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I'm needing some help
Last night, I went to this big meeting at my local high school about a 5 year plan to make the school better. An outside consultant was brought in to help "focus" ideas and move our school system into the future...
My first thought was, "There must be no leadership in my school system so they hired a consultant to tell them what to do. This way, when it all goes to shit they can blame it on the consultant!" After reading the draft document and hearing how many hours were used and how much debate occurred and what not my opinion changed to, "Oh no! They made a ton of committees so nothing will get done!"
After attending the meeting and joining the "technology" group I have found that this may just be a good thing. Now I have a problem...
I believe that committees only work when a strong leader is in charge of the committee. A committee of peers never works because, if you have more than one person on a committee, nothing gets done. They want a committee of peers...
My peers consists of parents and teachers. They wanted to get students involved but, you know how that always goes...
So, we are doing a little bit of brainstorming about tech and the school system and I'm slowly turning into the de-facto leader because most of the folks don't know a thing about tech. One of the teachers was going on and on about how great it was that some of the kids in the computer lab were learning about databases. I in turn asked her what systems they were teaching. Were they teaching SQL, Oracle, Postgres, etc... Her answer, "they are learning MS Access." I do a good bit of mySQL work when I setup websites and I'm no expert but... to me, teaching kids how to use Access is like teaching them how to fix lawnmower engines when they are entering the work force to work for NASCAR! They may learn the basics of how an internal combustion engine works but that it about it. My aunt, who works for Oracle, once joked to me that there are two types of programmers out there, "those who use Excel and those who are programmers." This one in reference to a discussion we were having about using spreadsheets for everything but tabulating data.
I have spoken with the top IT dawg in my town and we had a few good talks. I am fully aware that the biggest problem in IT is the user base. Users, for the most part, do not want change. I accept this as a fact and I include this thought whenever someone asks me about tech issues. There are times when I think someone would be better off with a Linux system but I still send them out to buy a Dell with XP installed because I do not want this person calling me at 10:00 PM complaining about how some desktop widget/exe file will not run. Do you really need a desktop cat to chases your mouse pointer across the screen??? I also worry about those folks who go out and buy that 4GHz PC just to run a web browser...
Another item that popped up is that out town library recently signed up with a service that allows patrons to download audio books for free. sounds like a great idea no? Well, there is only one hitch, it only works with windows media player as it has some sort of DRM on it. This one woman was absolutely gushing over this. I tried to explain to her that the service does not work if you have an iPod. Her answer? "Well, I'm not going to spend $300 buying my kids iPods, I bought them $50 mp3 players." I looked at her and said, "you are aware that iPods control about 85% of the mp3 market? Why would you want to roll out a service that only 15% of your target audience can use?" I tried to explain that the service should work on ALL mp3 players and not just some...
The funny thing about DRM is that schools should not use it, why? Well, for one thing educational institutions have far greater leeway under the fair use terms of copyright law. I have no doubt that many schools are paying fees for things that they should be getting free access to under fair use.
Here is where I need your help. I'm looking for well formatted discussions about moving from Ms to Linux and closed source to open source and or open standards. I'm going to start digging up stuff on Mass and ODF. Any help you folks can provide would be much appreciated.
Scrym - if you two might care to come to one of our meetings as "special guests" please let me know.
My first thought was, "There must be no leadership in my school system so they hired a consultant to tell them what to do. This way, when it all goes to shit they can blame it on the consultant!" After reading the draft document and hearing how many hours were used and how much debate occurred and what not my opinion changed to, "Oh no! They made a ton of committees so nothing will get done!"
After attending the meeting and joining the "technology" group I have found that this may just be a good thing. Now I have a problem...
I believe that committees only work when a strong leader is in charge of the committee. A committee of peers never works because, if you have more than one person on a committee, nothing gets done. They want a committee of peers...
My peers consists of parents and teachers. They wanted to get students involved but, you know how that always goes...
So, we are doing a little bit of brainstorming about tech and the school system and I'm slowly turning into the de-facto leader because most of the folks don't know a thing about tech. One of the teachers was going on and on about how great it was that some of the kids in the computer lab were learning about databases. I in turn asked her what systems they were teaching. Were they teaching SQL, Oracle, Postgres, etc... Her answer, "they are learning MS Access." I do a good bit of mySQL work when I setup websites and I'm no expert but... to me, teaching kids how to use Access is like teaching them how to fix lawnmower engines when they are entering the work force to work for NASCAR! They may learn the basics of how an internal combustion engine works but that it about it. My aunt, who works for Oracle, once joked to me that there are two types of programmers out there, "those who use Excel and those who are programmers." This one in reference to a discussion we were having about using spreadsheets for everything but tabulating data.
I have spoken with the top IT dawg in my town and we had a few good talks. I am fully aware that the biggest problem in IT is the user base. Users, for the most part, do not want change. I accept this as a fact and I include this thought whenever someone asks me about tech issues. There are times when I think someone would be better off with a Linux system but I still send them out to buy a Dell with XP installed because I do not want this person calling me at 10:00 PM complaining about how some desktop widget/exe file will not run. Do you really need a desktop cat to chases your mouse pointer across the screen??? I also worry about those folks who go out and buy that 4GHz PC just to run a web browser...
Another item that popped up is that out town library recently signed up with a service that allows patrons to download audio books for free. sounds like a great idea no? Well, there is only one hitch, it only works with windows media player as it has some sort of DRM on it. This one woman was absolutely gushing over this. I tried to explain to her that the service does not work if you have an iPod. Her answer? "Well, I'm not going to spend $300 buying my kids iPods, I bought them $50 mp3 players." I looked at her and said, "you are aware that iPods control about 85% of the mp3 market? Why would you want to roll out a service that only 15% of your target audience can use?" I tried to explain that the service should work on ALL mp3 players and not just some...
The funny thing about DRM is that schools should not use it, why? Well, for one thing educational institutions have far greater leeway under the fair use terms of copyright law. I have no doubt that many schools are paying fees for things that they should be getting free access to under fair use.
Here is where I need your help. I'm looking for well formatted discussions about moving from Ms to Linux and closed source to open source and or open standards. I'm going to start digging up stuff on Mass and ODF. Any help you folks can provide would be much appreciated.
Scrym - if you two might care to come to one of our meetings as "special guests" please let me know.
Comments
Expect some episodes on this exact topic in the near future if nothing else. We can probably also write up proposals or briefs for you to present.
So expect a lot from us as we get the time to put it together, and best of luck!
A lot depends on how good the existing computers are, Win98 will run well on some low end systems.
I agree with just about everything you said.
To play Devil's advocate (do Scrym recognize a Devil's advocate? What do they call it - fictional guy advocate?), perhaps open source is not right for the school.
Some toughts:
1) Most students are familiar with Windows, etc. Having to come up to speed on other things takes time away from learning the topic at hand.
2) 90% of these kids are going to work in a Windows environment. (Whether they be a secretary, a doctor - whatever.) The better they know this environment, the better off they will be in the workforce.
3) The only ones who will benefit from learning other operating systems, etc will be the kids that go into the tech field and/or the kids that have an interest in tech as a hobby. I totally agree that these kids should be given the opportunity. I just don't see why all of the other kids need it.
I'm not saying that I believe this... (How many kids go on to be professional musicians... yet we offer band in school) Nonetheless, these are the arguments you are going to get.
2) 90%? Did you pull that out of your ass?
3) We all benefit from learning about other operating systems. What if your driver's education class only taught people how to drive with an automatic transmission because they felt manual transmissions were not as good?
Let's not forget that Apple used to own the school computer market... Used to...
Kids are able to learn more than one thing at a time. If you put the Linux machines in beside the Windows machines they will learn both.
How should the school deal with kids using MySpace for illicit activities?
For an educational environment, the advantages of an open platform are many. The one major disadvantage you point out is actually due to a failure of the technology education curriculum.