Re: [school-discuss] Korea brings homegrown open source to schools

[Alec Couros <alec.couros@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Hargadon wrote:

> On 6/23/05, Daniel Howard <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  
>
> > Great article Doug, I forwarded this to another parent who doesn't like the
> > idea of his child's elementary school moving to Linux because "Microsoft
> > Office is what they'll be using when they grow up".  Along with the
> > article, I noted that when I was in elementary school, we watched TV on
> > US-made TVs and listened to vinyl records on US-made record players,
> > neither of which exist anymore...
> >    
>
> I love this argument!  It's the same one I hear:  won't the children
> be confused if they use Linux at school and Windows at home?  How many
> of our children already are using Macs in schools, and nobody seems to
> complain about that!  And the kids do just fine...
>  
My only concern about instituting Linux into all these schools is that 
you are mandating now what teachers are expected to use. I think it's 
great that South Korea has gone ahead and discovered the economic and 
technical benefits of Linux, and I think this will be really interesting 
to see local support economies benefit from this as well. Still, when 
technologies are mandated or institutionalized, innovation and 
flexibility can be be hindered.  What happens when the alternative 
becomes the mandated, dominant force and the ONLY choice?