[Year 12 Its] Re: [Yr11 Information Technology]ProgrammingAwards2006: PD Registrations

Tue Jun 6 12:35:11 EST 2006

Kevork,

I feel 3 is an interesting point. Exactly what do you mean by industry? If you 
mean OS installations on desktops, then 95% may well be reasonable for a 
measure of how widely used MS software is. If you mean other areas of 
computing, then there are plenty of industries where MS software would be at 
a much lower level. I think we certainly owe it to the students to make sure 
that they have an understanding of how much more there is to IT then the 
desktop in front of them. 

I think in 2 you also have the question the wrong way round. Given that other 
software languages and the tools to develop in them are so freely available 
and useable, why is DET and VITTA so openly pushing VB and MS 
technologies. "Because they want to sponsor us", is not a good enough reason 
to do so if you are thinking in terms of the educational outcomes for the 
students. 

Why can't the competition be open to all languages, even if MS is providing 
the prizes? Wouldn't it be better for all groups if this were the case? MS 
would look even more generous, students could learn in whatever language they 
chose, VITTA & DET would be promoting a much more open tool for learning. If 
MS has stipulated that the entries must be in VB, then I think as bodies 
responsible for education, DET and VITTA should not agree to such a 
stipulation.

Having been out of Australia for some time and now coming back this year into 
teaching in Victoria again, there does seem to be an overwhelming bias 
towards VB from VITTA. The only problem I have with this is that once you 
need to move out of the MS ecosystem of software, for whatever reason, it 
becomes very difficult to work with MS products and non-MS products if they 
need to work with each other.

Guy Flaherty
Information Systems
Xavier College

On Tuesday 06 June 2006 11:43, Kevork Krozian wrote:
> Hi Con,
>
>    The three obvious question are:
>
>     1. Are you aware of any efforts to initiate other programming
> competitions through DET that have been blocked ? if not , why not offer to
> promote and initiate a broader programming competition for schools rather
> than call it non-Morosoft ?
>
>     2. What efforts have been made to offer other, non Microsoft software
> to DET and where have these efforts led ?
>
>     3. What industry and tertiary education uptake is there for Microsoft
> and non Microsoft software ? If 95% of industry uses Microsoft products,
> schools and DET would be negligent in not exposing students to this
> community mainstream would they not ?
>
>
>    Over to you
>
> Best Wishes
>
>
> Kevork Krozian
> IT Manager , Forest Hill College
> k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
> http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au
> Mobile: 0419 356 034
>
> >>> conz at cyber.com.au 06/06/06 11:17am >>>
>
> On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 11:02:44AM +1000, Adrian Janson wrote:
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > I think we should be applauding any initiative in which we deliver
> > technology to students or give them learning opportunities.   Please do
> > not post negative comments - we are all working to promote IT and career
> > pathways, not criticize others for doing so.
>
> Don't like dissent or debate, huh Adrian?
>
> Sorry, I don't do 'lying down' very well. :-)
>
> It's not enought that the Victorian Department of Education does
> single-sourcing deals with Microsoft, excluding other suppliers, for
> most of the software that students are trained in.
>
> It also only pushes Microsoft-only programming competitions, reducing the
> likelihood that students can comfortably learn other languages/platforms.
>
> If you don't think this establishes a monopolist mindset amongst your
> students, and that this monopolist mindset has a substantially
> negative pedagogical impact, then I can see I have some education of my
> own to do here.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Con Zymaris
>
> - CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
> - Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
> - Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)
>
>  --
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia
> Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company
> Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477
>
>
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