School Software Licenses Under Review

Tony writes "ZDNet asks the question: 'Does Microsoft Campus give good value for money?' Its good to see a review of the dominant software, but the review is likely to lead to no or little changes, so the real question would be 'Is the review worth the money being spent on it?'."

Comments

Don't usually complain but...

[kisielk]

Alright, I've been a Slashdot reader for many years now, and I've yet to ever complain about a story, even the blatant Slashvertisements. Usually I just ignore them. However, this story is probably the most useless thing I've seen posted here. I mean, honestly, the article has about 0 actual substance to it, all it says is that a review will be conducted. What is there to even discuss, as no facts are presented yet? Alright.. back to my hole...

So many ways to measure value

[svunt]

Can you imagine a graphic design school that didn't own a Mac? As much as it displeases me, schools aren't really in the same position as businesses & individuals when it comes time to evaluate software choices. The reality is that Windows is 'industry standard', as is Office, for the bulk of jobs that students will end up wotrking at. Most students with their own computers also run Windows/Office, and need some interoperability. It's not really as simple as measuring costs, support, productivity. Which sucks.

Re:So many ways to measure value

[RJabelman]

The reality is that Windows is 'industry standard', as is Office, for the bulk of jobs that students will end up wotrking at

This has nothing to do with anything. If you used a computer in school, how similar was it to the one you use for your job today? When I was at school we used Acorn Archimedes....

Re:So many ways to measure value

[BenjyD]

Archimedes! We considered ourselves lucky if we got to use the BBC Master. I think UK state schools were the only people to ever use the Archimedes.

Re:So many ways to measure value

[hey!]

As much as it displeases me, schools aren't really in the same position as businesses & individuals when it comes time to evaluate software choices.

If so, they are grossly misrepresenting and overcharging for what they do.

Colleges and Universities represent themselves as more than trade schools. Trade schools have a narrower focus on imparting specific technical skills. Colleges granting baccalaureate degree are supposedly giving a broader education in higher intellectual skills. If I get a certificate from a non-accredited trade school, I don't expect that certificate to carry any weight ten years from now. If I get a degree in, say, Computer Science, I expect that degree and the skills I learned there to last all my life. Therefore, colleges charge a heck of a lot more.

If what they are teaching you is to use some office package, and if those skills aren't useful if you get a job at a place using a different operating system or office package, you're getting fleeced. A university education is supposed to be a lifetime investment. It is certain that the operating systems and office packages you will be using ten or twenty years in the future will be radically different than what is available today.

Re:So many ways to measure value

[releppes]

I agree. The excuse of training individuals on a platform said to be an industry standard is weak. Microsoft has changed their own products so much in the past 5 years alone. Most training on said platform would most likely be obsolete by the time they graduate anyway. Unfortunately, that's the problem with most IT training. Schools should stick to the basics. Teach students how to use a mouse or pointing device. Educate them on what an operating system is. Show them some basic applications. Show them which applications are used for which jobs. I don't want to see any more stupid databases created in Excell. Show them what a spreadsheet is REALLY used for. Database design should be concidered a basic skill. None of the above is Microsoft specific, but if a student had a solid understanding of what an operating system is and how to use most common applications, I'm sure they would be just as proficient as any seasoned Microsoft user.

Deceptive advertising

[pubjames]

One thing that annoys me about this subject is the deliberately misleading Microsoft advertisements aimed at parents. The ones that imply, for instance, that Microsoft software helps children become creative musicians, when Microsoft doesn't have any music creation applications.

I find it really outrageous that (in the UK at least) a big chunk of many schools IT budget goes towards Windows and Office, which are completely rubbish peices of software for educating young children. But the administrators don't understand much about computers, and the nice man from Microsoft is always taking them out to lunch, being helpful and giving them "special deals" which just happen to take up most of the IT budget...

Re:Deceptive advertising

[rolfwind]

It's especially outrageous for Office, as that is an application that can be completely replaced by OpenOffice.

The usual arguments against OpenOffice don't work in a school. It isn't a business and doesn't have to work 100% with MS Office, because schools are usually self-contained. Documents are internal and they don't have a ton of "clients" and what not where they would have to import documents in or out all day.

And if you start using OO, you might as well use Linux/BSD/Other free OS.

There may be a few objections:

1. Educational software isn't written for linux. Too true, but most educational software I have seen is crap anyway, seemingly bought just to have it rather than providing any tangible benefit to the students. Usually the areas are covered by good web applications anyway in the meantime so there are alternatives.

2. Teacher tools. True, I have seen some teacher tools in Windows but they have web application equivalents as well. The thing that can go wrong here is if the web apps use Windows, but as in many things, there are choices.

Re:Deceptive advertising

[artifex2004]

The usual arguments against OpenOffice don't work in a school. It isn't a business and doesn't have to work 100% with MS Office, because schools are usually self-contained. Documents are internal and they don't have a ton of "clients" and what not where they would have to import documents in or out all day.

And is the interface the same, so that when kids graduate and go to office jobs, they will know how to use the office suite which is most likely to be installed on their work machines? If not, then it's as if they used Wordperfect Office or some other proprietary package with minority share: good to learn general skills, perhaps, but they can't hit the ground running. Which means the business either has to train them at least a little, which costs money and time, or just hire the graduates who used their parents' copies.

Re:As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[jimicus]

The way it works in a lot of public sector organisations (schools in particular) is the person who spends the money (and therefore decides what to spend it on) is quite often not the person who has to deal with any fall-out.

Re:As an IT manager in a UK primary school...

[vtcodger]

As a retired US school IT guy let me say that there are several issues here: One is operating system. Another is other products -- mostly office suite. A third is standardized reports.

The OS is fairly clear cut. A school in the US simply has to be able to run MSDOS and Windows software. There are 20 years plus of legacy 'stuff' out there that are important to the school -- attendance, grades, stupid bureacratic reports, standardized test scoring, Mario Teaches Typing, etc. They often run only on MS operating systems (and it is often a struggle to get them to run there). There may come a time in the not too distant future when Macs and Linux will run this stuff routinely via emulation or WINE. Great -- but that's not today. In addition, in many countries a copy of Windows must purchased with the machine notwithstanding that is a clear violation of the most basic antitrust principles.

Office Suite products are a different issue. Power Point a pretty good product. Schools need it or something like it. Count it as a plus for Microsoft. Word and Excel OTOH are far too damn complicated for most educational uses. (If you ask me, they are far too damn complicated for most non-educational uses also). Can I use them? Sure. Do I use them? Hardly ever. I Don't do chainsaws either for much the same reason. Should a school have a couple of copies of MSOFFICE or a decent clone around? Absolutely. Should every student and staff member have a copy? That's nuts -- but in more school districts than not, they probably do.

A third issue is the unending reports demanded by the educational bureacracy. Attendance information. Number of reduced price lunches served -- by day. Number of playground swine and wild animal attacks broken down by grade. You name it, there's a report. Most of these come in the form of computer programs that attempt to make life easier for the reporter. Their distinguishing characteristics -- be they Excel Spreadsheets, Access, Web forms or whatever -- are that they all demand the latest technologies, they never (I repeat, never) actually work right without tweaking, and their support people are often quite clueless. For whatever reason, school IT people (who are pretty smart, but are often terrible at strategic decisionmaking) are unwilling to tackle this mess although it could probably be resolved without all that much difficulty. Until it is, schools need at least a few up to date Microsoft systems to accomodate the lunatics who think -- against all evidence to the contrary -- that Access or Excel -- are satisfactory tools for data collection.

Does only learning Windows provide good value?

[GreatDrok]

It would be interesting to weigh the benefits of teaching students to use computers including multiple platforms versus teaching them just to use certain applications (Office) on a single platform. From my experience in education (far too many years in university as a student and staff) I have found that often the students who have a varied experience are also the most comfortable learning new things. Computing is all about new things and if students are scared to try anything it is hard to get them to function, especially in a scientific environment.

I personally think that the whole standardisation on Windows is not about education quality but rather about making life easy for the teachers who often appear to only be a few pages ahead of the students when it comes to using software. Teachers are the limiting factor. Students are likely to adapt easily to all sorts of platforms without much trouble, but teachers (apart from a small number of bright individuals) have really only learned which button to mash so it isn't surprising that the pupils all learn what button to mash and when mashing that button doesn't work they don't know what to do.

Is this the future of computing? I really hope not. So no, standardising on a single software platform is not good as they do not learn how to adapt. Learning is not just about known how to do something, it is about why you did it.

Deceptive?

[shaneh0]

This is another example of the "Micro$oft $ucks" slashdot mentality.

Worst-case scenario: A parent sees the commercial and decides that instead of the new Macbook that their son asked for to assist with his music production, they could purchase a great Wintel notebook for 2/3 the price. So they head to Best Buy, pick it up, and perhaps after they give it to their son they find out that it doesn't have ANY MUSIC CREATION SOFTWARE! Oh No! So they search Google for /windows "music creation software"/ and what do you know: 70,000 results.

Looks like those parents were DECIEVED all right.

Microsoft is advertising their platform. Their brand. Maybe the best thing is that in a year when the kid no longer cares about creating digital music he can use his Windows-based notebook to run any of the millions of other software applications that have been written for Windows over the past 15 years.

It's like saying that Gatorade commercials are deceptive because Gatorade doesn't actually sell sporting goods equipment.

What happened to bidding?

[Intron]

So why isn't desktop software purchased the same way as every other item a school buys? Just put out a spec saying what it has to do and the level of support expected and take the lowest reputable bidder. If the spec says: "must have email, spreadsheet, word processor, email, etc." then OK, but if it is written to say "must be MS" then something is wrong. If they were doing that, there would be no need to have to "review" whether they did the right thing, they would have done that up front.