[Oz-teachers] Anyone got / getting a Dell Vostro?

[Chris Blackham-Davison]

Hi Chris

In the NT we always have used Windows and still currently using Windows XP.
I understand that we may be upgrading to Vista next year once Microsoft
irons out all of the bugs that currently exist in Vista.

In the past we had been using Star Office on the school computer and from
recalling, most people were not happy with it due 
a. the lack of feature that star office had
b. the program was slow to operate and the difficulties in using it such as
saving program
c. most people are more familiar with Microsoft and did not want have to
relearn how to use a new program especially when they have enough to do
anyway.

The reason as I understand it that NT DEET introduced open source was that
it is free for people to download the program and would be good for the
students to learn and have experience in using it.

I noticed that as soon MS Words were introduced the majority of our students
and teachers changed to MS Words.

At the time I was teaching in a remote community as a special education
teacher rather than an IT teacher and I found that the computer room were
rarely used,  the reason for this was, we were told that games could not be
used on the school computers and that the only thing that could be used for
was 
word processing.

This was difficult as at the time because most of our students in the school
had difficulties in reading and writing.  It is pointless in using computer
if the students could only use it for word processing and were not able to
write.

In the last 3-4 years every teachers in the NT are used with a laptop
computer as part of the benefit of their job and luckily their were
downloaded with MS Words.

I only can speak as a personal experience.


Chris BD 

-----Original Message-----
From: oz-teachers-bounces at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
[mailto:oz-teachers-bounces at rite.ed.qut.edu.au] On Behalf Of Chris Betcher
Sent: Sunday, 26 August 2007 3:35 PM
To: Oz Teachers
Subject: Re: [Oz-teachers] Anyone got / getting a Dell Vostro?

So, I'm assuming that as well as going back to MS Office you have also moved
back to Windows as the OS?  XP or Vista?  How did you find working with
Linux?  What did the students think of Linux?  How long did Linux last as
the main OS?  What was the rationale behind the change?

Why was there so much opposition to Open Office/Star Office do you think?
What features were lacking on Star that teachers felt they needed in MS
Office?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but I'm really interested in the answers.
;-)

Chris

Windows XP.  Mac OS X.  LinuX....  What is it with operating systems and the
letter X?




On 26/08/07 3:59 PM, "chris blackham-davison" <happybuddha68 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Chris B
> 
> We were on Linux and using Star Office but we now using Microsoft
> Office instead.
> 
> I think that it is better to use MS Office as it had more facilities
> available.  Some of the teachers in the school that I work at will not
> touch Star Office, they would rather not teach computering rather than
> using Star office.
> 
> Chris BD
> 
> On 26/08/07, Chris Betcher <chris at betcher.org> wrote:
>> Hi Chris BD,
>> 
>> I heard a while back that the NT had moved to an Open Source model for
>> educational software and computers there were running on Linux.... Is
that
>> true?  And if so, how's it working out for you?
>> 
>> Chris B
>> 
>> 
>> On 26/08/07 3:28 PM, "chris blackham-davison" <happybuddha68 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> In the NT, all teachers are issued with the Latitude computer from
>>> Dell.  We have been using them since the being of this term.  They
>>> seems to be a good computer and it appears there have been no problems
>>> with them yet.
>>> 
>>> Dell offers teachers the opportunity to buy laptop from them at the
>>> same specification and cost as if it provided to the school.
>>> 
>>> Chris BD
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> oz-teachers mailing list
>>> oz-teachers at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
>>> http://lists.rite.ed.qut.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/oz-teachers
>> 
>> ---
>> Chris Betcher
>> Sydney, NSW, Australia
>> chris at betcher.org
>> www.betchablog.com
>> 
>> No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however,
>> a significant number of electrons have been electromagnetically
relocated.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> oz-teachers mailing list
>> oz-teachers at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
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>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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---
Chris Betcher
Sydney, NSW, Australia
chris at betcher.org
www.betchablog.com

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however,
a significant number of electrons have been electromagnetically relocated.






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