Robert Pogson

I have two conflicting views on top-down decisions in organizations like schools:

1. sometimes the PHB messes up everything, or
2. sometimes it’s necessary to break things.

School’s out on this one, literally. The UK is commanding a new curriculum in high school: More on a deeper understanding of how computers work and less on running non-Free software like that other OS, its office suite, PhotoShop ^TM etc. That makes sense to me. Throwing a bunch of teachers off the end of the dock to teach them to swim is doubtful. That technique works for technological sponges like me but good teachers who have been “preparing students for the workplace” may or may not do a good job of getting down to basics.

I rejoiced when the Western Canadian Provinces got together and revised the maths curriculum to use computers and calculators in teaching. I had been using computers in that role for 25 years but most teachers had never done it. They took two years of “professional development” to indoctrinate the teachers. The UK has given the teachers just months for radical change. I predict “uneven” results…

In ICT courses in Canada I have always been giving students the basics. I stretched “how to sit at a PC and turn it on” into disassembly/reassembly of ATX PCs with nomenclature and on-line shopping for parts… Instead of teaching them how to use M$’s office suite, I gave students a list of tasks to do with five different office suites and asked them to compare ease and performance. Instead of teaching students 300 features of Excel ^TM, I gave them real-world problems that could be solved several ways with spreadsheets and computer programming and had them learn the kinds of things that were better done with different methods. I exposed students to several spreadsheets and, yes, paper and pencil… Instead of limiting students to one PC with one hard drive, I showed them what they could do with thin clients, servers and clusters of servers, databases and web applications…

There’s just no reason to limit students to using pre-installed software from one supplier. I showed students how to install GNU/Linux on a PC and network several PCs. I had every student at least understand the basics of computer programming a few steps past “Hello, World!”. They all got to see how incredibly fast computers are compared to any other means of creating, finding, storing and presenting information.

Well, now the UK will catch up to my classroom. I hope my province pays attention. Manitoba is about ten years behind Alberta and Alberta is mostly fixated on M$’s stuff. Many jurisdictions still treat mathematics as a mental exercise and not something used to solve real problems. Many jurisdictions treat ICT as preparation to walk on the Wintel treadmill.

“Schools, he said, needed to ditch lessons on how to use Powerpoint in favour of getting the kids designing apps and learning to code.

The speech took ICT teachers by surprise and many are still no clearer about what is expected of them when schools return for a new academic year.”

I recommend schools use Debian GNU/Linux to teach ICT. It has a huge repository of Free Software meaning schools and students can install software on any number of PCs without restriction. There’s plenty of software there for anything in the new curriculum and tools to create more software.

See BBC News – How schools will boot up a new ICT curriculum.

While Malaysia and India have recently made deals with the Devil, Thailand had some good news for Free Software, distribution of one million tablets running Android/Linux are being cranked out by a factory in China over the coming months. The advantages of making such a large purchase direct from the factory are that economies of scale and the possibility of fixing problems that might arise make this very cost-effective.

“The $32.8 million One Tablet PC Per Child campaign (1.02 billion Thai Baht) is the world’s largest education tablet distribution deal to date, and finally became official after members of the Pheu Thai party announced the initiative last summer during election season. In partnership with the Chinese firm, Shenzhen Scope, 400,000 tablet units are expected to ship within the next 90 days with an additional 530,000 units on the way. The latter part of the deal is currently not finalized, but the country’s government hopes to continue working toward one million tablets for its students. If Thailand successfully pens the deal for the second shipment, the venture budget will come to a whopping $75.7 million sum for the entire program.”

via Thailand signs the world's largest educational tablet distribution deal | Digital Trends.

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This morning, just after sunrise, I went out to finish planting a border of juniper around two sides of my, now literally, walled garden. These are prunings from our old homestead. I just trim and plant. The ground is quite damp so I just shove in a shovel and bend the earth over to make a groove and stamp on it after inserting the cutting. I will water frequently and most of them will grow. The original planting at the old homestead was from prunings from an even earlier planting by a relative. Life goes on. One plants, and propagates.

Adding to my joy was a constant serenade from nearby yards of various songbirds. My yard is not yet sincere enough for them to live here but that will happen, if/when “the little woman” gets her shopping done… While finishing this step is joyful, the highlight was finding that one of two corn (maize) plantings has emerged. I expect the other to emerge shortly. I was worried that cold damp weather would have caused the seed to rot but emergence was just delayed, not stopped.

The same is true of my planting of GNU/Linux seeds all over northern Canada in schools. In every community where I have taught, about one every year, there will be people who know they have the choice of GNU/Linux and are empowered to make the choice when that other OS refuses to run or is overwhelmed by malware or they just want a new PC. In every community I taught students how to build a PC from parts and install GNU/Linux. They can service their own PCs which is vital in remote areas. I have introduced many teachers to GNU/Linux and they have moved on taking the knowledge of choice to other schools. There’s no telling how large this “crop” will be.

It’s the same all over the world. Teachers, students, governments and businesses are waking up to the value of FLOSS and how to use it. It will not be long before all OEMs and retailers will be serving a real and growing need for FLOSS systems. That will be a great harvest indeed.

When a father teaches his son how to “hunt” or a mother teaches her children how to get along with people, there is no price attached to the transaction. The same goes for all knowledge. The world is a better place when people know more. That’s one of the reasons I love FLOSS(Free/Libre Open Source Software) because you are allowed to know anything and everything about the software. No one keeps secrets in FLOSS.

With FLOSS, one acquires with a licence the right to use, examine, modify and copy the software. That’s knowledge for $0. That’s knowledge with no strings attached. That’s how IT should be.

Educators know this too and with the low operational cost of educational transactions on-line, it’s the right way to do education as well. Some major universities are collaborating to offer some courses on-line for $0, making the world a better place, one educated person at a time.

see Harvard, MIT to partner in $60 million initiative to offer free online classes to all – Metro Desk – Local news updates from The Boston Globe

There was a major increase in share for GNU/Linux in Kenya over Christmas. Whether this is due to shopping for Christmas or some roll-out by government/business, it is huge, more than doubling in a short time and being several times the size of African share according to NetApplications:

Last year, Kenya decided to increase use of GNU/Linux in schools based on cost. Perhaps that plan is bearing fruit. Unfortunately, their Task Force Report recommends 1 PC per 15 students, not nearly enough.