Promoting Open Source in Schools

[Marc Lijour]

On Saturday 17 December 2005 10:57, Igor Denisov wrote:
> > > Many of these programs, like Geometer's Sketchpad, VB 6.0, etc. are
> > > tightly integrated into the curriculum.
> > > Some textbooks assume Sketchpad will be used and have tutorials for it.
> >
> > Is it really the curriculum or an option taken by book authors?
>
> Hmm... both?
>
> A quick google search (Geometer's Sketchpad tdsb) reveals this (and more):
>
> ===========
> From: http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/SAME/samefiles/Sec.sessions.htm
>
> With the Ministry-licensed Geometer's  Sketchpad Version 4, students
> can explore and learn concepts in the new "Advanced Functions and
> Introductory Calculus" dynamically. Through step-by-step instructions,
> students will construct, investigate, and develop meaning to concepts.
> Participants will receive a healthy package of classroom-ready
> worksheets that can be put to use immediately in the MCB 4U course.
> ===========

It seems that your are talking about the TDSB and not the Ministry of 
Education, which are two different things. Try to find a reference to a 
program in the (official) curriculum:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/curricul/curricul.html

Of course, each teacher, and each board are free to adapt the curriculum to 
their equipment. One interesting thing in the curriculum is that it actually 
tells about exposing students to different environments, including OSs.

On a side note, we tend to forget that there is more than a handful of boards 
playing in Toronto, not only the TDSB ;-)

>
> And this brings up another important detail: a lot of the software the
> board uses is licensed by the Ministry of Education and made free
> (IIRC) for any Ontario school to use.
>
> Perhaps getting the Ministry of Ed. to "license" some OSS Linux
> software would lead to a trickle-down effect, where convincing the
> TDSB to support Linux would become easier (and making this so called
> OSS software free to the board :-)

Interesting. There is a web site for that actually. Try this: 
http://www.ccpalo.org/

Last year I proposed both OOo and StarOffice. But only StarOffice is offered. 
But let me ask this question: why would the Ministry of Education offer some 
software which is already available for free??

(I have a similar response from the tech guys when I ask if it would be 
possible for the board to contribute some money and equipment. They tell me: 
"ask your school, they have money!". Bottom line, if we can get it and we 
have the right to install it, what's the problem? At least in our school we 
have it -thanks to me, because I keep asking.)

Eh, may be we should target the teachers directly instead of targeting the 
boards?

> My personal opinion at this time is that Linux will work best in TDSB's CS
> labs. There, the few knowledgeable, 'renegade' teachers will teach C with
> Vim/Emacs/Kdevelop and GCC rather than Visual Studio, set up linux boxen as
> routers and firewalls in networking classes, etc.

I am taking a CS certification at UofT OISE right now. I can tell you C is not 
in the trend today. People (students and teachers alike) want graphics, games 
and flashy things. 
One teacher is offering PHP, which is a great idea you will agree.
I fear the other people are stuck with windows. And the expectation is to have 
a graphical environment running.

> The school board is not ready for a full-scale Linux implementation
> for a number of reasons:
>
> 1. About 2-3 years ago, they dumped considerable amounts of money and
> went through much pain to switch from NT to Win2K.

Other school boards are in the same situation. I don't know if you are talking 
about WS or servers?
In our case, the WS are still running win98 and the server NT. (Tech guys have 
to do miracles to boot win98 with some boards and a mix of SATA drives with 
regular ATA drives, add to this broken BIOSes!).

Somebody told me the board invests money given by the Ministry of Education. 
It looks like they received a lump sum to buy equipment and then they forgot 
about opening a chapter in the accounting sheets to maintain it...
(My board is also supporting opening of plenty of new schools, money can't be 
everywhere!)

> 2. Technical ineptitude. They brought in peope from Dell to help them
> set up that Win2K network, along with its rather complicated Active
> Directory structure, etc.
>
> Even if some of the board's current teachers have some Linux skills,
> they still probably can't set up a network similar to the existing
> one.

As you explain below teachers have no word to say and no active role in 
setting up networks or anything else (union issues?).

> If they could, there might be union issues (right now, rule-abiding
> teachers should call for a union network tech if they want a network
> cable plugged in, PC relocated from top of the desk to the floor, or
> if they want to install something like a scanner driver).
>
> 3. The belief that the current system is and works fine. After all,
> half of the computers are P2-400 or early P3s, with 128 MB of memory,
> all taken as off-lease from Dell. When a system goes down, they just
> call in a tech to reimage it, no rescues are attempted.

Some kids feed the floppy disk with peanuts and the computer can't take it, 
the warranty neither!
Bottom line some worsktation stay without a floppy drive in working 
conditions. Samewise for the CD.
(I just remember now, that a growing number of students are asking for burning 
their work on CD. lol)

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