[Opensource] Each to his own

Sun Feb 24 16:04:27 EST 2008

I agree, open standards is a very reasonable request and goal to work
towards. I just posted something to the Moodle list about digital portfolio
blog that exports any student work using the SCORM standard.

Oddly enough, I had a debate with a staff member who was frustrated that her
precious artwork created in documents with WordArt was no longer supported
by MS. Whilst we made do saving the work as PDF files, she now understands
the narrow time frames built into closed source solutions.

As she left my office, I recalled some of my old cool Apple Hypercard stacks
expired in a digital death on a floppy disk. I would like this to stop
happening and take the attitude by the Australian Library, converting all my
old documents for archive using the open document formats.

Regards Roland

On 24/02/2008, Cameron Bell <bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:
>
> Couldn't agree more Roland. My approach to supplying and meeting the
> needs of staff at my school is to get what will "enable them to carry
> out their job effectively and efficiently".  This differs from person to
> person and hence we don't mandate a particular OS or hardware. As I find
> that more teachers are maturing (in approach - not age  ;-)   ) they are
> recognising the advantages of being able to work across platforms and
> take advantages of the things that each does well. Most still stick to
> Windows, but as more are turning to Macs and Linux, I am explaining to
> staff that, if we want to allow this freedom and flexibility to
> continue, then have no choice but to adopt open standards.
> At a staff meeting last week, I had enough copies of The Open CD to
> enable each staff member to have one. Unfortunately I was third on the
> Agenda - after such pressing issues as the latest bloody VIT
> requirements. I didn't have much time, and staff were tired and sleepy
> but I explained the need for the school to adopt open standards for
> x-platform compatibility and for future readability. The staff did
> generally see the sense in this - I mentioned the development of
> "digital portfolios" and the need to be able to guarantee being able to
> read the digital work (as opposed to being able to simply store it) in
> as little as 6 years time. They certainly took this onboard.
> The theme - each to his own applies to schools as well - and I have
> concerns about Ultranet. I am concerned that the track record of DEECD
> indicates that we are in for a proprietary solution that will lead to a
> de-facto mandate for a particular platform and file formats. I have seen
> nothing official (has anyone?) and I am not trying to bag something I
> haven't seen - (I am simply wondering if this concern will be addressed)
> - but if you want to utilise this multi-million dollar project in a
> manner to improve curriculum access and sharing of resources, how can
> you not require it to adhere to open standards? To truly ensure access
> and sharing of resources across schools-regardless of their
> infrastructure, surely you can only use open formats and standards. To
> ensure that 20 years of our digital history doesn't disappear into the
> ether after the upgrade to version 45 of whatever, we must voice our
> concerns that schools should have the freedom to use whatever they want
> and not be mandated by stealth to proprietary formats via the Ultranet.
> Cheers
> Cameron
>
>
> Roland Gesthuizen wrote:
> > Just thinking through a debate on another list about what to recommend
> > for retiring staff that wish to buy a replacement laptop. My elderly
> > parents and students are not smaller versions of office secretaries or
> > corporate CEOs. It is worth carefully thinking through the real needs
> > of each user. Each to his own.
> >
> > Other teachers choose the Apple Macintosh for their laptop, hardware
> > support and configuration isn't an issue with these robust units.
> > Recently we have had a surge of interest from English teachers about
> > purchasing the eeePC  or for personal use, weight and bulk is less of
> > an an issue (although colour was). Apart from the standard issue,some
> > IT teachers in Victoria switched the base operating system on their
> > department laptops to a linux distribution such as Ubuntu and run
> > Windows in a partition or dual boot. Software support isn't an issue,
> > they manage it themselves.
> >
> > I mention real needs. Most users are not drawn to things that "just
> > work" but to those that "just work" and also are pleasant to use.
> > Buying an device with redundant capacity is not only wasteful, it
> > ignores that things have changed with power applications and features
> > working online using just a standards compliant and upgradeable web
> > browser.
> >
> > In some ways, this reminds me of the Australian military purchase of a
> > fleet of M1A1 Abrams tanks, fully functioned combat brutes that that
> > too heavy to take anywhere but mainland Australia.
>
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-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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