[Opensource] Re: using open office

[Donna Benjamin]

Hi all - Jenny posted this question to the linux users of vic edu-sig
list - and I thought she might get some good ideas from you lot too...

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 17:46 +1100, jalooker at optusnet.com.au wrote:
> Are you other schools using OpenOffice happily?
> In second semester the 8's focus on Calc.

I read somewhere that children who are brought up bi-lingual initially
struggle with their literacy compared with kids who only learn their
mother's tongue. However they quickly gain an advantage over their
mono-lingual peers because they've accepted the arbitrary nature of
language and meaning.

I wonder if a similar argument applies to software?

Calc of course is the spreadsheet in OpenOffice.org. Would it be a
useful exercise for students to explore a range of identical tasks in 3
different spreadsheets?  Compare and contrast the similarities,
differences, pros and cons, interoperability and file formats?

So you'd start with OpenOffice.org Calc and then look at the Open Source
Gnumeric, and perhaps Google Spreadsheets.

Gnumeric http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/ 
(available for lin, win, but mac is a bit trickier, though not
impossible http://gnumeric.darwinports.com/

Mac users can also use OpenOffice and if you've got iWork - I've heard
Numbers is brilliant, but not used it. It might be worth exploring Mesa
http://www.plsys.co.uk/mesa.htm 

Next question: Where does VELS apply? 
Linking ICT for visualising thinking with Maths, and perhaps a bit of
interpersonal development somewhere.  "Working in Teams" using Google
Spreadsheets could be interesting... :)  And of course open source has
"Socially Responsible" built in - learning about how the community makes
software, and how users can contribute to that....

Hmmm... time for more coffee for me!

cheers
Donna

-- 
Donna Benjamin - Executive Director
Creative Contingencies - http://cc.com.au
ph +61 3 9326 9985 - mob +61 418 310 414
open source - facilitation - web services