Stop Teaching Microsoft Word in Schools
Every year schools and colleges spend an exorbitant amount on license fees to foreign multinational companies such as Microsoft (one school quoted £60 000/year) for products such as Microsoft Word and Excel, despite the fact that open source software such as OpenOffice and Abiword exists which can be freely and legally downloaded by anyone.
Teaching solely proprietary software to children in schools from an early age gives many of them the impression that Microsoft software is the only way to get work done. Money that could be spent more wisely within education, and indeed all parts of the government, is being wasted on Microsoft’s shareholders.
If you feel the same way, vote here http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/teach-oss/
I believe that, in many cases, government departments and schools could go one step further by making their networks virtually free of proprietary software. Organizations such as the Cutter Project deploy cost-effective solutions for schools. The set-up is something like this:
A few powerful central servers running a free linux distribution such as Fedora, openSuse or Edubuntu are the powerhouse where everything essentially runs. Dell sell servers like this without Windows licenses. The PCs that the students sit at are Thin Clients - boxes that basically stream video, keyboard and mouse movements across the network to the servers. These boxes are cheap and about the size of a Freeview set top box. There are no fans, no noisy hard disks and a low power consumption - helping the environment and the school’s electricity bill.
A HP thin client
Schools could even use old computers that were previously retired or were donated by local businesses to act as thin clients too. Linux provides an unprecidented level of security and stability, and is easy to use. For the majority of users who do word processing, email and web-surfing, changing over is easy. Schools can legally give copies of all of their software to their students.
Many people say training and configuration are barriers to linux for schools, but I disagree. A mass roll-out backed by the government could mean simple instructions for a universal initial configuration to follow that work for all schools.
Indeed many schools have already seen the benefits of open source software and are reaping the benefits. The UK government’s school computing agency, Becta, has also said schools could save costs by switching
And it doesn’t stop at schools. Many companies and government organizations can save money from switching.
Absolutely! The most important thing is not to use a particular office suite, but to give kids a good education, and give teachers the resources (and salaries) to do it.
Comment by Solveig Haugland — 30 April 2007 @ 12:04 pm
The point is well taken that schools should teach students how to use office applications, not just one company’s version of office applications. While it may have been true some years ago that Microsoft had the only business grade set of office applications, that has not been true for some time.
To pay licenses in order to “teach what businesses use”, is a waste of taxpayer money. Businesses need employees who can utilize office applications, any office application. As it turns out, there are only minor differences among them. People, not just students, can easily make the adjustment from one application to another. The underlying concepts are the same. Perhaps the teachers and administrators who believe that there is only one true way to teach office applications should download the “alternatives” and give them a try for themselves. Downloads are free. Some even run on Windows machines.
The writer suggests that schools should move to server centric computer networks to save money. I agree. This architecture is more efficient, simpler to maintain, and less expensive than placing a PC on every desk.
Please be aware that there are many types of thin clients like the HP unit shown. Most contain an operating system to make them work. There are those that do not contain an operating system. If you are seeking to move to this kind of architecture, you should investigate diskless thin clients that contain neither a hard drive nor an operating system.
Diskless thin clients do not contain any operating system, non volatile memory, or system settings. They are solid state, fanless, noiseless, and use less energy while running than PCs use while turned off. They can be mounted under a desktop to conserve space.
Because they have nothing in them that ages (including an operating system that needs to be secured, updated, or upgraded), diskless thin clients have eliminated all points of obsolescence. They can last for a very long time.
Diskless thin clients are not just for those who want to use LInux. Because they are diskless and stateless, they can run Windows applications served up by terminal services ust as easily.
One company, Symbio Technologies, has developed a Symbiont Boot Appliance that can create multiple sessions with multiple servers at once. This permits a school lab, for instance, to run Linux applications in the morning and Windows applications in the afternoon.
This is ideal for those schools and companies that have invested in Windows applications. The efficiencies obtained by sharing powerful servers and eliminating all desktop administration can be enjoyed by all.
Comment by Lew Tischler — 30 April 2007 @ 2:18 pm