Reclaiming ICT education - Why free software is a neccessity in schools
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| My classmates and I (like many others) were taught by a teacher
| with little specialist knowledge of the subject (she taught French
| the majority of the time), following a curriculum that
| predominantly consisted of instruction in the correct use of the
| Microsoft Office suite.
|
| Ten years later, not much has changed. Glancing at the National
| Curriculum for ICT, a great deal of it still revolves around the
| correct use of packages such as MS Word and Excel...
|
| [...]
|
| The most pressing problem here is that pupils are taught computing
| as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself. By teaching
| students to use specific software packages to complete specific
| tasks, computing classes become little more than an exercise in
| memorising processes by repetition. No analytical or inquisitive
| thinking is required, and no knowledge is gained about what thec
| omputer actually is, or is capable of.
|
| [...]
|
| This is propounded by the fact that BECTA, the organisation
| that oversees ICT procurement for all UK schools, has a list
| of 'preferred suppliers' for IT infrastructure, none of whom
| provide free or open source software.
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http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/reclaiming_ICT_education_why_free_software_is_a_neccessity_in_schools
Related:
Welcome to the Open Schools Alliance
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| The Government spends a fortune and ignores its own
| research
|
| The DfES and Becta ignore their own research that
| Open Source Software can save schools between 24%
| and 44% on ICT and advise schools to buy through
| eLearning Credits and procurement frameworks that
| offer virtually no Open Source Software.
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http://www.openschoolsalliance.org/
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| The oldest child is seven years old and the youngest is four and a
| recent class had children learning how to input data into an Microsoft
| Excel spreadsheet.
|
| The young age of the participants and the complexity of the tasks they
| are performing raises questions about the use of computers by
| children.
|
| Teacher Mike Ryde says: "We have children as young as 18 months on
| the courses..."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5223192.stm
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