[K12OSN] LTSP Teacher Forum

[Tom Ventresco]

 >> I deleted the post in this thread before replying.  The post said in 
summary that in order to get
 >>schools to use more open source stuff they need to  get universities 
to teach / use open source >>stuff. 

This just flipped my "get excited" switch.  I agree 10000%.  It could be 
argued that the combo of world wide Internet and the increase of courses 
taught requiring programming/comp science, is partly responsible for the 
evolution and power of open source software.  There is a correlation 
between how many people can program at some level and the Internet.  How 
many open source projects started as college projects ??? Many.  YES !!! 
universities are a great place to plant open source seeds.   And I say 
thank you. Bravo !!!

BUT the problem comes from the university courses that teach 
Dreamweaver,  promote MS Office and raise tuition to purchase the MS 
campus license, Photoshop, AutoCAD, all the big ones.  I will say it . . 
. many ( certainly not all ) of these students after they leave one of 
these course are MS robots and their basic skills still stink !!!   
Shoot, you would think I was asking these knew teachers to speak ancient 
Greek, ("Open Office, what is that ?  What are file types ? You mean I 
don't save my documents in My Document.")  The "Technology Teaching" 
classes are the worst.  Universities have turned their backs on their 
own.  I am passionate about this issue because it is aways used against 
me...

"Why don't we use MS ?  This university uses it ? Why don't we ?"   
"This university gives credit for MS Office not OpenOffice ?" 

Microsoft Campus License  huge money  - - university does not pay for it 
. . . tuition.

"US"  can you afford the SLA ?  Not me 65,000/year  in Ohio we are tax 
payer funded no levy no funds. 

At home sell the Student/Teacher addition for $150.00

Good angle.  Force schools to go SLA from both sides home and higher ed.

How do we address this ?  Letter campaign maybe.  I have 40 
universities/colleges in a 65 mile radius that I would write.  Anyone 
else ?  I just want open source projects in the same store, not 
necessarily on the same shelf with close source programs.  This should 
be a new topic if there are any bites.  And bravo to the original post.

As always thank you for your time,
Tom Ventresco

I am not anti- anything.  I just want technology in schools that is 
easy, reliable, affordable and powerful.  And lots of it. :)