[Year 12 Its] Re: [Yr11InformationTechnology]ProgrammingAwards2006: PD Registrations

[Nigel Watson]

Actually, students can work at home with VB.NET Express, which is
available as a free download from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/.  They can build
commercial code with this tool if they wish - there are no limitations
on its use, or code it procuces.

I agree that students should be exposed to a variety of languages and
platforms, as this is what they'll face in the real world, and from this
perspective I agree with the sentiments of several on the thread.

However, as a Melbourne Microsoft employee I'm proud that we are doing
our bit to promote the study of ICT in secondary education in Victoria.
In my opinion, we should be doing even more of this to address the
general decline in numbers of students choosing IT as a tertiary
discipline (just go and ask Monash, or Deacon, or RMIT, or LaTrobe about
trends in their CS rolls in the last couple of years).

A lack of secondary student interest in IT and CS is a problem that
transcends platform.  Whatever we can do - collectively - as a community
to increase interest and excitement around ICT in secondary education
can only be a good thing IMHO.  If the open source community wishes to
do something similar - then even better.

Cheers,
	Nigel.
___
Nigel Watson | Architect Advisor | Microsoft Australia | +61-405-228-639

-----Original Message-----
From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Tony Forster
Sent: Tuesday, 6 June 2006 12:04 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] Re:
[Yr11InformationTechnology]ProgrammingAwards2006: PD Registrations

>    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 ?

A valid point, but there is a side issue. Not all learning takes place
at school. It should continue at home. It should be part of a wider
engagement with family and the community. Using proprietary software as
the main school software for many students means that they cannot
legally work at home. They either don't bring work home or they install
pirate software at home. Free or Free Open Source Software has an
important place in education alongside proprietary software.

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