An Informal Study Of K12 Classroom Software Costs 455
PGillingwater writes "Rob Lineweaver has written a concise summary of how much it would cost (and the savings that can be achieved) to set up the (almost) complete infrastructure in the Harrisonburg City Public Schools. He estimates that using commercial packages instead of open source would have cost the K12 schools an extra $27,000 in software license costs.
More interestingly, he states that this is not only about cost. He says: 'This makes it apparent that not all of the benefit of open source software deployment in is the form of cost savings; much of the benefit is in terms of capabilities gained. In other words, through the use of free software, I am able to do more within my budget than I could if I only had commercial solutions available.'"
Good learning environment (Score:2)
Re:Good learning environment (Score:5, Insightful)
seriously.. having the ability to look at the nuts and bolts makes better students... teaching the kids the normal click and drool is not computer science... it's office machines / secritarial. It's about damned time that computer science classes MEANT computer science.
Re:Good learning environment (Score:2)
Re:Security Through Obscurity (Score:5, Insightful)
> Many, many students will never program anything
> in their lives.
But it is not the school system's place to PREVENT them from learning to do so
> They'll never want to, and they'll never need
> to.
But, unless you are prescient, you'll not be able to know which will and which won't
> They need word processing.
WP takes about three months worth of daily use to learn as well as 99% of the people need to know it. Most K-12 kids learn so quickly that they will have adequate WP skills to last most of their lives after writing two ten-page reports.
> They might need graphics tools.
Oh
> The vast majority do NOT need compilers, huge
> bloated developing environments, or editors
> with obscure keystrokes.
And since only a few might benefit from them, NOBODY can have them? I'm certainly glad my children did not attend schools you administer.
Then, my points:
Kids need to be challenged, pushed beyond the limits they impose upon themselves, forced out of their "intellectual comfort zones." I sort of halfway agree that programming and systems administration aren't really appropriate core subjects in the "mainstream" curriculum of the public schools, but consider this
Programming and/or system administration suck as subjects taught for the subject matter skills they provide. Those skills become obsolete VERY quickly. However, as a vehicle for developing the mental skills that form the core of intellectual power, they are hard to beat.
Regards,
Re:Good learning environment (Score:3, Funny)
Sitting right next to my white Dell box.
Ebony and Ivory...
yea but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:yea but... (Score:5, Interesting)
i was the reponsible of the computer lab in a little school in mexico about two years ago, we ran linux, staroffice, gnome, kde, gimp, whatever you can name, aside from apache, sendmail, etc., and never run into troubles, nothing gets broked, no virus, etc, etc
oh, and the school owners where extatic about not having to pay a cent in licenses
of course, if you take a project like this, you need to know some things, but hey, isn't about learning and having fun with the process?
so, maybe it's just a case of knowing what resources you can get from the community, and use them
Re:yea but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Playing devils advocate here, that statement is a *very* hard sell to upper management. They want contracts, they want someone who can be charged back/billed/sued if something goes wrong. They want SLA's and the like.
At that level, its all CYA.
Self fufulling prophecy (Score:3, Interesting)
But for people who don't know much about computers and really don't want to, or have the time to, is it really cheaper? Do they know how to use a newsgroup? do they know how to use IRC? Are they going to use these resources that for the most part are unstructured and not dependant? The community support for a product is only good if _a lot_ of people use it and _a lot_ of people have a the time to read newsgroups etc... Ever post to one of the CVS newsgroups? A lot of questions go unanswered, and it's not alone.
I'm all for OSS, but no one thing is an end all. OS's, applications, programming languages, etc... are simply tools. Use the one that is best for you, what you need to do, and the resources you have.
Re:Large cost? (Score:2, Insightful)
I also say that, drooling idiots who don't know anything about computers, should probably hire a professional to do their job. Let them figure out the best solution if it be windows, linux, solaris, or Macintosh. The general consesus seems to be that linux requires a good deal of knowledge to administer.
How many people are willing to come up and state that they are both an idiot and administer 30-40 PCs running windows? And also think linux is 'too hard' because they tried it.
Re:yea but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sidenote - I love it when people call me a troll at the end of their long critique of one of my posts. Isn't the point of fighting a troll not to reply to them?
Re:yea but... (Score:3, Informative)
And yea, trolls are funny like that =). I think the perfect troll is one which is glaringly obvious, yet impossible not to reply to!
Microsoft antisupport... (Score:3, Funny)
A friend of mine in high school told me about someone he knew who decided he just HAD to go straight to MS support when something wasn't working. He spent 2 hours (to the order of $99-199) on the phone with MS, and they weren't able to help him a bit.
He later mentioned the problem to my friend. My friend found the solution to the problem.
In 2 minutes.
FROM MICROSOFT'S OWN WEBSITE!
M$ support techs aren't even intelligent enough to search their own damn knowledgebase...
When I was at school (Score:2)
Re:When I was at school (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:yea but... (Score:2)
Its not exactly that they are lazy, its just that with the new flavor of the week viruses that go around (think windows), it's just easier.
Read your EULA (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone pointed out the third "free" is free as in market. With commercial software, only the vendor can support you. You pay their price or you get nothing. With free-as-in-speech software you get free-as-in-market software support: you can pay as much or as little as you'd like, for varying levels of support, and presumably varying levels of expertise.
The costs are likely similar. (Score:2)
Re:yea but... (Score:2, Insightful)
This happend with the video editing tool Edit from discreet. (Just to take one example). They just stopped the development and closed the office. So now alot of people are stuck with edit, the version they have. And they will never release a update that will make it work on Win2k for instance.
OpenSource and free software is best, you cant make any statements that will make closed source alternetives better. It is not possible. Since you get all thoose benefits with opensource and you get the source to. You get the same and more.
The gift that keeps on giving, opensource =).
Re:yea but... (Score:5, Informative)
As the primary author behind an open-source school administrative package [lissard.org], I understand this situation, and I understand that if something breaks someone will need to know what's going on. That is why I have the support policy [lissard.org] that I do -- if someone is using LISSARD (the aformentioned software), they can go through the normal channels (mailing lists, etc.) in case of a problem or they can talk to me directly by phone, even at home.
No, it's not a promise of 24x7 support. But, remember that you're not dealing with trained monkeys on the other end of an 800 number, but rather someone that no only knows what's going on but why it happens that way and knows the situation backwards and forwards. In the end, my open-source project has better support than any of the other commercial offerings, because a resolution is reached within minutes rather than hours or (in some cases) weeks.
One more thing: the support contract never needs renewing. I will help whoever is using my software, because I know what it's like to be totally ignored.
Re:yea but... (Score:4, Insightful)
And someone skilled at handling proprietary software will be cheaper? Sure, you can get someone cheaper, but you get what you pay for.
If you think a local high school computer class teacher (who is usually the entire schools "computer guy") is going to get any sort of support from a large proprietary software company, you've got some strange conceptions. Instead you're going to get the clueless "Try rebooting, try reinstalling" we all face when we call the outsourced support centers of various companies. And while you're getting the barely useful support, you are stuck on the phone dealing with it. Not much of a win.
Re:yea but... (Score:3, Interesting)
ok, non-anonymous, with karma bonus.
here's a study [216.239.37.100]
here's another one [216.239.37.100] just to make sure.
both are google caches of the pdf's (1 [cyber.com.au],2 [ibm.com])
the bit about the windows admins is my own 2 cents- that's completely based on my biased opinion.
Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skewl (Score:4, Funny)
The whole reason we even have PCs in schools in the US is just the fact that it is outright corporate welfare to computer companies such as Gateway, IBM, Dell, and sometimes Apple, due to shady deals with politicians.
Schools simply don't have the programs for technology education, and even in the high schools there is, at best, only a typing and a Microsoft Word class, and if you are extremely lucky and well funded, a class that will teach Q-Basic.
Most computers in schools just sit around in the science room, and are used only once per semester, and sometimes as entertainment devices for a public school system that's nothing more than a communist daycare center anyways.
However, PC companies, with Microsoft behind each one, get rich off our tax dollars, and hence we have PCs in schools. Putting Linux wouldn't ever fly, as it's purposefully $27,000 a year in corporate welfare to Microsoft.
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:5, Interesting)
At my high school (I graduated in '99), I took multiple classes about multimedia design and computer science. In fact, the Computer Science 1 class I took in high school gave me college credit which transferred easily to just about any major university in the state (Colorado).
At the same time however, there were 3 large computer labs at my high school and I recall being herded in there several times only to waste half of the class time learning completely useless software that barely demonstrated what we were supposed to learn. Given that, I think it's fair to say that computers in schools may be overhyped, but that doesn't mean they don't belong there.
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:2)
Dude, I don't know where you are, but when I graduated from high school in 1997, every school in the county had programming classes. The richer schools were using Borland C++, the rest of us had to do with some flavor of UNIX.
These are middle-class towns in Bergen County, New Jersey. Is this a "Northeast Elite" thing?
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:2)
Lest you think I'm complaining, I don't think we needed anything more. I don't see why schools are on the upgrade treadmill when the primary applications -- typing, web browsing, basic programming -- can be done perfectly well with old systems. Every time I hear that a school has spent another half-million dollars on computer equipment, I wonder why they don't get to the important stuff first. (Did anyone else attend schools where the same textbooks had been in use for 25 years?)
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:2, Interesting)
Watch out, Revisionist Man! Behind you! (Score:5, Funny)
Uh-huh.
Because you just know that Apple had Congress in their pocket when my school had Turtle Logo and Number Munchers on a bunch of Apple IIe systems back in the early '80s.
Show those fscking politicians "Oregon Trail", and all they saw was dollar signs.
Hell inna handbasket. Liberals! Liberals, I tells ya! And fluoride in the water!
fnord
Re:Tech. ed not the point of PCs in skewl (WHAT?) (Score:2)
Whaaaa?
In 1986 I took my first computer class in school. I learned how to program in BASIC on an 8086. We later got in several 286 machines, which was awesome. This was in a town of 3000 people, and our computer teacher was about 40 years old at the time. We obviously didn't have a huge budget, and there was no such thing as a network.
Are you telling me that today, in high school, they only use computers to teach typing? I find it extremely hard to believe that computer education has gotten worse in 15 years.
You can be cynical all you want, but don't project it onto the education system.
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:3, Interesting)
I graduated from highschool in 1980, attended 2 different schools in the Knoxville, TN area and both had computers maintained by the students way back then. Not sure what my first school had, since I did not take a computer class until 1977, but it did use punch cards. The machine I was familiar with was a DEC machine hooked to 3 teletype terminals and paper tape memory.
Even years later, rural highschools in the area were using microcomputers to enhance the football coach's play-calling ability and defense coordination. How do I know this? One of the coaches was a helicopter pilot in my National Guard unit and told us about the setup during a bad weather day. BTW, the coaches were the ones setting up the computers and programming them. So much for the stupid hick jock theory.
In the same area, my son received his CCNA through his highschool during his Junior year. All of the equipment and instruction was provided by Cisco, free. The networking cable was surplus and installed by the students in the networking classes. The T-1 line was provided, free, by the local phone company. So much for the the direction of "welfare cashflow".
The only thing holding back computing in schools is people like *you* that assume just because *your* school was full of helpless, clueless dolts that a smaller school *must* have a lesser level of ability, be it their accent that you do not like or some other non-issue.
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:2)
I went to 10 grade in technical magnet West Virginia. Where deer hunting was more popular than computers. This was back in '86 we had dual disk drives IBM pc's. First year was BASIC second year was pascal. Third year was advanced PASCAL. There were probably 15-20 people in programming class.
My parents moved to New York I went to a elite public HS where the CS classes sucked(CS was a vocation class???) while the engineering classes (yes, pneumatics,etc) and JK Flip-flops were considered the best in the nation(at least the state of New York).
May want to rethink your rant
Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, while I don't know what kind of studies there are for it, the best way of "having a child learn", is when they learn for themselves.
Teachers necessarily can't know how to talk to a brick wall effectively, yet that's exactly what we bring generation after generation up as.
In com sci classes at least, the people that require tutors, generally don't do well; requiring spoon-feeding and "can't you just do my project for me". Those that get deep into the material on their own can often ace at least introductory course-work (com sci can definitely be a mind bender, especially when dealing with number theory).
The key is motivation. If you are unmotivated when you meet a person, you may remember little about them. Names are most famous: Many people (myself included) are already pessimistic about being able to remember hair/eye-color, names, etc. so I don't bother paying much attention when I meet someone.. Sure enough, it's a self fullfilling prophesy.
People going to computer or math classes with such pessimism have little chance of succeeding (regardless of their background deficiencies).
In my life, I've found that having desirable projects that happen to require learning a lot about a given topic affords an ample amount of motivation. In science, I crave sci-fi concepts; I want to understand them so I could possibly invent something new. With computers, I develop overwhelmingly complex goals (on the MRPG scale). Thus virtually every aspect of science, math and computer skills have been on my "I need to know" list.
Conversely, I haven't found such motivators for history, art, music, literature, so I only give those subjects a necessarily passing glance. (Though at some point I developed an appreciation for the story-telling nature of history).
While being totally non scientific (effective sample pool of 1), I still see such trends, and believe that inspiring your children in the single best way to teach them.
The trick is of course, how to inspire. And how do you avoid making a project obviously contrived to the point of frustration.
Educational software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Educational software (Score:4, Insightful)
Facing the facts: 90% of those using these computers are not going to be software developers, engineers, or sysadmins. Most of these kids are going to go out and work for relatively little money. They're going to need basic computer skills, and for corporate america, this means familiarity with MS Office.
Putting "Familiarity with Open Office" on a resume is fine if you're a sysadmin, but it won't get you very far if you're trying to work for a company that uses MS software, as most do.
Re:Educational software (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense, the decision to hire someone has a lot more to do with than what software they're famaliar with. I know that sounds crazy to some geeks, but if you're doing hiring based soley on whether Jane knows Outlook, Notes, Pine or just Hotmail then your company is in deeper trouble than any commercial software package can fix. Your post also ignores the fact that most office software can be learned in an afternoon and the user can be brought up to the level of intermediate user if not expert in a couple weeks of real use.
You can't have it both ways. Either commercial software is easier to use than OSS thus making learning easier or you're admitting that commercial software has no real benefits over OSS.
Secondly, being exposed to a typical office app or a browser regardless of brand is more than enough to teach someone "computers." If you can use Moz you can use IE. If you can use Open Office you can use any office software.
Your post sounds like another justification to do whatever the market is doing regardless of costs. "So what if we have to cut the arts and science budget, people are using MS!!" There are priorities in education and teaching the latest and greatest and most expensive is simply unrealistic.
Even in CS this problem is pretty non-existant. A school can teach new CS students Java for nothing or they can open their pockets, raise tution, etc and buy a copy of VB for everyone. If you know Java then learning VB is cake.
Re:Educational software (Score:4, Interesting)
COMPLETELY dependant on the HR person in companies big enough to have those, which I think the original poster probably had in mind.
I know that sounds crazy to some geeks, but if you're doing hiring based soley on whether Jane knows Outlook, Notes, Pine or just Hotmail then your company is in deeper trouble than any commercial software package can fix.
Most companies ARE in deep trouble when it comes to effectively dealing with technology.
Your post also ignores the fact that most office software can be learned in an afternoon and the user can be brought up to the level of intermediate user if not expert in a couple weeks of real use.
HR people don't care. Many don't know much themselves about the ins and outs of computers, and generally don't assume anyone else can learn past what they know.
I tried using a headhunter agency once to find me a job. I didn't have 'CGI' on my resume, just Perl and Python and PHP and a few others. He said I wouldn't get hired anywhere. I took 30 seconds to explain that CGI was effectively shorthand for someone who knew Perl or something like that. Didn't get an interview, didn't get called back, never returned calls, etc. I'd insulted him by showing him up, even though I was trying to help him more effectively do his job, which was keeping up with technological buzzwords.
Re:Educational software (Score:2, Insightful)
I work in a 2000 student K-12 public school district; the poster is exactly right.
GradeQuick, Accelerated Reader, CCC/Successmaker, NovaNet, to name a few Windows titles. Our statewide student/financial management APSCN software [k12.ar.us] is Windows only also. When the computers we buy come with Windows, the educational software is written for windows....
If you don't know of any titles, please don't argue against computers in the classroom
"kids need to be on a console or reading books", not using a gui, blah blah, either. That may be true, but it doesn't answer the fact that there is little in the way of enterprise educational software for Linux.
With the budget cutbacks we've seen the past year, we're always looking to save money. We are using Linux as our mail server and for some proxy firewall applications, but on the teachers' desktops and in the student labs, we need some quality Linux educational software solutions before something like swithing over is a reality.
Re:Educational software (Score:2)
Everyone agrees that the desktop and the server are very different environments, don't use arguments suitable for one when discussing the other.
Re:Educational software (Score:2)
What did I learn?
I learned about math, logic, problem solving. I learned about doing things in an orderly manner. I learned how to program in Basic.
What has that helped me?
Put any piece of software in front of me with a halfway decent manual and I'll know more about it than most people would get out of a training session on the software.
Teaching people how to use MS Office when they are scared out of their minds that they'll break something doesn't make them computer users. It makes them comfortable.
I say that everyone who uses a computer should have a basic understanding of how the things work.
Just like everyone should know how a car works before driving.
Generally speaking you should have an idea of what you are doing before you do it.
What next, give people pilots licenses because they've flown MS Flight Simulator? Pilots know way more about how a plane works before they even get their license than the general population knows about how cars work.
Stop being afraid!
Seeming Repetitivness of /. Articles (Score:4, Insightful)
Apologies to those who don't like this idea, but it seems like there have been a lot of "we saved x dollars by switch to linux" or "we lost x dollars by using commercial software."
So it seems kinda pointless to keep stating the obvious over and over again.
Just my $.02
neurostarbut (Score:2, Funny)
religion needs profits (Score:2, Insightful)
I can now say, look other people are doing it, I'm not a freek any more.
Re:Seeming Repetitivness of /. Articles (Score:2)
Re:Seeming Repetitivness of /. Articles (Score:2)
But let's remember that just a few years ago there weren't *ANY* articles like this. You need some way to measure how well you're doing, and this is one.
True. It is just my opinion that they are starting to get old and repetitive.
neurostarIt's a great idea, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2)
Is it better to train/indoctrine kids with one brand of software? Or expose them to multiple brands and variations, so they learn to think and are able to adapt to newer or different software?
I crige everytime I hear someone say they only know MS Word. It's not all that hard to learn how wordprocessors work, and then it's easy to understand that there is a format menu w/ Character and paragraph formatting. Every word processor I've seen has this same concept.
Open Source gives students an oppertunity to learn to think about how a computer works. School is supposed to teach kids to think, and not just memorize.
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2)
On the one hand, Sun spread "back in the day" by getting good coverage in college CS departments, which led to new hires driving purchasing decisions once they left school. Sometimes the real world is what the schools were 5 years ago.
On the other hand, Apple's been trying that for 20 years and getting nowhere.
we shouldn't forsake the kids' futures for the sake of indoctrination.
You didn't go to school in the US, did you?
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
I would have to disagree with you that commerical software is what we need to teach our nation's children. Software keeps changing and people need to relearn features for the new version. So why should we teach students a specific commerical software package that will change by the time they get to the real world? I don't want our English teacher training students on Word XX to create their term paper because that's what the real world uses. Learning how to do a term paper at this point probably involves a word processor, so there may be lab time that the students get hands on time with a one. Does it really matter that they used an open source word processor as apposed to the one from Microsoft? Learning the basics of a word processor or a spreadsheet program should translate to other versions be they open source or commerical. We should teach students to do things not use products that will be obsolete in the near future.
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2)
Cost savings of open source software in the server room
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2)
(shudders convulsively remembering teaching college freshmen how to use a non-AOL browser to search...)
And we all know that it's so much more beneficial to 'know Word' than it is to 'know how to use a word processor', except that your knowledge of Word only applies to one version, since Microsoft's most apparent changes are to move things around in the menus between revs. (which then completely obsoletes all user manuals or instruction materials you may have at your school)
--mandi
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe you are not thinking this out completely. By the time the kids entering the job market, whichever specific software package they happened to use in school will be obsoleted or morphed beyond recognition. In fact, your argument only stands if we assume the students can not or will not learn beyond that which they were taught in school. Were this true, most of us would not be able to hold a job today; technology would have already overrun us.
The important point is that we need to teach the principles and techniques of computer use, not any particular software package. OSS is quite well suited to teaching how to use a computer, word processing, programming or almost any other computer based task. Why spend more money?
School is for LEARNING not TRAINING (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:2)
Re:It's a great idea, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Web browsers? For 95% of what 95% of people do, there's no difference. Type the URL in the address bar, click on the links, and hit the Forward/Back buttons. Anyone who is kind of familiar with IE will understand Mozilla pretty well.
Word processors? OpenOffice behaves much like MS Office. There are quirks, of course. But to say that someone who has been using OO will be "unable to compete" with all those knowledgable Office users, or that an OO kid will fall on her face when presented with Office, is absolutely silly.
We can also claim to be effectively at parity regarding mail clients (Outlook/Evolution) and desktops, if you take it to mean that a person using one would have a pretty good idea what to do with the other.
You could argue that, when you get into the power user range, there's a lot of knowledge that just doesn't flow freely between the proprietary and open software worlds. So what? Teaching such skills to anyone prior to the 9th grade is a waste of time anyways.
My firm opinion is that teaching computer skills to youngsters (excluding strong typing skills and a few "this is what the mouse does" basics) is a horribly ineffective proposition. For example, for the cost of about twenty middle-of-the-line computers, you could fully fund a music program. The only difference is, half of the instruments will still be usable in five years.
I've also got strong reservations about most of what passes for "education software" these days. Aside from mostly being poorly conceived, poorly written, and badly matched to the end-user's skill level, when a kid is playing on it he's not getting the human interaction that should be a vital part of his education.
Agreed. Indoctrinating kids to any particular agenda is bad. But we do it all the time. If we provide a "Windows only" school, we're promoting a Microsoftian agenda. If Coca-Cola or Nike pays to place banners around the school, we're promoting their agenda. If we teach evolution in schools (or refuse to), we're promoting the agenda of one entity or another.
In the case of computer software, it shouldn't be about teaching "computer skills" which most adults could pick up in a one week crash course. At best, we should be looking at ways to use technology to aid learning about other subjects. We should also be open to the possibility that the technology is actually interfering with education. More below.
My response: Teach neither. Get technology out of the classroom.
The year I got to Junior High (1989) was the first year the "Channel One" fiasco started. Our already terminal attention spans were ratcheted down a couple more notches by all the fast, pretty pictures, vacuous (but good looking) "reporters," and manipulative commercials. Plus, thanks to the suddenly ubiquitous classroom televisions, it became much easier for teachers to integrate "multimedia" into the curriculum. Trust me, for every hour I spent in high school watching something intellectually mind-blowing, there were a good three or four hours of questionable videos.
Oh, and don't even start me on the number of hours I spent cooling my heels while the teacher tried to figure out what was wrong with the blasted equipment. I remember a geometry class (the hour before mine) where the teacher spent literally a third of her time fussing with cranky "telecourse" equipment. She didn't have the choice not to, because she was responsible for teaching a group of twelve kids located a hundred miles away.
In order for technology to be useful in the classroom, it has to be reliable and intuitive enough that it practically blends into the background. It also has to be cheap enough that we're not dipping into other, more important resources in order to obtain it. At the moment, many of the things people are trying to do in the education field are too intrusive and too expensive to be justified.
Okay, I'm probably being too harsh on many points. But thanks for letting me rant.
server room vs classroom (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this will probably just have the effect of freeing up $27,000 for windows machines in the classroom.
Re:server room vs classroom (Score:2)
Of course, this will probably just have the effect of freeing up $27,000 for windows machines in the classroom.
What Open Source software would you suggest for a Kindergarten or First Grade classroom?
There's a tremendous opportunity for Open Source software in the educational market, where budgets are always tight. The problem is that there are few (if any) apps that would be appropriate for the lower grade levels. I'm talking about age appropriate programs that will help young children learn the letters of the alphabet, or the names of the basic shapes, or improve basic reading and arithmetic skills. These are commercial apps that run under Windows or MAC OS. I am not talking about pure entertainment games.
Many people complain about the use of commercial operating systems such as Windows in schools, but what choice is there? Perhaps the best interim solution would be to try to get some of the existing educational apps to run under Linux or Lindows. Is anyone working on this? If not, then stop complaining.
I wonder (Score:2, Interesting)
The Other View (Score:2, Interesting)
I was at work a bit ago, trying to convince a company to switch from a commercial product to an open source project. We're talking a giant app cost difference (well over $100k), and very small difference in efficiency. Open source was as reliable, as maintainable, and cheaper.
What was I told? First of all, politics (partnership with the company) is more important than cost, but the biggest issue was that SUPPORT was a bigger issue than cost.
Sure, switching all your windows boxes over to linux saves you $25k. But what happens if you run into a road block? You ahve to either hire or contract in someone to fix it.
Lets face it. Windows support is a lot cheaper than linux (unless you have someone hired on that just asks questions to newsgroups).
Yeah, going with linux is good, but don't forget the baggage associated with it.
Re:The Other View (Score:4, Insightful)
but the biggest issue was that SUPPORT was a bigger issue than cost
Support is available with Linux and Open Source.
For the distro itself, all of the major vendors offer support, as do specialized shops like Ximian.
You can find commercial support for applications too - StarOffice and Apache come to mind as examples.
You can also find commercial support for development tools and libraries. Most of the BSD/LGPL libraries I use as a closed-source software developer have commercial support available for them.
Windows support is a lot cheaper than linux
Maybe you can hire an MCSE for less than a competent Linux admin; I don't know. However, given the prevalence of Linux certification courses and the general downturn in the tech economy, I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a Linux admin for a reasonable salary.
As for other support costs - price out what per-incident and contract support costs are for Linux distros and Open Source applications. I think you'll find they are right in line with their closed-source counterparts.
I too have saved a lot of money (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly, this does make it possible for the BSA to close us down, but the fact is, that they will not get anything from us. We're a not for profit organisation. They know that if they sue us they'll suffer from so much bad publicity that it's not worth it. They'll not get any money from us. We have none.
It would be nice if they prosecuted. We would use as our defence that we have a licence since I clicked "I agree" when it was installed. We may then be able to prosecute them if they caused damage. Not that we'll get a lot of money. The BSA is a non-profit.
The roadblock to open-source... (Score:2)
OSS in the classrom should be everywhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) because it saves time and work in keeping track of windows licenses.
2) because it actually teaches children about computers, rather than just about GUIs and what can be done on them. When all the low-level things are done in the background, its no wonder the average american doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does aside from kill all their data.
3) teaches troubleshooting. Using nothing but windows, you'll never realize how much easier it is to use a command line tool for something simple.
4) provides compilers and development environments for those who are adept enough to care to use them
5) difficult for learning students to bring down the whole computer from a user-class account
6) it's free, and provides alternatives to almost anything that can be done under windows that they'll need to do in anything but very specific areas (which will catch up with time anyway).
7) UNIX is time-tested as a style of environment. Windows is controlled by the whims of the market.
There are others, but that pretty much covers the basics. Anything I missed, besides:
8: PROFIT!!!!
Re:OSS in the classrom should be everywhere. (Score:3, Insightful)
And in other news, drivers ed classes will now require that student rebuild an engine.
Re:OSS in the classrom should be everywhere. (Score:2)
It would be nice if it did... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with teaching and expecting someone to know more about what makes the tools they use everyday work (and I shudder to think what it would have cost me to get a new booster and master cylinder installed in my truck at a shop - I did it in about 3 hours last Sunday, for the cost of parts - pretty simple job, actually).
Re:DOS in the classrom should be everywhere. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) because it saves time and work in keeping track of windows licenses.
While this may have been true in the pre win2k server days, using group policies you can really keep a handle on both OS and application licenses. Don't want a student installing that warezed copy of photoshop? Make a group policy, Only want the art computers to have photoshop? Make a group policy.
2) because it actually teaches children about computers, rather than just about GUIs and what can be done on them. When all the low-level things are done in the background, its no wonder the average american doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does aside from kill all their data.
So if I use a dos boot disk and type "format c:
3) teaches troubleshooting. Using nothing but windows, you'll never realize how much easier it is to use a command line tool for something simple.
From my experience on the corporate lan, %85 of all trouble tickets go to outlook/exchange issues, %10 to network issues, and the other %5 go to hardware issues. So if you took outlook/exchange out of the loop and just dealt with the other %15 your troubleshooting methods would be the same on a windows machine as they are a linux box.
[on the network]
Open up a shell/dos prompt. Ping that router, ping that nameserver, do a NSlookup.
[hardware]
jiggle that card, make sure that ram is seated correctly, make sure cables are plugged in where they supposed to be, smell for smoke
So basically you learn the same either way. The most basic networking tools exist on both platforms.
4) provides compilers and development environments for those who are adept enough to care to use them
You mean GCC? Here you can get it for windows too http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html#windows
5) difficult for learning students to bring down the whole computer from a user-class account
I'll go back to my first point with group policies on that one.
6) it's free, and provides alternatives to almost anything that can be done under windows that they'll need to do in anything but very specific areas (which will catch up with time anyway).
I spent a month on RH8, i've got to say, it sucked for a desktop. Sure I love using it for a router and the website im in charge of uses it (check my sig) for a desktop it just plain sucks (didn't we have a discussion on this last week?) Sure there is open source alternatives (Read GIMP) but gimp isn't professional grade yet, it doesn't do CYMK seperations. Kids need to learn whats in the real world, real world desktops use windows.
7) UNIX is time-tested as a style of environment. Windows is controlled by the whims of the market.
So unix is like a stubborn child and windows does what the parents want?
Like I said before, i'm not trying to dis linux/unix in any way, but it's still not ready for primetime. If you wanted to give kids an insight into unix, get a bunch of macs with OSX. Then that way you can give them the best of both worlds.
More Information? (Score:2, Interesting)
open source in the classroom (Score:2, Interesting)
Harrisonburg is SMALL.... (Score:3, Insightful)
My experience with school migration (Score:5, Interesting)
I just moved the desktops over to Red Hat (I can't remember the version, but the kernel was 2.4.x), and installed free development utilitiies. OpenOffice wasn't really "there" yet, so I used Star Office. With the ability to lock down the machines efficiently (something difficult to impossible to do with Windows), the Novell client licenses were no longer needed. OpenBSD became their server. Voila, absolutely zero dollars were spent on licenses or new hardware. I billed them a measly $475 for my trouble (I used to work there, so I cut them some major slack. Besides, I really wanted to win one for the Linux crowd).
The downside: my pay had to come under the table, because the state was so locked for funds they were not allowed to out source - even though they were still allowed to visit their local MS salesman and blow $30,000. Go figure. In the end, the manager just told the brass that his admin had thought it all up. :)
Linux isn't an option. (Score:4, Insightful)
The kind of money they're talking about is not that much in terms of the total cost of having all the computers. The big costs have nothing to do with Windows licenses. They have to do with network infrastructure, paying people to maintain the hardware and software, and keeping the hardware current.
The other problem is that the faculty and administrators want the machines at work to use the same OS they're used to using at home. That means Windows for 95% of them, and MacOS for 5%. I don't know a single person besides myself on my campus who uses Linux at home. It's hard enough to convince them to support MacOS.
There's also the problem of unavailability of the relevant applications.
Funniest part of parent post (Score:2)
:P
I went to a K-20 roundtable discussion on RH tour (Score:5, Interesting)
They've got these computers scattered all throughout the school, all running linux. The art dept uses gimp for photos, etc. But their core apps are really a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, email & web. The beauty is, their elementry school is connected to the same network. Students get their account & homedir in 4th grade and it follows them until they graduate.
They can do much more interesting things with these networks, offer better classes w/ more technical focuses with everything they have. They don't need to worry about forking out several $k for licenses for certain software just to teach programming concepts, administration, etc...
This is exactly the kind of school I want my kids to grow up in, and if I don't end up homeschooling them, I'll do whatever it takes to get them in this one.
Major problems with article (Score:2)
One other thing, why is Samba listed as an expense? Presumably if you were going with a Windoze solution you wouldn't need it? Do they have other non Windoze boxes that currently don't connect to existing Windoze boxes that going with Windoze with force them to purchase Samba?
All these things call cast into doubt the accuracy of his article. If he'd at least list the "commerical" packages, then one could make a truely educated attempt at determining the "real" cost savings.
Gosh, what a surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about a lot more than the up front costs. His pricing is simplistic and the writeup, pardon me for saying, but sophmoric, at best and doesn't apply to a number of other real-life situatins.
How much is support going to cost? Are you going to have in-house experts? How much are they going to cost compared to the people who don't have to be as smart to run the equivalent Windows software?
There are a lot of other fringe areas that need to be considered to come up with a true lifetime cost for software, and this doesn't even scratch the surface.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Open Source. I love my Open Office and I'm having a blast with Linux. But I'm a geek.
Someone else mentioned the fact that most real-world companies use commercial software and these kids won't have experience with it. Good point.
Sorry, but this is hardly a booster for Open Source. This is like saying, "People save money by shopping during a sale." Not exactly news.
Re:Gosh, what a surprise (Score:2)
A Gnome or KDE interface is not so foreign that it takes any real time in training. Here is how you start a web browser, here is how you start openoffice.
I know that webmail "Like TWIG" is pretty hard to learn, but I think they would get over it.
Counter arguments. (Score:2)
If you consider a dual MP with 2GB ram outdate I guess this could be true. That's about what it takes to withstand the
Jokes a side. The article fails to mention the anti OSS advocats main argument, TCO. I am a strong support of OSS, but I don't think anyone can claim that OSS has a $0 TCO. The article should have mentioned that keeping a healthy system for someone without a Linux guru or extensive IT dep. requiers outside consultans, and support is always useful. In addition training of personell requires relatively heavy investment. OSS stands out and is by many conceived as harder to learn than software that follow the MS standards that tey're used to. The $27,000 is therefor IMHO a bit to high.
On the other hand I believe this is outweighted by the (almost) $0 upgrade costs - user interfaces and basis funcitonallity rarely change - the more-for-the-money argument and the no-bloated-window-managing-for-servers argument.
A sound discussion on economical benefits of OSS should always include counter arguments. One angled articles are hard to take serious.
In case of slashdotting here's the text (Score:2, Redundant)
in the server room
An informal case study in K-12 education
1. What is open source software?
2. Listing of open source software used
3. Cost savings versus capabilities gained
4. Implicit savings in hardware
5. Other implicit cost savings
1. Security
2. Lower virus vulnerability
3. Upgrade costs
6. The roadblock to using open source software
7. A big thanks to OSS developers
1. What is open source software?
It is often difficult for people to understand that some of the most secure, reliable, and efficient software in the world is not owned by a company but rather is under an open license. Open source software is software that was developed with the source code freely available to the public. Anyone may download and use the software, and make changes to it as necessary, with the hope that any improvements made by individuals will be committed back to the main source tree so that everyone can benefit from the modifications.
While this may sound like a strange way to develop software, it is surprisingly common and effective. For instance, in October 2002, SourceForge.net (a site that offers free hosting for open software development projects) reached the milestone of hosting 50,000 open source projects with over 500,000 registered developers. Many people who, if asked, could only name two operating systems would be staggered to learn how many free and open source complete operating systems exist in the world (and that there are several free OS's that could run on the very hardware you're reading this web page with).
Although few people in my school division know what Linux is, every one of them uses it indirectly every day. Open source software has a particularly appropriate niche in budget-strapped public education institutions. This document aims to describe the benefits that Harrisonburg City Public Schools has reaped from the deployment of open source software in its server rooms.
2. Listing of open source software used
While certainly not comprehensive, the list below contains a large sample of the free software products that we employ in HCPS. I have attempted to estimate the cost of replacing these free software installations with commercial products. It should be noted that in some cases my estimations are really just wild guesses as to the cost of various commercial solutions. As a general rule I have tried to estimate on the conservative side. Another thing to note is that commercial solutions for a number of the products below often come bundled as one product, making it very difficult to assign individual replacement costs to the items. For instance, most commercial mail server solutions bundle an SMTP server and an IMAP server together while the open source community's philosophy is to create one product for each discrete function.
Software Estimated cost of
commercial solution
Linux distributions
Red Hat Linux
Linux distribution for i386 (PC) hardware $150 x 17 = $2550
YellowDog Linux
Linux distribution for PowerPC (Macintosh) hardware $130 x 5 = $650
Web server software
Apache
The most widely used web server on the internet $500 x 6 = $3000
PHP
Server-side web scripting language $700 x 5 = $3500
MySQL
Structured Query Language database server $500 x 3 = $1500
phpMyAdmin
Powerful web-based database administration tool $100 x 3 = $300
DataMiner
User-friendly web-based interface for managing database content $50 x 12 = $600
ht://Dig
WWW Search Engine Software $200 x 1 = $200
Outreach Project Tool
Web-based group project collaboration environment $500 x 1 = $500
Phorum
Web-based forum/message board software $100 x 1 = $100
Mail server software
Sendmail
Internet standard MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) $150 x 1 = $150
UW IMAP
University of Washington IMAP/POP3 mail server $150 x 1 = $150
OpenLDAP
LDAP server for intregrated authentication and directory services $200 x 2 = $400
MailMan
Full-featured mailing list manager $150 x 1 = $150
Horde Groupware
Web-based email, address book, and calendaring software $500 x 1 = $500
Firewalling/Routing software
netfilter/iptables
Stateful IP filtering system $1000 x 2 = $2000
Cross-platform file server software
Samba
File server for Windows clients $800 x 4 = $3200
Netatalk
File server for Macintosh clients $500 x 7 = $3500
Other network server products
ISC BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Daemon)
Internet standard DNS server $100 x 9 = $900
ISC DHCP
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server $100 x 8 = $800
WU-FTPD
FTP server software $50 x 3 = $150
NTPd
Network Time Protocol server for synchronization of computer clocks $50 x 4 = $200
Squid
HTTP caching proxy server $200 x 2 = $400
rsync
Incremental backup solution $50 x 12 = $600
Network management and monitoring
MRTG (Multi-Router Traffic Grapher)
Monitors traffic on switches and routers a lot x 3 = 3 lots
Nagios
Monitors servers and routers and notifies me of outages via email $300 x 1 = $300
Ethereal
Network analysis and packet sniffing tool $1000 x 1 = $1000
sntop
Monitors network connectivity $30 x 1 = $30
LanLord
Monitors leases on DHCP servers Bundled with
commercial products
Webalizer
Web server statistics reporting tool Bundled with
commercial products
Analog
Web server statistics reporting tool Bundled with
commercial products
The list above comprises about $27,000 of (roughly) estimated cost savings in software purchases for HCPS.
3. Cost savings versus capabilities gained
The commercial replacement cost of the free software that we currently use is obviously very high. However, if I were forced to deploy commercial solutions for all of the above, you could probably guess that I would trim back what we needed to buy significantly. For instance, if it cost me $1000 per web server for the server OS and web server software, you can bet that I wouldn't be running six web servers in my server room like I am now. Rather, I would cut back and only run one or perhaps two web servers. This makes it apparent that not all of the benefit of open source software deployment in is the form of cost savings; much of the benefit is in terms of capabilities gained. In other words, through the use of free software, I am able to do more within my budget than I could if I only had commercial solutions available.
4. Implicit savings in hardware
Linux can do a lot with only a little hardware. Here in HCPS we have a number of Linux servers running on hardware that would be inadequate for commercial server solutions such as Windows 2000 or Mac OS X. For instance, the web server that served this web page to you is running on an old, retired PC that has been recycled after its lifetime as a Windows desktop has passed. If I were to use Microsoft's IIS server software or Apple's Mac OS X, I would not have considered using this piece of hardware as a web server, and I would have needed to buy new hardware. By enabling me to reuse otherwise useless hardware, open source operating systems have saved our school division a considerable amount of money in hardware costs.
To provide a very rough figure on these cost savings, I estimate that I am currently running 11 Linux servers with hardware that would be inadequate for doing the same job with a commercial solution. To replace those servers with new hardware could easily cost well over $25,000.
5. Other implicit cost savings
1. Security
Many companies put a lot of effort into monetary assessments of the liabilities of security risks on their networks. Such cost assessment is not as common in public education but nevertheless the possibilities for such costs exist and should not be ignored. If my installations of open source server software are more secure than a commercial alternative (and I believe they are, although a discussion of security issues is beyond the scope of this document), then we have a lower risk of losing data or productive staff time needed to clean up after a security breach.
2. Lower virus vulnerability
I am not qualified to provide a full analysis of virus vulnerabilities of various server operating systems, but I think everyone would agree that historically open source OS's have fared far better than... ahem... other operating systems. The HCPS technology staff spends a fair amount of valuable time combatting viruses on our client PC's but a virus infection on a network server can be devastating in terms of data loss, down time, and staff time required for reconstruction. Open source servers that are less vulnerable to virus infections provide cost savings in terms of decreased liability in these areas.
3. Upgrade or recurring licensing costs
The cost of a software solution is not merely the purchase price of the software. The usable lifetime of a commercial software product is rarely longer than 4 years, but where server software products are concerned I would contend that the lifetime is even less -- perhaps only 2 years on average. At this point one must purchase a newer product or an upgrade to the existing one. With open source software, updates are continually free, and I am able to keep my servers running the latest software versions without having to worry about whether I can afford the upgrade.
6. The roadblock to using open source software
So you're probably thinking, "If open source software saves people so much money, why isn't everyone using it?" Two words: learning curve. For people who are used to point-and-click administration of their servers, open source software is often bewilderingly complex to install and configure. I'll admit that you have to be somewhat of a geek to even try out an open source operating system such as Linux. The learning curve that must be followed by a first-time Linux user can be very time consuming and frustrating. For many, especially in public education, this difficulty constitutes a roadblock to the deployment of open source solutions in their district.
7. A big thanks to OSS developers
As you have seen from the informal analysis on this page, I (and indeed my school division) owe a huge "thank you" to the thousands of developers and other people involved in open source software projects.
Copyright 2002
Rob Lineweaver
Last Modified: Friday, October 25, 2002 Product names on this page
may be copyrighted by their respective owners
...and the possibility to craft tailored software (Score:2)
I have to plug Openchallenge [openchallenge.org] as this is one key part of the message to the schools & teachers: if you have some specific need for educational software - submit it to Openchallenge [openchallenge.org] - maybe it builds enough effort for making that software a reality. I believe there is lots of "niche" software needed in education too - atleast I remember crafting a few pieces of software for my mom who was a teacher - there just was not the software for these purposes, and it was possible for me (with no magic skills) to craft it during a few evenings, when I was around 14-16 years old.
At my son's school it goes like this... (Score:4, Interesting)
For the most part the kids loved it, and they were so curious what the software was that could actually replace the great beast. Some of them thought it ran ontop of Windows. BTW - the kids are in 4th grade.
So I left them with the disks for RH7.3 and now they get a kick out of installing RedHat over the XP disks they had paid for, and vice-versa. It's quite funny, but now they're learning how to replace the OSes back forth (for practice I 'spoze). I'm thinking of going in to show them more - dual boots, other things they can do w/ it.
The real funny part is that my son said that a couple of kids got in an argument over what OS was better than the other, available s/w, games - etc. I think it's quite funny. Good think it didn't come to blows!
Somthing that should be noted... (Score:4, Interesting)
considering... (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source Savings (Score:2)
This creates a problem in the public school system in that public education is supposed to teach individuals useful skills. Unfortunately, if kids are taught open source software, they are going to be at a significant disadvantage entering the job market than individuals who have been taught how to use Microsoft products. As nice as it would be to see these individuals converting companies over to Open Source solutions, it's not terribly likely.
So, in my opinion it would be reasonable to teach kids both, but if you're only going to use one type of software, use what The Real World (tm) [No affiliation with MTV] uses. Teaching software, languages, and other things that the average joe never uses in the Real World gives the public school system a bad reputation from the very people who attend it.
Getting sucked in (Score:5, Insightful)
For us, we are so locked into MS right now - the licensing fees are unbelievable. Servers, Cals, Office, Mail, etc cost us around 30K per year. In one recent example of price schemes - Office 97 and Pub 97 were separate packages (we didn't get Pub). For Office 2000 MS combined them and you got Pub for free. Office 2002 - they yank Pub back out (nice bait and switch!) and it costs an additional $5 per seat (5x1000+ pcs) We opted out and decided not be jerked around like that. We are a very technologically robust district with a computer at every teacher's desk and 1 to 5 computers in each classroom for student use, plus labs, libraries and tech ed rooms. In addition to the MS licensing, we have a huge investment in educational software and various databases to run the district. Our student pop is around 4000. Our anti-virus alone runs us 10K a year, plus firewall and citrix 10/10. There's more. I am stunned at how much we spend, versus starting with a meager 100K budget for everything, several years ago. We need our enterprise antivirus and firewall. We need our student information database and electronic libraries. But we were sucked into the MS spiral out-of-control licensing. We have invested years of training students and staff and administrators. It is very difficult to switch now. If I were starting fresh, I'd switch to free/open in a heartbeat.
I've been thinking for some time now... (Score:4, Interesting)
One guy in particular single-handedly killed an implementation of the Linux Terminal Server Project [ltsp.org] at the high school with a relentless barage of FUD..
t_t_b
Money is not the only issue (Score:2, Insightful)
In CA in 1997, the state legislature passed a bill to put a computer in every classroom by 2001. Most high schools took advantage of the program only to have the supplemental money for support, training, and licensing (ie: tithes to the church of MS). Of course there are no warranties on the hardware, the support staff has been let go, and nobody has any plans to fix it.
What about Apple? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Support? (Score:5, Insightful)
The open source community typically provides much better online support than closed source, and you can still purchase support from RedHat et al, if it is needed. So support is really a non-issue, at least in my book.
Re:Support? (Score:2)
Sure, it's easy to learn Linux if you care. Most of teachers won't -- they don't have the time, nor the economic incentive to get into Linux administration. Maybe if you promised to channel that $27k into 100 raises for every employee...but then again, $100 isn't much of an incentive, either.
Re:Support? (Score:5, Funny)
Funny, I was never told to RTFM when I asked for commercial support.
No, you were likely just asked for a credit card number.
Re:Support? (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I was never told to RTFM when I asked for commercial support.
I doubt anyone offering commercial support of closed or open source software would tell you to RTFM.
With the free support you get online, you are just as likely to get a "RTFM" from a Microsoft newsgroup/IRC channel as you are from a Linux one. Such is life with unmoderated public forums.
The open source community direly needs to lose the punks for it to be reliable for education and commercial support.
Yeah, because those "punks" are the same ones running companies who charge for commercial support of open source. Get real. Have you ever paid for commercial support of an open source product? It works just like closed-source support - a professional providing a support service for a fee, not some jackoff in an IRC channel.
Re:Support? (Score:4, Informative)
if ANYONE thinks that just because you bought a program form a store means you get magical free technical support they are disillusional mential cases..
Microsoft support is MORE expensive than redhat support. Qcad support is MORE expensive than eaglecad support (and eaglecad is not open source!)
support costs are equal or less for open source
I am so sick and tired of this lie touted by Microsoft Fanatics who have no clue.. Me? I can show you the invoices for 1 year of technical support from both microsoft and redhat... guess which one was cheaper...
Re:$27,000? (Score:2, Interesting)
It should be noted that in some cases my estimations are really just wild guesses as to the cost of various commercial solutions.
Add to this the fact that he estimated a seperate cost for the OS and the web server, when IIS is included with NT
Re:$27,000? (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh....look around you. All those people using Windows and Office now, 98% of them have never had any training whatsoever. Most of 'em can't even type, though significantly more of them can type than can, say, use fdisk or regedit. They don't know the first thing about how to actually run these programs. If they need to learn an unfamiliar program, they co-pilot it with an experienced user, who probably did the same thing to learn it themselves.
I spent 30 minutes setting up screensavers with a user yesterday. Part of it was fun, but the other part was helping her become a little more familiar with the UI.
I do think it would be nice if people got some training in Microsoft products. But then Microsoft changes everything aroudn with each major release. Look at the XP desktop compared to the 2000 desktop; they're so different. The taskbar behaves completely differently now, etc. etc. So even if they do learn it in school, that knowledge will be semi-useless in two or five years.
Oh, wait, you were joking. Ha ha. Nevermind.
Re:$27,000? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In order to help us non-US readers: (Score:2, Informative)
K-12 means Kindergarten thru 12th grade which is schooling for kids, roughly, from ages 6 thru 17, or 7 thru 18, depending on what part of the year you were born. Many schools consider the 7 years of K-6 (K, 1-6) as elementary school, 7-8 (or 6-8) as middle school, and 9-12 as high school.
A lot of schools outside of the US don't have middle schoool.
Ever wondered why you have a lot of younger foreign classmates in college here in America? Or how an immigrant with all their degress is under 22 years old. Now you know a possible reason.
Re:variety (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with that thought. However, I know a few non-technical people who would argue the opposite:
I am sure these same people would think it was a good idea that the kids learn to use m$ office because that's what everyone else uses.
My kids are going to learn on UNIX!
Re:variety (Score:2)
You have never been the one who has to clean up after those sort of antics, are you? It's all about doing something you aren't supposed to. I bet if you had asked nicely first the teacher would have helped you do it. Any student in the bios or any command line without prior permission is automatically in trouble. Not too many of the kids who want to see the bios messages do so because of mere intellectual curiosity, eh.