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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Ouch!

values includes fairness, openness, honesty and trust; making families part of the learning community; encouraging curiosity and enquiry, creativity and innovation; and contributing to local and global communities
Nice, but we need software for our shiny new school.
proprietary software was seen as negative for anytime learning and family involvement
Microsoft software? It is almost free to schools. Well, nearly free.
A site licence covers the software in the school, but if the student wants to carry on working at home, someone's got to pay for a licence
The funny thing about proprietary software is the upgrade treadmill, so Office 2003 won't open files in Office 2007 because they want you to upgrade
Ouch!

Meanwhile, open source is what is being installed. All students can use the same products at home and at school at zero extra cost.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Um, No.

Microsoft used to have good products. Their OS is no longer good enough. The most recent version of office is hard to use.

Switched to linux (fedora on servers, ubuntu on laptops) about 10 years ago. There is little it cannot do.

And, if you want an easy OS with no problems, buy a mac. If you want to run things on the cheap, get rice boxes and run linux -- you can then keep your machines going until they physically break.

which is good use of the budget for any business or school