[ubuntu-uk] heads up - UK schools frameworks accepted

[Rob Beard]

alan c wrote:
> Open Source makes historic UK breakthrough
> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/22/open-source-makes-historic-uk
> 
> to date:
> Sirius, Novell
> more to come I believe

I was involved with a SFD event on Saturday in Torbay.  A couple of 
school technicians turned up to the event.  In discussion with them they 
mentioned that they'd love to use Open Source software but part of the 
problem was that some of the educational applications weren't supported 
by Linux (mainly Windows based stuff) and that a real barrier to change 
was the teachers who would get in a flap when they used something 
different (I got the impression that some teachers even the younger 
teachers haven't got very good IT skills).

If you ask me, I think there should be a big push to some of the 
developers of educational software.  For instance, Granny's Garden 
(http://www.4mation.co.uk/cat/granny.html) which was around in the days 
of the Beeb has a Windows and Mac version but no Linux version.

I did suggest looking into LTSP with a couple of beefy servers and maybe 
for Windows compatibility a Windows 2003/2008 Terminal Server (surely a 
few Windows 2003/2008 Terminal Server cal's and a couple of servers 
would be cheaper than a load of PCs running Vista).

I think the most amusing thing that came out of it though in terms of 
wasting money was what one of the other guys in the LUG told me.  A 
friend of his went to look at a local secondary school which his 
daughter was moving to.  He said that the school had a suite of Intel 
based iMacs (and not the cheap ones either!) and guess what they were 
running.... nope, not OS X but Windows XP instead!!!!!

(Why anyone would want to buy an £800 iMac to run XP when something like 
a £300 Dell desktop would do the same.

Sounds to me like that particular school was putting style over cost.

Rob