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Re: [LUG] FLOSS in schools

 

Grant Sewell wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:33:00 +0000
> Paul Sutton wrote:
>
>   
>> james kilty wrote:
>>     
>>> On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 10:50 +0000, Tom Potts wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> We had thousands of 
>>>> 'Management Consultants' giving courses and advice on management
>>>> methods. They were all American, over here because their 'skills'
>>>> had been tried and found seriously wanting in the States.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> And how may times and at what expense has the NHS been reorganised
>>> using management consultants?
>>>
>>> I think if we can offer support and advice, even training, we might
>>> be able to drip feed our points about the benefit to schools and
>>> pupils. County Councils and schools - perhaps as parents (or grand
>>> parents) certainly as school governors.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> I agree,  lets just do it,  (see below) I am more than keen to get 
>> involved with this.
>>
>>     
>>> I will have another go at my daughter's school - alas my days as
>>> governor are long over. Ayt least I can offer an imput to year 11
>>> and see how well it goes down.
>>>   
>>>       
>> The latest buzz word in schools is "learning platforms"  essentially 
>> online learning so the students can continue at home, and submit work 
>> and collaborate with classmates while at hone on projects.
>>
>> The leading platform for this is moodle,  there are offerings by 
>> companies such as RM (yeah I know) but its closed source etc,  moodle 
>> however is the most used world wide,  is available to everyone.
>> There was an article on the site a while back or linked from the site
>> that looked at both commercial and the oss offerings,  not sure where
>> it is, a hard copy is at work in the staff room. 
>>
>> Anyway I printed this off and its currently in the school staff room
>>
>> suffice to say if we are to offer such services to schools they must
>>
>> be affordable to the school as no extra money is in the budget for
>> this be a complete package, we need to approach schools sell moodle
>> by its strength, and world wide usage.
>> ask what happens if you goto suppplier X,  you get staff trained up, 
>> that person leaves,  to replace with a person with package X skills
>> you are going to end up paying more
>> go with moodle and there is a much larger pool of staff to
>> potentially fill that gap in  staffing, 
>> a complete package may be,  for one school hosting,  cost per month 
>> low,  initial set up,  training, tech support, etc etc, all need to
>> be offered.  I
>>
>> I think as a lug we need to actually get together,  and perhaps set 
>> something up,   there are people here with all the required skills to 
>> setup a business,  and there are people like looking for work /
>> training and want to get involved,  
>>
>> I alone could probably get moodle up and running on debian. apt-get 
>> install moodle. but it needs someone who knows and understand
>> education to get the most from it.   we can offer a package to local
>> schools but all work together on this one,  perhaps set up a devon
>> and cornwall moodle mailing list,  which can also be used by schools
>> to find staff, etc.
>>
>> Its possible, i just have no idea regarding how to set up a business
>> for this type of things,  but the opportunity is there we just need
>> to grab it before someone like RM get in there and charge what ever
>> they charge per month for hosting,
>>
>> get moodle in to schools show how good OSS is,  and its a stepping
>> stone to other OSS software in schools.   and we are there to help
>> support it, 
>>
>> Paul
>>     
>
> Was going to split up your message and reply to it piecemeal, but
> decided against it as it all fits together nicely.
>
> Anyway, to my point... it's would also be worth mentioning to the
> Schools that the local Colleges also use Moodle.  Certainly Cornwall
> College do (and we are the largest... so nerrr :D) and I know Truro
> *did* and I'm pretty sure they still so, and I believe Penwith does
> too.  Other than those, I'm not sure who uses what, but it's well liked
> and used in FE/HE.
>
> Cheers.
> Grant.
>
>   
I will try and find out what south devon college uses.

Paul

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