Re: [school-discuss] FW: OpenOffice in education

[Jacqueline McNally <j-conversations@decisions-and-designs.com.au>]

Tom Adelstein wrote:
> cdmiller@adams.edu wrote:
>
> > <snip>
> > Thanks for clearing that up Tom.  I think the main issue is that in 
> > education, real value comes from the FLOSS nature of OO.  Education is 
> > going to be more open to solutions that are, well, more open.  I think 
> > SUN should concentrate big SO incentives for business and government 
> > sectors, while supporting OO penetration into education.  Sure some 
> > school business programs and school administrations will opt for SO 
> > over MS Office or OO, but for many education uses SO and MSO are 
> > overkill, while OO is good enough and "free".
> >
> > - cameron
>
> Cameron, I respect your opinion, but it makes no sense to me. More open? 
> Overkill?
>
> Neither of those concepts apply here. The opportunity for educators to 
> obtain a quality product like Star Office versus MS Office doesn't 
> negate the Open Source roots of the former product.  The products use 
> the same code base and SO is far more polished. You'll also find 
> educational templates available for SO. The So for kids site offers 
> better educational materials. Also:
>
> If my child brings Star Office home and I see it and go for it, then the 
> community seems served. Getting Open Office from my child just says that 
> I can get an inferior product for free, also.
>
> Open Office has lots of positives and extends the availablity beyond the 
> few platforms and localities of SO. But for the US and Western Europe, 
> Sun obviously would prefer SO disseminated via the educational community.
>
> Of course if you prefer to support Microsoft, that's another matter.
I think Cameron is saying he prefers Free.

I am new to the [school-discuss] list having transferred from the 
[seul-edu] list. When the [seul-edu] list closed, I read the 
schoolforge.net site slogan - "Working together to unleash the power of 
open source tools in education" so was happy to transfer and participate 
here.

I am a free/open source software advocate. Whilst my preferred platform 
is Linux, I use Windows as I can invite many more people to explore 
free/open source software on this platform. Linux can come later :)

One of the most interesting discussions is free as in beer vs free as in 
freedom, particularly in an educational setting.

With Free/OSS, students and teachers are empowered. They have the 
opportunity to participate and make a difference. A simple example of 
this wrt to OpenOffice.org is a student burning a copy of OpenOffice.org 
to give to a friend, designing a template or clipart for distribution 
with the next release of OpenOffice.org (on an individual or class 
basis), participating on the [users] list at openoffice.org and 
assisting others. And that only touches surface of how to participate in 
the community.

Also, I volunteer with a group called Computer Angels. We provide 
training and computers to people that often do not have friends, family 
or even acquaintances that have a computer. It's wonderful to see their 
surprise at finding a whole community of people out there that share 
their knowledge and interest. Here I am not talking about 
OpenOffice.org, but AbiWord, Gnumeric, Sylpheed, GIMP etc.

If we are just going to discuss $, then we are missing out on a whole 
lot more that is available with Free and OSS.

All the best
Jacqueline McNally
www.decisions-and-designs.com.au/jacqueline

Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project (www.openoffice.org)

Are you a computer angel? (www.computerangels.org.au)