Fwd: Linux in schools?
Matthew Rossi
matthew.penguincentral at gmail.com
Sat Dec 1 01:59:07 GMT 2007
Thought you'd might like to read this
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Mons <daniel.mons at iinet.net.au>
Date: Dec 1, 2007 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: Linux in schools?
To: Paul Garrett <pgarrett at homemail.com.au>
Cc: ubuntu-au at lists.ubuntu.com
Paul Garrett wrote:
> Just think how many more machines (and the greater opportunity for
> really valuable education opportunities) would be generated by deploying
> even those (US) Everex $200 machines running Ubuntu. The money saved
> could be put into genuine IT education.
It's about more that cost. Free Software in schools is a huge boost for
students as it means the number applications at their disposal are
nearly unlimited.
Standard school desktops might have MS Windows and Office and that's it.
Maybe one or two licenses of some other expensive proprietary software
(I've seen some schools with a dozen licenses of Dreamweaver and Flash
MX or AutoCAD, but not nearly enough for the volume of students).
But certainly not With Free Software - there's a host of programming and
development tools in a wide variety of languages and needs (OS design,
application design, game design, or even just for learning basic
programming skills for the young), math programs for young and old,
graphic design, CAD, photo editing, video editing and professional
Hollywood-level 3D tools for multimedia studies, software suites for
physics and chemistry studies, office packages, project planning
packages... the list goes on forever.
The bigger picture is the freedom of distribution. With non-free
software if you were to give a student a copy of MS Office to take home,
you are performing a criminal act (ironic how under non-free software it
is criminal to help your students). With free software every student
may take home a copy of all the software they use at school. This is a
huge opportunity for students to continue their learning outside of
their school environment and really explore the tools at their disposal.
Similarly the students are under no restriction to complete assignments
and projects in grossly inadequate school computer labs.
The "free as in freedom" message is much more important than the "free
as in cost" message currently being pushed to education department
decision makers. Microsoft, Adobe and AutoDesk have been throwing free
(cost) licenses at schools for years now as enticement to teach students
their non-free software so that they take that "expertise" (read:
"vendor lock in") into the working environment half a generation later.
What the education department decision makers don't realise is how much
harm these free-of-cost but license restricted software choices are
doing to the children they are trying to educate.
-Dan
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Matthew Rossi
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