[Technical] Linux at a Sydney school

[Con Zymaris]

Seems to me that only independent schools have the free hand necessary to
move beyond the Microsoft lock-in. If you're a state school, the Education 
department calls the shots, and those shots are almost always proprietary.


Cheers,

Con Zymaris

- CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
- Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
- Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)

- - - 

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=407925021&eid=-255

Linux may be struggling to gain a foothold in the primary and secondary 
education market but one Sydney school is setting itself higher grades - 
all without Microsoft. 

At the Lorien Novalis School in the suburb of Glenhaven, 350 students from 
kindergarten through to year 12 and 38 staff have been learning with the 
penguin for the past four years. 

Stuart Rushton, the school's ICT manager, told Computerworld that senior 
students first suggested the move to Linux.

...

"School education should be about cooperation and sharing knowledge, which 
is exactly what open source is about - that's why I can't understand why 
schools don't embrace it on that level," he said, adding there is a "big 
black hole" when it comes to Linux in education. 

"People are talking about it but are still way behind," he said. 
"Everyone's interested in teaching a word processor, but not interested in 
a political statement. The deep technology literacy issue is not even 
discussed." 

Students using Linux at school is also having a flow-on effect outside 
campus with at least 12 using the operating system at home. 

"The kids love their lab and have a lot of ownership. We take it seriously 
how they feel about lab, and they enjoy that it works," Rushton said. "The 
tinker value of Linux is brilliant and kids love to tinker so they 
organize their desktop in a way most people couldn't understand it."


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___________________________________________________________________________
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