Australian State May Give Students Linux Laptops

Whiteox writes "The Australian Prime Minister's plan to equip high schools with 'one laptop per child' may go open source. Kevin Rudd's $56 million digital revolution will include 'laptops [that will] run on an open source operating system with a suite of open source applications like those packaged under Edubuntu. This would include Open Office for productivity software, Gimp for picture editing and the Firefox internet browser.' So far this has been considered for New South Wales and I think other states may follow."

Comments

The real reason behind this...

[MavEtJu]

NSW secondary school students could be issued with $56 million worth of Linux-based laptops as part of Kevin Rudd's digital education revolution.

The real reason behind this is that the federal government would supply the *hardware*, but that the schools would have to pay for the *software licenses* and the *support*. At least the price for software licenses would be greatly reduced now.

(Despite being a FreeBSD user,) I consider this is a good step forward: Give the children wooden blocks to play with, and they will build bridges with them.

Re:The real reason behind this...

[mjwx]

I consider this is a good step forward: Give the children wooden blocks to play with, and they will build bridges with them.

I agree, unfortunately the Nanny Staters and NIMBYs took the wooden blocks away because they were afraid that the children would hurt each other with them.

We need to get schools back to what they were meant to do, teach kids how to think. I was fortunate enough to finish school before it became more of a babysitting exercise rather than an educational institution (completed Year 12 in 2000). Now days there is more emphasis on children just turning up as opposed to actually learning and benefiting from classes. The problem stems from the bureaucratic mismanagement (much of this is due to excessive "interest group" (churches, PTA and the like) interference) that both measures teachers performances by pointless metrics (Student attendance for one, if a kid turns up to class it doesn't mean they have learned anything), making pointless rules for political correctness/expediency (They got rid of the "F" grade when I was in year 9 because they were afraid it would demoralise students) and placing ridiculous restrictions on teachers (Group A says you cant teach B, or teaching method C must be used) as well as this the Principals are not permitted to tell students or parents that a kid is going to fail or should get a blue collar job, the school must carry them no matter how stupid or lazy they are.

I don't blame teachers, they tend to get a bum rap over this (I also agree that their class sizes are too large, this is the main reason they strike) I met one of my high school English teacher recently (turned out to be a friend of my house mate), he still cares about his students but his job isn't made easier by stupid rules and pointless interference by groups with no idea what they are on about. Many teachers are becoming disaffected and leaving the profession because of this.

FOSS (Linux) is more difficult to use than Windows or Mac and that's exactly what we need, the dumb kids will learn just enough to survive and the smart students (even the average student, Linux isn't that hard to use) will excel and benefit from learning how an operating system works as opposed to memorising where to click to do exercise 3. At this point in time if a high schooler cant pick up and use Ubuntu they aren't destined for a job involving technology anyway. As for primary school it's a great place to start with FOSS, licensing aspects aside, if we teach children to be inquisitive about technology and help them develop the ability to fix their own problems they will get a huge advantage early on. I started playing with computers when I was 6, playing around with DOS when I was 10 but now days Windows is far too easy and just not a challenge for someone who is 10-12, the only answers they can learn from Windows is "reboot", "re-install" or "wait for patch" which isn't learning, it is at best drudgery.

As a Linux-Savvy Education Student...

[Biogenesis]

...This is going to make me even more employable :).

The biggest opposition to Rudd's "computers in schools" plan has been that he's funding the hardware/software but no the support or training. No doubt this will give more weight to their argument.

Re:As a Linux-Savvy Education Student...

[Nefarious Wheel]

The biggest opposition to Rudd's "computers in schools" plan has been that he's funding the hardware/software but no the support or training. No doubt this will give more weight to their argument.

This Australian is not opposed to that. I would love to see Linux laptops in Victorian schools, and I would love to see the kids and teachers in those schools learn and develop their own methods for support and training -- it would be a hugely educational and involving experience, and would help break down the idea that true innovation in computing only comes from above, from the commercial package houses.

I'm willing to volunteer 3rd level support for such myself, but only if they spend some time scurrying about themselves and learning what they can do. Access to a help desk won't really help them learn the basic skills necessary to operate in a society that increasingly depends on densely-packed transistors written on melted sand. Learning the rote behaviour of running common commercial packages may help them in basic knowledge management, but doesn't grant the curious among them visibility under the bonnet.

Example: How would you set up a Wiki under Windows -- build a Sharepoint server and call it a knowledge base (Urk!) or have them set up a Mediawiki LAMP stack? Which one would they learn more from? Which one could they do with the smallest infrastructure spend? (Yes, I know about virtual appliances, it was just an example.)

You've got to give kids clocks to take apart.

Re:Times are different now.

[MichaelSmith]

My nephew is a grade one student at a primary school in Victoria. The school uses macs so he has his heart set on a macbook for christmas. His mother definitely can't afford an expensive laptop and I can't see what a 7 year old will get out of a mac. I have been trying to steering them towards an eeepc. You can pick one up for $300 aud now, about one fifth the price of the mac.

Re:Times are different now.

[Nefarious Wheel]

It was the most effective long term marketing move Apple ever could have made, and I doubt they even realized it at the time.

Heck yes we knew it, that was the whole and entire point.

Disclaimer:I wasn't in the Apple educational group at the time, but our early MIS development group shared the same (tiny) building with them on Bandley Drive, and there was a little bit of crosstalk.

Re:In the middle of an economic crisis

[Xiroth]

The collective delusion of Australians that we're a first world country is the problem here.

OK, now that's an interesting position. Could you back it up, please? By most traditional measures (GDP per capita, GNI per capita, etc.), Australia is one of the most well-off in the world. By which measure do you assert that it's not a first world country?

Re:Times are different now.

[nawcom]

You could always go both ways and install OS X on the ASUS Eee. Ignore the random blog posts on the net; they're outdated - Eee is well supported as of now. Everything is pretty much taken care of driver-wise. And of course this assumes you purchased a licensed copy of Leopard.

Re:Times are different now.

[cheater512]

They will not only learn how to use the open source apps, they will also then get on a Windows computer and realize how much it crashes and does quirky things.

One problem with Windows users is they dont consciously realize when something has gone wrong.
They just think 'Oh its crashed' and re-open the app.
They think its just how computers are.