
Also, IE7 is new technology, so rolling it out takes a little time - to make sure it works properly with all existing applications. - JimV, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Not every computer is meant to be messed/screwed around with. Let them take computer classes if they want to learn more.
- NoTiG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I suppose the same reason they have: "stifles innovation and locks users into high cost software," open sorcerers claim.
Open sorcerers? Maybe this is related to the shakespeare digg earlier... throw something illogical in a sentence and it captures your attention more - KingWrecked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I work in the ICT department of a school and we run Redhat EL4 on all our servers apart from one which runs Win2k server with WUS and McAfee Update services for 350 XP clients.
The problem we have is that most educational software like Crocodile Clips for DT, won't run on Linux. I've tried Wine but is isn't stable enough. Having said that, we are planning on Dual booting Ubuntu or Mandriva and would quite happily swap completely to Linux were the apps to be ported. There's always the choice of using Krdc to access Windows terminal servers for these programs which were going to evaluate in the new year.
BTW vezquex, OO.org is easily up to A-Level work and is feature complete for the UK National Curriculum. Exponential regression is irrelevant in our environment and no, I'm not a fool. I am however a fool for spending £57 per XP OEM licences, £35 for XP volume licences and £45 for Office 2003. In total this costs us £35,700 for our 350 computers from a budget that most mid sized companies wouldn't be able to survive on. Add to this the cost of other software and it starts adding up.
Having worked in commercial ICT provision I have come across plenty of people who would run Linux in their businesses if it weren't for a lack of suitably trained people and Linux ports of software like Autocad. The educational system in the UK fails to provide the former and without business demand, companies like Autodesk will fail to provide the latter. It is not the educational system's business to support any supplier over any other and an exam candidate will lose marks for using the name access or word in preference to database or word processor so MS is not strictly essential.
The worst thing is that it's about to get much worse. The UK government's Building Schools for the Future program is a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) program to provide new school buildings for every UK school. It basically works like a hire purchase scheme where instead of paying £1,000,000 for a new school, you pay £5-10,000,000 over seven or so years costing the taxpayer significantly more that it should; something that Blair/Brown presumably aren't bothered about because they won't be around to pick up the bill.
Tucked into this program is the idea that the provision of ICT services will be included in the contract on a county wide basis meaning that large corporations will provide every school in a county with their ICT. This will remove any freedom from individual schools to choose their systems and software and will turn educational ICT into a bland, sterile, uniform environment that will almost inevitably be MS based.
I hope my kids leave school before this happens and I'm already retraining as an Electrician so I can jump ship when the rot sets in. Oh yeah, and vote Labour at the next election? I'd rather stick my head in a blender. - Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4We use open source at our college throughout on the server side and a fair bit on the desktop. We use in excess of 40 open source programs. We have spent £400 in 3 years on server side software and even that wasn't terribly necessary. The cost savings are true, although microsoft do charge stupidly cheap rates to education. All in all, we've found it to be MUCH cheaper and there is a great deal of sustainability with open source software.
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4No the costs of all the ill students would soon add up. By choosing OSS they'd cut initial costs and reduce the need for service later on since it is so stable and secure.
- AirRaven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Linux for A Level Students?
Impressive commitment. We're stuck using Visual Basic .NET 2003 on 4 year old XP machines. - Timmmm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I had those restrictions too, but they are usually trivial to work around.
Couple of examples from 6th form:
Didn't have permission to run programs: Create a hyperlink to the exe in MS Word. That works for for some reason.
Didn't have permission to browse some drives (C:, A:) I just wrote a program to browse the disks without using explorer. Run it using above method.
Can't download stuff: This worked by continuously monitoring all the open windows. If they had 'Download' or 'Properties' or probably some other words in the title they were closed. Solution was simple: Write a program that monitors the titles even faster, and blanks them! There was a similar thing for edit boxes where it blanked c: and some others, but you could just do file://c:
The most annoying thing was that there were no CD drives, and we didn't have 1GB USB drives in those days. We eventually managed to get UT onto the system during a science lesson when we were using laptops. They had CD drives and were connected to the network wirelessly. There wasn't enough space in our user areas to install it, but I had previously found a folder on a shared drive that was world-writable so we installed it there. Ironically that folder was where some monitoring program saved screenshots of us doing all this. We could then just copy it to the hard disks of all the computers. After which hours of fun was had.
Eventually my account was banned. Then the guest account. Then guest1-20 (they weren't very clever). So next I went to an old windows98 computer in the library and got all the password hashes from it. Default passwords were your date of birth so it was extremely easy to find passwords for people that didn't change it.
And they never said a word to me. Strange really. - Timmmm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3> Open Sauce is made by sorcerers
Heh. So linux is the magic ingredient? - Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've seen some IT works and it looks frankly crap.
I hate IT at schools, it's such a massive waste of time, I'm pretty damn glad I gave it up. - KingWrecked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Also, to the above pupils who are commenting about locked down computers - I used to think the exact same thing, but now I actually work as an ICT manager I think that they should be locked down."
Damn right there mate ;)
I've worked in commercial and educational ICT and I've got to say that educational is by far the most hostile environment. Leave a crack and they'll turn turn it into a chasm. Gotta admire the cunning of some of our teenage users but it's a pain in the arse from an admin's perspective. - Pekay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Our college seems to use opensource on server-side but not on the clientside, why not should be Ubuntu or something ;D.
- spudnic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Your workplace is atypical. That part of my comment isn't opinion, I'm sure if you search around you'll be able to dig up the actual numbers, but the fact is that if you use a computer at work, it's far, far more likely to run Windows than any other OS, whether you think it should be is besides the point... I really wish people could look past their preference on this and see facts.
- kdehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2doesnt surprise me. the UK government regularly sucks up to Microsoft - the new NHS computer system (at £12 billion) is being built on a Microsoft platform.... for example...
and guess who'll keep the rights to the software developed? why Microsoft of course. - KingWrecked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you're in Kent you'll probably find that your school gets its ICT services from EIS (http://www.eiskent.co.uk/) which is an ICT company owned, as far as I understand it, by Kent County Council. When BSF goes through in a year or two I anticipate that it'll be EIS that gets the county wide contract for ICT provision as they are already embedded in Kent schools.
At this point, you can kiss goodbye to OSS in your school as EIS is an MS only shop. Look up Building Schools for the Future and check out ICT provision in context with it. BTW, Kent is being pushed to the front of the BSF queue. - localzuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hmm... I would not like to work at that school. ICT is a fundamental part of education now and schools should be investing in it accordingly. Skimping on hardware by recycling old computers for usage critical roles such as serving data to the school. Ok, I would say that using old servers for something like the proxy is ok but fileserving? No way!
Also, I don't know who the supplier was but you were being ripped off. We just purchased 2 dual processor opteron 2.2Ghz boxes with dual 146Gb SCSI HDD's and 2GB ram for £2200 (plus £30 per license for Win 2K3 under our MS agreement). Your quoted machine should have come to £1500 tops!
I also just bought 2 HP DL360 G5 boxes with dual 146GB SCSI disk space, 2GB ram, dual 2.6Ghz dual-core Xeon processors and a 2TB Snap Appliance for storage for just under 8K.
I would advise looking for a new supplier ASAP! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2what?? you mean government's interests are at odds with the best interests of the people?? what a shocker.
- glock22ownr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Open Sauce is made by sorcerers... as the first sentence of the article proclaims(I guess computers do make things happen automagically). I've heard that the Inquisitor was not newsworthy a few times, but man...
- DrBob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Same here. :-(
- kdehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why not donate those computers to UK schools directly? maybe starting in your local area?
- tsmithe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have been in touch with my MP about this. It might be interesting reading; it has continued for a couple of weeks previously, since the EDM was first announced on the gnome-uk and ubuntu-uk mailing lists.
http://tibsplace.co.uk/blog/index.php/2006/12/20/free-software-in-schools/ - mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To those of you with school computers under restrictions:
My school does the same thing to our desktops. That is precisely why I bought a laptop that I take with me every day and even go as far as to use it for notes (and internet) in my classes. There are actually a good number of students who take their laptops to school, so I'm hardly alone.
So long as your school allows it, I'd suggest picking up a laptop. You can get some P3 Thinkpads in the $100-200 range now. I personally went for the X60s because I got it for $700 off WebPrice and it gets 6-8 hours battery life, so I can basically leave the ac adapter at home. - BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not surprising, the British education system has a 20 year history of bad decisions and destructive mistakes, and a recent history of prioritising the creation of Apparent statistical improvements and Apparent financial improvements over real improvements in service and education.
From an ICT perspective, I'm given to believe that colossal waste is happening because the Microsoft sponsorship deals provide Apparent advantages for the books, which in turn helps a school get funded.
It puts across a reasonable image, but many a british teacher or student could tell you it's a benchmark of delapidation, mismanagement and ruthless beaurocratic trickery. - HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Check the L'inq to learn more.
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Labour government have an appalling reputation with ICT systems, so letting them launch some kind of Open Source revolution in UK education is only asking for disaster in my opinion. I do agree though that schools need a bigger mix of operating systems and technologies available in schools. What a lot of hardcore Open Source users want though is a total switch from a Windows platform in schools to Unix based systems. What really needs to happen is to have a healthy balance Windows, Unix and Mac OS X systems available in all schools, each with their own purposes. The support for these systems needs to be in place before any of this happens though. Support is probably the single biggest issue in this debate in my opinion.
Having worked in an environment of mixed operating systems I can say it does work, and kids do get to grips with it quickly and easily. But using education as a political football for the Open Source movement is stupid. A large portion of industry runs on Windows, and trying to changing schools to Open Source technologies isn't going to change this fact.
Lets provide future generations with all the tools they need to succeed, not just the ones we personally like best! - JimV, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Maybe it's a small school with no money for computers.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You'd have thought the government would have been brought to task about the shocking waste of cash on failed ICT projects. I can't think of one good program that this company has rolled out, yet they keep going back to them. Fishy? Damn right! As fishy as haliburton getting all the rebuilding contracts for bombed middle east countries....I dunno.... It's probably just a front for ciphoning off funds to black ops.
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Moving entirely to open source isn't in anyone's best interests. The big world of business doesn't run entirely on Unix based systems, a large portion of industry use Windows and Mac OS X. We should be teaching pupils about all these different choices and applications for them. That said this government are probably the worst in UK history, so lets hope they of all people don't pursue this issue, else it will end in disaster.
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Next you'll be telling me that Linux is no good for schools because its a monokernel and pupils need to see an exokernel in action to properly understand computers. Way beyond GCSE level, even beyond A-Level for most where programming solutions are finally coming back into vogue for the main project and which office package you use is quite frankly irrelevant.
- snugsoho, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think the primary concerns of LEA's (Local Education Authorities) in regards to using open-source software is a lack of accountability/liability and on-demand technical support, higher and in particularly further education institutions generally have much more tech savy staff and indeed students so open-source software is (or rather, i've found it to be) far more prevalent.
- spudnic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Windows is by far the most common OS in a work environment, they need to be familiar with it. Schools are not the right place to instigate changes like this, businesses should lead and schools follow.
It shouldn't be that kids are leaving school so woefully under-qualified in using an industry standard that industries are forced to change to what the kids have been taught. - JimV, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3@ motters
Let em screw around on their own computers and time. - localzuk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think people on this page are confusing 2 different subjects. ICT is the study of data interaction via computerised equipment NOT the study of computers - that is computing.
I studied ICT at school, which I have to say, whilst completely boring, did teach some basic skills in areas such as relational databases. - localzuk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1All schools have funding for computers, obviously it won't be huge if it is a small school. The amount just depends on what the senior management team are like - whether they think ICT is important or not. I will admit that at my school I get a lot of funding for its size (in comparison to other schools, not in comparison to business).
Also, recycling old computers will cost more in the long run in terms of technician time, support costs and hardware replacement of parts (it might only be £60 for the hard disk when you first set it up, but what about when the CPU also goes, or some memory or the mobo - you spend all your extra funds replacing bits here and there - which also means that the server has to be turned off in order to do repairs, reducing the availability for use for education).
Also, if it is a school which handles GCSE's or A-Levels and you have downtime you are significantly damaging the work of the pupils studying for those exams - especially if it is in the crucial coursework period of the year, and if you lose the work because of using sub-standard materials (read 'recycled machines') you can sit and wait for a nice lawsuit from parents against the school for not taking due care with their children's work. - stuffhappens, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0JimV hit the nail on the head - the school in question is a small primary school and I totally agree with other posters that the server they were quoted was ridiculously over-spec'd and over-priced. As an off-the-peg server it was bundled with lots of stuff that they didn't need and there was nearly £500+ of setup and config charges.
I disagree with others that the solution will likely be troublesome in the future - the school has 4 'spare' system units and so the worse case maintenance issue will require a PSU swap-out (5 mins for the technician) , a restore from the last backup or for the disks to be relocated in another base (15 mins) - contrast this with a brand new server with next-day, on-site warranty where you feel you cannot touch the box yourself - in the event of a failure late in the day, the school will be out of action for pretty much the rest of the next day. I daresay in the New Year we'll go for a new server, but it will cost less than £500-£600
Our solution makes best use of the resources available to provide a simple, shared file store that suits the needs of the school. - jbdamann2004, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Indeed. Imagine having your 12 year old daughter come home from school and ask how to install the new game she just bought at Target, because she is used to this other computer she uses at school.
Great idea fools, confuse students more than they already are. - flarn2006, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2My school computers use IE as well, but most of them use v7.
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