Free Software Linux

or how the future is being 'Windows Proofed' The one thing that you really need when teaching something to a group of children, students, adults, whoever, is to ensure that they are 'singing from the same hymn sheet'. Put less metaphorically, they all need to be accessing the same text book or work sheet during the lesson. If not chaos is sure to follow. Any teacher who has blith [...]

It's true, free open source software can and will save schools a small fortune. But why schools in particular? The first thing to get clear in your mind is that I am not talking about simply replacing expensive proprietary software with free open source equivalents. Sure this measure alone saves money and when you are talking about server software it can be a lot of money. However what distinguishes [...]

This post comes hard on the heels of an important piece of news... at least two Open Source companies have become part of the Becta's official list of suppliers to the education sector. The new procurement frame work under the aegis of the OGC relaunches the supply of ICT to education. The emphasis is clear: deliver value for money to UK schools. It was not long ago that most commentators believed [...]

... or "Linux feels the need for speed" A recent post has introduced me to a term with which I was previously unfamiliar. 'Click-bait' was the epithet used by a US reader to describe the title of my blog and it both intrigued and disturbed me. It means self evidently that the title is more attractive in a sensationalist sense than the article merits. The post below is hardly sensational, it's al [...]

It hurts to say this, but in the early 2000s you knew where you were when it came to school PCs. We all used Windows 2000 Pro. It worked OK and countless children and their teachers based their understanding of ICT on it. It was also at this time that Exam boards and accredited agencies created numerous schemes of work and certificates to prove how ICT as taught in schools was in tune with the real world.

The simple answer is 'yes' we could do it now and we will save the taxpayer millions of pounds. In previous posts I have documented the exponential rise in school ICT costs over the past 20 years. The articles focussed on costing ICT fully. This meant summing the costs of software purchase, software licensing, hardware replacement cycle, support costs and&nbs [...]

ICT spending in UK schools is unsustainable but it could be cut by 90% with the help of Open Source software and the latest innovations in personal computing dubbed NetBooks. ARM wars? The latest salvo in the new chip war gives some indication of what is to come and just how soon it will happen. NVidia’s release this week of their ARM-based Tegra CPU [...]

The future is green, Open Source and Nintendo! My principle interest has always been the use of Open Source thin-client solutions in an educational context. Its worth stating, again, what is really the blindingly obvious - thin-client work stations use one twentieth of the power of a typical PC (10-20 watts versus 200-400 watts), require no maintenance or technical per-machine support and [...]

Yes, it does seem unlikely doesn't it? Windows has been the only reality for several generations of computer users. But is the tide finally beginning to turn? At the Education Show held in February 2007, the talk was of 'sustainable' computing and how schools could use technology to reduce their 'carbon footprint'. Nobody had any idea of what was to come – a host of Linux-based, ultra-portable, incredibly cheap and very green personal laptops.