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Our Blogs Open Sauce PCs for schools: an open source solution
Our Blogs Open Sauce PCs for schools: an open source solution | PCs for schools: an open source solution |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Wednesday, 10 December 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 3 He pointed to a similar approach in France where 175,000 "live" Linux USB keys were supplied to school children in Paris. Featured Whitepaper
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"We must also provide our response to what we've been informed is the key criticism against using Linux in school education, namely that it's 'not Microsoft', and thus somehow won't prepare students for the real world," Zymaris said. "The reality is that students are not likely to be using the same versions of Microsoft's products, years later, when they enter industry; Microsoft's software changes, sometimes dramatically. Therefore, learning computing on Linux, Firefox and OpenOffice.org is not a disadvantage. "In fact, there's no guarantee that students will be using a Windows desktop in 5-10 years time; it's therefore important that schools teach concepts, such as word-processing and spreadsheets, rather than specific products, such as Word and Excel. "By contrast, we don't teach our kids Addison-Wesley calculus or Monsanto chemistry - we teach them calculus and chemistry. Similarly, we shouldn't be teaching them just Microsoft computing, but computing." |
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