Enterprise open source Toolkit

Story: MPs: Open source faces exclusion in schools

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Education or training?

As a former ICT teacher, I tell my work colleagues that the ICT syllabus is should be renamed "How to use Microsoft Office" as it accounts for at least 90% of the child's work.

Capturing the hearts of the young is vital for Microsoft, so they'll give away software. I mean - why not? They're getting good quality education in MS' product.

Most of the children had no idea that they were using a 'spreadsheet' - they'd never heard of them, they only know 'Excel'. The same goes for MS Word and Powerpoint. Unfortunately, the same went for my colleagues. I demo'd OpenOffice on Linux in the staff room (not through any revolutionary zeal - I thought they ought to be aware) and the number of IT people who asked me what version of Windows that was was - well - all of them.

It's also worth pointing out that the nature of computing has changed hugely for most schools over the last 20 years. It started out as a technical subject and those who chose it for exam level knew that hard work was required. The nature of the newer "ICT" is to dumb down the subject because it's now a core one - and in my school at least - must be taken by everyone. How can the results improve if the subject's too hard?
So ICT is really about how to use everyday software packages and MS have got in there - it'll take a courageous mind-shift to lever them out.

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