Re: [Fsfe-uk] Another positive development

[MgtDee]

see extract from this weeks Education Guardian extolling open source school:~

 

 

One day, all schools will be like this
Hill, Julie
address@hidden 11th January 2004, pp.22-23
http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,10577,1387167,00.html

Describes how the new-build Crossways Academy and its state of the art
ICT facilities are helping to raise standards in Lewisham.  Central to
the learning and teaching is a virtual learning environment (VLE)
hosting online content containing schemes of work, homework assignments,
lesson plans and resources for all subjects.  The VLE is part of a
borough-wide solution that has been implemented in all 14-19
institutions and two primary schools.  The VLE is from Frontier, a
Norwegian e-learning company and is an open source, web-based solution
which can cater for a variety of electronic formats.  There are plans
for federation members to link in to Crossways network, once the
school's infrastructure has been upgraded.  In the future virtual
lessons on the VLE or through video conferencing will be piloted in
minority subjects or for gifted and talented students.
Contact:
Crossways Academy http://www.crossways.ac.uk
Frontier http://frontier.info/com

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a message dated 16/01/2005 20:22:08 GMT Standard Time, address@hidden writes:

On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 15:44 +0000, Graham Seaman wrote:

> If school users want to follow up Ruth Kelly's suggestion is it actually
> easy for them to do?

If they already know something about it, if not... :(

One of the problems is that schools run a wider range of
legacy apps than any other type of organisation.
However it's happening in other countries, where there
is the political will.
btw Four years ago I found a primary school in mid-Wales
running entirely Free Software on the desktop. They were
having no problems, and didn't feel themselves to be
particularly unusual :)

>  Or is there a huge market/marketing opportunity
> for free software being missed?

Yes, but not by us. We've been banging on to government
and schools about this for years. However others have
louder voices, so it seems to take us some time to
start to get through :-/

Ian (Lynch) seems quite optimistic that things are changing
- let's hope he's right :)

Feel free to join AFFS' campaign to get Free Software into
schools =o)

- Richard

--
Four years ago:
https://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/05/Linux_For_Schools.pdf

HM government last year:
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/pdf/cg/8/CG8%201704%20R%20Smedley%20ATL%
20Amen.pdf

Recent educational moves:
see Linux Pro, 9/04 (with LXF 57) -
http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/June-October_2004#We.27re_in_the_Press.21

AFFS and education
http://www.affs.org.uk/education/index.html

Grants for Free Software development in the UK
(write some software for schools):
http://www.affs.org.uk/grants/