Roy Schestowitz wrote:
Schools in Swiss Canton Switch
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| According to this German article, the Swiss canton Geneva is switching to
| Linux and OpenOffice.org for 9,000 computers in education.
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http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/schools_in_swiss_canton_switch
These stories are usually unreported. This one isn't even available in English.
Here is a closer source in French:
http://www.tdg.ch/pages/home/tribune_de_geneve/l_actu/sciences_hi_tech/detail_hi_tech/(contenu)/211880
Here is a babelfish.com translation of that French article:
© Keystone | Computers at the school. As of the next school re-entry, in September 2008, the data-processing park of the Genevese establishments will have entirely migrated towards free and free software.
LUCA SABBATINI | April 02, 2008 | 00h05
To know some more
* The DIP produced a DVD containing its selection of free software. Download it!
Live the free software! At the Department of the state education (DIP), the watchword is of topicality. To the next school re-entry, in September 2008, the few 9000 computers of the schools of the canton definitively will give up the operating system paying Windows to migrate on its free competitor Linux. And they will use nothing any more but open programs. A change which takes forms of small revolution in the cantonal administration genevoise.
Is a free software, what it? One it known as free, in opposition to owner. It is said also open, because its code of programming remains accessible to all and can be freely modified (in English "open source). To simplify, they are data-processing applications developed not by a company with an aim of marketing them, but by a community of programmers. Who code for the pleasure, to be made the hand or to encourage quality.
Free and multiplateformes (Windows, Mac, Linux), constantly updated, tested and improved, the free software advantageously competes with the expensive programs of the large firms of data processing. Thus, OpenOffice is a perfect equivalent of Microsoft Office, whereas Gimp fulfills all the functions of Photoshop d' Adobe (to read below).
Why pass to the free software? Free, effective, teaching, "they have only advantages", ensures Manuel Grandjean, director of the Service School-Media of the DIP and for this reason project superintendent of the migration of the department towardsthe open source. On the one hand, they offer what to satisfy the plan of economy of the Council of State, whose measurement 28 recommends "to promote the free software" in the administration. But it is not a question of in no case of a solution to the reduction. "We chose the free software for their qualities", insists Manuel Grandjean.
One finds, analyzes it, "a true convergence" between the bases of the teaching applied to the DIP and the free software. By their Community development, the latter "encourage the division and the democratization of the knowledge, as well as autonomy in the acquisition of competences".
Another considerable asset: the pupils can work on their premises by using the same programs free as at the school, which "reinforces the equal opportunity", Manuel Grandjean estimates. And then, it with a bit of irony, "one underlines thus avoids providing captive customers to the large data-processing companies"...
What happenhappen does with use? With the College of Candolle, one anticipated the directives of the DIP. After years of "dual boot, i.e. of computers equipped with a double operating system Windows/Linux, the machines turn from now on exclusively under Ubuntu, a" distribution "of Linux.
"It took a time of adaptation", concedes Jean-Daniel Gavillet, who is in load of the data-processing park with Candolle, "but it is beneficial for everyone". The advantage is not that financial, the data processing specialist insists. "From a teaching point of view, it is more considerable." And like the free software adopt opened formats, privileging "interworking", they should better age than the others.
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