A technician's view

By Russell Eales. Russell is based at John Port school in South Derbyshire, and supports a number of primary schools’ ICT services.

In my role as Community ICT Technician for a local Technology college, I give support to 12 local primary schools, installing and repairing hardware, installing and configuring software, setting up wired and wireless networks and designing websites. I also provide product advice, training and lesson support – so basically I'm kept fairly busy!

As a relatively fresh eye in the educational world, I must say I was intrigued by the way decisions are made regarding hardware and software – particularly software – I've noticed that some of the most popular programmes, although good for curriculum work, don't seem to have much comparison to anything in the real, Microsoft “monopolised” world.

I am not in any way anti-Microsoft – let's get that straight from the start, it's just I wonder in these budget conscious days, why we continue to pour money into the ICT pit without considering more economical alternatives.

It may be that we rely on the local authorities to advise on what we need as we don't feel confident enough to make decisions on our own – It may be that we just use what have on our own PCs because it’s what we are familiar with.

Let's look at a couple of examples - Everyone has to be aware that Microsoft Office is the de facto main event on the regular PC.   It costs money – not just for the programme, but (with many education licences) you also need an additional licence for every PC you put it on which can add up to scary figures – So, why do we use it? Perhaps because we are not aware, (or made aware) of the alternatives -

Open Source software is beginning to get more popular, it's “open” because the nuts and bolts (“source code”) that go to make the programme are freely available to everyone, so anyone who knows what they are doing can adapt, improve and experiment with the application for the benefit of all. That’s probably beyond the scope of most of us, what we generally need is something that works and doesn’t have a nasty tendency to crash and lose all our hard work – But the choice exists.

What's in it for the software maker? It may sound strange and unusual, but they just think software should be free under a world wide licence agreement called the GPL (Global Programme Licence) – some do ask for donations to fund the work, but that's entirely optional.

For example?

OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) is free, there's a word you don't hear very often – It's a full office suite which has very similar functionality to Microsoft Office, including creating PDF's. It takes up less precious machine resources – It looks almost exactly the same as the Microsoft version, so the crossover (if there is one) to and from the world of Microsoft would be a small one. This excludes the newest (and unfamiliar looking) 2007 MS Office version where Microsoft seems to have gone off on a tangent, perhaps to be more unique?

Open Office opens up and saves as many formats as you care to name.  It’s compatible with Microsoft, Corel, Lotus – you can even set it to open and save in a particular format as standard. The big point again is it is FREE and you can put it on as many machines as you want, without restrictions. The OpenOffice suite has an equivalent for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher and even a mathematical formula programme (I don't use that much).

Open Office Impress Screen

Open Office Impress - typical screen

Open Office Calc screen

Open Office Calc - typical screen

So question 1 – why are you paying for something you can get for free?

There are lots of alternatives to most commercial software, most do the job just as well, if not better than the one you have to pay for, all you have to do is look.

So, you get the idea, there is life out there that you don't have to pay through the nose for – sometimes on a yearly basis.

I realise that the majority of programmes recommended by Local Authorities are tried and tested and tick all the boxes for the curriculum requirements. But have we got it the right way round? And shouldn’t they be looking after the interests of the schools by using the most efficient and economical software, not necessarily the most obvious? An increasing number of schools are actually trying to do this.

Should we not be looking firstly at what we want to achieve, linking as many aspects as possible in the best possible manner then work backwards until we end up with a basic requirement for software? Then look if there is an open source option.

The less software you have to install, the less pressure is put on the computer’s hardware – So it might just last that little bit longer saving even more money.

An obvious additional advantage is that students can easily use the same software at home as they do at school – without incurring any costs.

Time to get controversial and take a deep breath – Why use Windows at all?

Because it's safe, that’s why – we may use strong language about it (quite a lot of the time in my experience, but not in front of the children!), but it's what we all know, love and loathe and we want our kids to be able to do the same – that's what we are doing after all isn't it: teaching children to use Windows?

There are many many alternatives to Windows, most of which are built on a operating system called Linux, created by a team headed by Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Most of the versions or “flavours” of Linux are free and will run on a lower specified PC that wouldn't entertain a modern version of Windows so all of those aged PCs in the storeroom (sorry, are you still using them?) could be put to good use…

A lot of schools who have dared to be different and save money at the same time, run Windows on some PCs and Linux systems on others, these systems co-exist quite happily on the same network. A goodly number of the big servers that provide the websites we see every day are running a version of Linux, because it's secure, reliable and resilient, not prone to crashing or freezing and not susceptible to 99.9% of viruses.

There will be questions about support and about loading software and the like.

Support is available from the bigger distributors of Linux like Ubuntu, Suse, RedHat and from the masses of user forums on line. (one of the great community features of Open Source Software, is that knowledgeable people collaborate not only to make the software, but to help others use it, including newcomers). The only place you may not get much help from is your local LEA ICT unit, unless one of the folks there has incidental experience – in which case he or she should be in great demand.

I've tried in most of the schools that I go to, to encourage them to have at least one PC dedicated to an alternative view of the world. Some have more and indeed one has a small independent suite consisting of 10 PCs all running a Linux variant called “http://www.puppylinux.org/">Puppy Linux” This is a brilliant operating system for all those ancient PC’s, it even runs from a USB memory stick if required, but I have it running on PC’s with a scant 32 and 64mb of memory – Believe me, it runs just as fast as XP as well! Even if it’s just used for internet browsing – It still counts as a valuable resource for the students and can boost the student/PC ratio.

One of the most popular linux distributions for schools is called EduBuntu, a “flavour” of Ubuntu built especially for Primary schools – to quote their Blurb:

 “Edubuntu builds to be a complete and ready to use educational environment. As such, Edubuntu comes pre-installed with a complete office suite, teaching and learning programs, pre-school resources and much more across a range of categories. Here is a brief summary and some screenshots for the most popular Edubuntu packages, and if you need more, Edubuntu has thousands of additional applications ready for you to install.”

This is available as a desktop or server version, and works with most PC hardware.  The installation disks are free on request. Most of the CDs can also be run as a “live” version (ie booting directly from CD) so you can try it out before committing time to a full installation process.

There is also a piece of software called “Wubi” that allows you to install a Linux operating system on your Windows PC – You just get an option to “boot” into Linux or Windows when you switch on – if you don’t want to keep it, you just go into Add/Remove programmes and uninstall – Simple!

Linux PCs also connect fine to windows servers and network printers (sometimes with more ease than you can from a Windows PC). In fact you can do practically everything you can do with a windows network. The only thing you can't do (without a bit of work anyway) is use Windows programmes – but then again you have to pay for those don't you? And we've already covered that one.

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