Hawking's 2002 paper made a similar claim with reference to Godel's Theorem. This particular position was originally proposed by a Benedictine Professor Priest, Stanley Jaki, back in the 60s.
A good starting point is the OpenEducationDisc and here in the UK the guys at http://opensourceschools.org.uk/ are thinking about exactly the same sort of thing.
This topic and similar come up a lot on Slashdot, as yet I feel the OSS community lacks a coherent response.
Have you checked out the OpenEducationDisc? not all open source is rubbish from an education point of view and I used some very successfully in my school when I was teaching.
Getting opensource into schools is a hard process. it took me three years before my school moved in that direction. A good stepping stone is the openeducation disc. they can still hold onto their windows installs and software and you can slowly slip the programs into the curriculum, also a great way to dstribute the software to parents for a very small overhead.
About time. Profiteering should have no place when it comes to a child's access to education. I'm an ICT teacher and we are trying to teach skills and not packages. But it is more than that, you can;t teach kids everything in school and being able to access the skills and tools that you implement in school at home is essential to complement what they are learning in school. After two years of quite severe debate, our school now uses several OSS packages and the kids are given copies of the OpenEducationDisc. Teachers and students can't believe it is free. I now have kids making music, 2D and 3D graphics and actually able to complete written assignments at home as they have something to write with and open word docs with (OOo). For me propriety formats do not have a foot to stand on when you take the home situation into hand.
The latest version of the openeducationdisc is here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=203390
Not preaching, just serves as a nice gift that meets a lot of needs and lets your friends discover FOSS at their own speed. Try out the OpenDisc and OpenEducationDisc projects at www.theopendisc.com The OpenCD is dead, but the main guy is working on the OpenDisc now.
I'm an ICT teacher in the UK and I totally agree. We are trying to teach skills and not packages. But it is more than that, you can;t teach kids everything in school and being able to access the skills and tools that you implement in school at home is essential to complement what they are learning in school. After two years of quite severe debate, our school now uses several OSS packages and the kids are given copies of the OpenEducationDisc. Teachers and students can't believe it is free. I now have kids making music, 2D and 3D graphics and actually able to complete written assignments at home as they have something to write with and open word docs with (OOo). For me propriety formats do not have a foot to stand on when you take the home situation into hand.
I've read a few comments touching on the point that you can teach kiddies what you like at school, but when they want to work at home and they can't, you snuff out that enthusiasm. I'm a teacher and we distribute http://www.theopendisc.com/education which is great for home use. The school have even started using some of the tools. Those educational software licences can be a real killer. especially with the yearly 'subscriptions'
For me I really don't get the dominance of propriety commercial software/solutions in education. You have a hundred odd countries all with government controlled education systems paying the same companies again and again for tired old ideas. Why can't they come together and create joint resources? There are a few areas working on this, i.e. wikibooks and the openeducationdisc. Maybe the OLPC will help to bring resources together?
After teaching in a London school for 3 years I can agree. Burdening poor families with the cost of this software to use at home is awful and discriminatory. I have been pushing the OpenEducationDisc http://www.theopendisc.com/education and we now distribute it to all the kids who want it. Microsoft have even admitted that piracy does them good in schools. Stop picking on the little man!
The openeducationcd is a good place to start. I've put it into my school and the kids are using it. Due to that we have a few open source programs on the school system, but it took me two years just to get them. They would much rather pay for photoshop than use GIMP / Paint.net. For me the issue isn't really the fact it is open source, more the fact that I'm at a poor school and the kids can't afford to buy commercial products, even the stupidly named educational licenses. Rather than tell them to pirate everything I show them some free stuff. They can't understand how it can be free.
I've been trying to get the techies at my school to consider linux and open source for a while now. They are not interested, distrust things that are free and find it easier just to follow the commercial software peddled to them or recommended by the UK government's BECTA organisation. Maybe it takes a governmental decision to bring about change for the ill-informed schools. Well done Russia. In the mean time I'm trying to change their mind by giving the students copies of the OpenEducationCD and getting them to tell their teachers how they are finding it. www.theopencd.org/education
Anyone who has seen the original 1979 movie that i imagine is heavily influencial to this, may well disagree.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/
But then again, will have to play the game first.
Played the entire game, a little disappointed. Must have put 30+ hours in, then got to the final boss failed a few times and never played the game again. Same happened with Diddy Kong racing.
An experience like that can sour an entire game for me and I have no regrets not finishing them, the idea that i must finish something because I've wasted X many hours of my life on it doesn't click. If the story is good I'll persevere but otherwise no.
Sega must have done the same when they were finishing the Dreamcast. I wonder at what stage the abandoned the plan and what they were planning to release?
Fair point, please read my response and explanation below. And applogies for what seems to be the wasps nest i have stirred up. My writing this morning needs more time and clarity...I'll hasten to add i don't teach English.
I sometimes wish my english was betterer and slashdot had an edit button. I think what i've said has been taken somewhat out of context...
This doesn't happen at my school to the best of my knowledge but I have definitely heard that it has happened in places around the UK and no doubt USA etc. I'm not condoning it (please ignore the strange tone of the first post and the job incriminating use of the word we), but I imagine it's a reacton by teachers fed up to their bacthings k teeth with these things interrupting their lessons, a way of 'punishing' the kids where conventional means aren't working. Thankfully my school's policy of no mobiles means we don't have to deal with these and if we do we get the kids removed from our lessons and it is dealt with by the deputy heads.
I've certainly never done it myself before. But I've heard people telling me it happens, I imagine the rapport with the kids involved would have to be particularly strong... You have a good point. We certainly don't look through their phones but on the privacy issue I know lots of other schools which now have software involved that constantly screen scrapes students screens for keywords, I've seen it get some good results in terms of prevention of bullying, threats etc, but the amount of work it produces is astromical.
In terms of invasion of privacy, a game we like to play with phones when we confiscate them is to set the alarms to go off at 5 am in the morning and set random alarms for months to come in their organiser. That tends to annoy them a bit:). Anyways the way we work in my inner city london school is they shouldn't have them in school at all. It's just another thing that can be nicked and if they desperately need to contact someone, or someone needs to contact them then they can use the school office.
A little off topic as this discussion is mainly PC based, but has anyone cracked the Saturn's copy protection yet? Unpopularity combined with a nasty unreadable track has left it uncracked for over 10 years now as far as i know
Re:The Revolution will be great
on
Come the Revolution
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm just looking forward to a proper emulation of the N64, the xbox versions have a long way to go yet for many games i love - eg blast corps
Slashdot Mirror
Hawking's 2002 paper made a similar claim with reference to Godel's Theorem. This particular position was originally proposed by a Benedictine Professor Priest, Stanley Jaki, back in the 60s.
A good starting point is the OpenEducationDisc and here in the UK the guys at http://opensourceschools.org.uk/ are thinking about exactly the same sort of thing. This topic and similar come up a lot on Slashdot, as yet I feel the OSS community lacks a coherent response.
Have you checked out the OpenEducationDisc? not all open source is rubbish from an education point of view and I used some very successfully in my school when I was teaching.
Getting opensource into schools is a hard process. it took me three years before my school moved in that direction. A good stepping stone is the openeducation disc. they can still hold onto their windows installs and software and you can slowly slip the programs into the curriculum, also a great way to dstribute the software to parents for a very small overhead.
About time. Profiteering should have no place when it comes to a child's access to education. I'm an ICT teacher and we are trying to teach skills and not packages. But it is more than that, you can;t teach kids everything in school and being able to access the skills and tools that you implement in school at home is essential to complement what they are learning in school. After two years of quite severe debate, our school now uses several OSS packages and the kids are given copies of the OpenEducationDisc. Teachers and students can't believe it is free. I now have kids making music, 2D and 3D graphics and actually able to complete written assignments at home as they have something to write with and open word docs with (OOo). For me propriety formats do not have a foot to stand on when you take the home situation into hand. The latest version of the openeducationdisc is here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=203390
Not preaching, just serves as a nice gift that meets a lot of needs and lets your friends discover FOSS at their own speed. Try out the OpenDisc and OpenEducationDisc projects at www.theopendisc.com The OpenCD is dead, but the main guy is working on the OpenDisc now.
I'm an ICT teacher in the UK and I totally agree. We are trying to teach skills and not packages. But it is more than that, you can;t teach kids everything in school and being able to access the skills and tools that you implement in school at home is essential to complement what they are learning in school. After two years of quite severe debate, our school now uses several OSS packages and the kids are given copies of the OpenEducationDisc. Teachers and students can't believe it is free. I now have kids making music, 2D and 3D graphics and actually able to complete written assignments at home as they have something to write with and open word docs with (OOo). For me propriety formats do not have a foot to stand on when you take the home situation into hand.
I've read a few comments touching on the point that you can teach kiddies what you like at school, but when they want to work at home and they can't, you snuff out that enthusiasm. I'm a teacher and we distribute http://www.theopendisc.com/education which is great for home use. The school have even started using some of the tools. Those educational software licences can be a real killer. especially with the yearly 'subscriptions'
For me I really don't get the dominance of propriety commercial software/solutions in education. You have a hundred odd countries all with government controlled education systems paying the same companies again and again for tired old ideas. Why can't they come together and create joint resources? There are a few areas working on this, i.e. wikibooks and the openeducationdisc. Maybe the OLPC will help to bring resources together?
After teaching in a London school for 3 years I can agree. Burdening poor families with the cost of this software to use at home is awful and discriminatory. I have been pushing the OpenEducationDisc http://www.theopendisc.com/education and we now distribute it to all the kids who want it. Microsoft have even admitted that piracy does them good in schools. Stop picking on the little man!
The openeducationcd is a good place to start. I've put it into my school and the kids are using it. Due to that we have a few open source programs on the school system, but it took me two years just to get them. They would much rather pay for photoshop than use GIMP / Paint.net. For me the issue isn't really the fact it is open source, more the fact that I'm at a poor school and the kids can't afford to buy commercial products, even the stupidly named educational licenses. Rather than tell them to pirate everything I show them some free stuff. They can't understand how it can be free.
I've been trying to get the techies at my school to consider linux and open source for a while now. They are not interested, distrust things that are free and find it easier just to follow the commercial software peddled to them or recommended by the UK government's BECTA organisation. Maybe it takes a governmental decision to bring about change for the ill-informed schools. Well done Russia. In the mean time I'm trying to change their mind by giving the students copies of the OpenEducationCD and getting them to tell their teachers how they are finding it. www.theopencd.org/education
Has a small section on Maths/Science Software. Graphcalc is ace http://www.graphcalc.com/. sci lab also though probably a little complex http://www.scilab.org/. Open Education CD can be found here: http://www.theopencd.org/education
Yup. Typo. Mine. Cripes. Apologies.
Anyone who has seen the original 1979 movie that i imagine is heavily influencial to this, may well disagree. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/ But then again, will have to play the game first.
Yup I get that as well if the story tales off towards the end. You can probably tell I'm not an achievement collector 360 style.
Played the entire game, a little disappointed. Must have put 30+ hours in, then got to the final boss failed a few times and never played the game again. Same happened with Diddy Kong racing. An experience like that can sour an entire game for me and I have no regrets not finishing them, the idea that i must finish something because I've wasted X many hours of my life on it doesn't click. If the story is good I'll persevere but otherwise no.
Sega must have done the same when they were finishing the Dreamcast. I wonder at what stage the abandoned the plan and what they were planning to release?
Fair point, please read my response and explanation below. And applogies for what seems to be the wasps nest i have stirred up. My writing this morning needs more time and clarity...I'll hasten to add i don't teach English.
I sometimes wish my english was betterer and slashdot had an edit button. I think what i've said has been taken somewhat out of context... This doesn't happen at my school to the best of my knowledge but I have definitely heard that it has happened in places around the UK and no doubt USA etc. I'm not condoning it (please ignore the strange tone of the first post and the job incriminating use of the word we), but I imagine it's a reacton by teachers fed up to their bacthings k teeth with these things interrupting their lessons, a way of 'punishing' the kids where conventional means aren't working. Thankfully my school's policy of no mobiles means we don't have to deal with these and if we do we get the kids removed from our lessons and it is dealt with by the deputy heads.
You make some very good points. Please read my post above though.
I've certainly never done it myself before. But I've heard people telling me it happens, I imagine the rapport with the kids involved would have to be particularly strong... You have a good point. We certainly don't look through their phones but on the privacy issue I know lots of other schools which now have software involved that constantly screen scrapes students screens for keywords, I've seen it get some good results in terms of prevention of bullying, threats etc, but the amount of work it produces is astromical.
In terms of invasion of privacy, a game we like to play with phones when we confiscate them is to set the alarms to go off at 5 am in the morning and set random alarms for months to come in their organiser. That tends to annoy them a bit :). Anyways the way we work in my inner city london school is they shouldn't have them in school at all. It's just another thing that can be nicked and if they desperately need to contact someone, or someone needs to contact them then they can use the school office.
A little off topic as this discussion is mainly PC based, but has anyone cracked the Saturn's copy protection yet? Unpopularity combined with a nasty unreadable track has left it uncracked for over 10 years now as far as i know
I'm just looking forward to a proper emulation of the N64, the xbox versions have a long way to go yet for many games i love - eg blast corps