[ubuntu-uk] Is the demise of Becta an opportunity for FOSS?

[Alan Lord (News)]

On 25/05/10 07:44, Colin McCarthy wrote:
> Smart Technologys the makers of 'SmartBoards' one of the two popular interactive whiteboards already do a linux client. Its almost exactly the same as the windows version and works perfectly. I have used to many times at our LUG meeting which occasionally meets in a school.

As do mimio [1]. At BETT for a couple of years they have been 
demonstrating their IWB running on Linux (Ubuntu), Mac OSX and Windows.

> Capita recently bought Ramesys (a large education IT provider) so there is little chance of BFS, Building Schools for the Future, schools to have any local control and choose Open Source software.

SIMS has a terrible reputation when you talk to teachers. It does, 
unfortunately, tie you into to a complete MS stack from the desktop 
(Outlook/MSO) through to the server backend.

There are some projects to build a FOSS alternative, but as of today I 
am unsure of their level of completeness.

> FOSS does stand a chance in private or independent schools.

FOSS *should* not need to "stand a chance". The whole ethos of FOSS is 
such a perfect fit for education, it is, quite frankly, an abomination 
that we in the UK have such a poor level of take up.

It is easy to level blame at certain organisations etc. but it is really 
up to *us* to fix it... That means all of us.

> Mark Thomas and SiruisIT do a lots of FOSS stuff in schools.  Maybe they could be on the Ubuntu UK podcast to talk about it.

Do you mean Mark Taylor perhaps? Yes, Sirius[2] were the first (and 
only) Becta approved supplier on their accredited list who specialise in 
Open Source Technologies.

Without any IT steering/guidance from Becta there is now an opportunity 
(and also a threat) to get more FOSS into schools. Sites like Open 
Source Schools[3] and School Forge[4] are useful places to guide 
teachers and IT support staff. Also do remind them that there are more 
professional companies available to provide support and services than 
just Sirius. Mark Taylor discussed this with us at BETT this year, he 
wants/needs there to be more competitors in this space so the Open 
Source model proves itself to be sustainable and our customers have choice.


Cheers

Al

[1] http://www.mimio.com/global/em/index.asp
[2] http://www.siriusit.co.uk/
[3] http://opensourceschools.org.uk/
[4] http://www.schoolforge.net/

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The Open Learning Centre
http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com