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Story: Government: Open source could halve school IT bills
Posted by: Martin JD Green (Tuesday 10 May 2005, 3:09 PM)
It has been suggested that schools could only use Open Source if it was made easier to use. This sounds like an IT Windows user to me. The vast majority of teachers have had no training in the Microsoft software they are expected to use because of budget constraints. If the schools had the budget to train the staff it would make no difference whether it was Microsoft or Open Source as long as the applications worked. The usual excuse for not giving the training is that the staff "have it already at home", so they are 100% familiar with it already. Laptops are bought "fully loaded" and handed over with the expectation the staff will be able to "do everything" immadiately. When was the last time an IT department did this successfully.
Full Talkback thread
Story: Government: Open source could halve school IT bills
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This is an excellent opportunity for open source,... Anonymous -
How very amazing this result is ...
Look at the so... steffen
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Great. We'll have a generation of people taught to... Martin Scholes
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This would be a money saver but also a great... Mike -
To Martin Scholes: Please, stop spewing rubbi... Abe
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Abe, your inability to enter into a deba... Martin Scholes -
Martin,
Rather short-sighted. Have you even... Anonymous
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martin's comments:
this is a very narrow pers... george
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Fear of change? Or a lack of time to emb... Martin Scholes
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ajority of offices use MS Office pr... Andrew M.A. Cater -
Should our head of IT decides... Martin Scholes
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@ martin:
"We'll have a genera... Anonymous
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Thank you, annonymous.
Perhaps... Martin Scholes
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Martiin, I would agree that time co... Anonymous
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we run only linux (xandros) at... george
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@ George
George, you make some... Martin Scholes
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Learning a non-standard software? Sounds like... Steve Conners
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@ Steve Connors
Unless, of course, it is... Martin Scholes
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In Canada, the PEEL District shool board is or has... george
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I think everyone here is missing the point.
I hav... Marc
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*Please* can we have some balanced views and... Chris Nixon
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"Great. We'll have a generation of people taught t... Seb
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It has been suggested that schools could only use... Martin JD Green -
So little time and so much to do.
I often hear tha... Arthur B.
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Arthur, the environment in which I work is a... Martin Scholes
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