By Tom Espiner, 10 January 2008 09:03
NEWS
The government remains committed to technological agnosticism, despite concerns from the educational agency Becta over Microsoft technology.
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Becta, the organisation that implements government educational technology policy, has claimed Windows Vista and Office 2007 should not be deployed in schools because of potential compatibility issues with earlier versions of Microsoft's software, as well as software produced by Microsoft's rivals. This view was reiterated yesterday in an update to a Becta report released late last year.
However, schools minister Jim Knight said opportunities for learning existed with both open-source and proprietary software.
Knight said: "I think it's important we don't close down the opportunities offered by both open-source and [proprietary] software."
While open source can offer "considerable cost benefits" for educational establishments, people may need skills in the use of multiple operating systems in the future, according to Knight, who said one of his main objectives was to equip people with those skills.
He said: "There can be considerable cost benefits [with open source], and we're in the middle of negotiations around those issues. The outcomes I want [from the negotiations] are to see young people access all sorts of software [and] to feel confident with the use of open-source and proprietary software."
Knight said Becta was "working on negotiating procurement specifications with software suppliers to ensure an open market and maximise the benefits of software [use]".
Tony Richardson, Becta's executive director for strategy and policy, told silicon.com sister site ZDNet.co.uk Becta's general principle was that educational technology should conform with specifications that enable learning, such as agreed standards of interoperability.
Richardson said: "We need to be clear what technology will achieve and describe the functional specifications to do that. Standards around interoperability are important - we want learners to be able to access personal information as they progress through learning for life and be able to use a variety of different systems to do that."
A Becta report into Microsoft in schools, updated yesterday, recommended schools do not deploy Microsoft Vista.
Brian Hardie, Becta's director of marketing and communications, told silicon.com sister site ZDNet.co.uk: "For those institutions upgrading ICT systems, we do not recommend implementing Vista, or the use of a mixed Windows environment."
Hardie also explained Office 2007 is not recommended for schools as there are interoperability issues between Microsoft's latest file format, OOXML, and the open file format ODF, making it difficult for users to switch between platforms.
Comments
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1. Withheld to protect my ex Boss
When Vista was released I discussed the issue of its introduction with my - then - boss, who responded that we would both have left by the time Vista was stable enough to introduce into the school, and if someone tried to force Vista into the school then there would be several posts for IT staff including a Boss job.
2. Gareth Evans
When a kid comes out of school and tries to get a job 90% of the companies will be using Windows and Office. Let's make sure that we equip them for the real world and some geeky utopian dream.
3. Karen Challinor
Gareth - given that 65% of Silicon.Com readers aren't going to move to Vista ever
then what version of windows should be put in schools, the latest or the most commonly used ?
4. Simon
I see Gareth Evans falls into the usual trap of thinking that teaching computing is about teaching children how to use a number of pieces of software.
Yes, using the software should be a PART or that, but it's more important to teach them the fundamentals. If they understand the principals behind various technologies, then they should be able to adapt to whatever they are faced with in the future - instead of knowing only how to use one software package from one vendor and being totally lost and ill equipped when they find themselves faced with something else.
5. anonymous
Kick computers out of the classroom.
IT in education is almost as big a con as the billions being poured into the NHS.
IT is dumbing our kids down and there is an observable trend between rising IT expenditure and the UK falling behind in World education league tables.
6. Rob
"but it's more important to teach them the fundamentals. If they understand the principals behind various technologies, then they should be able to adapt to whatever they are faced with in the future"
I like that Utopian Dream, shame it will never happen in our lifetime, unless you get rid of all the flakey drop outs that run and teach in the eductaion system. Teaching Quality has dropped considerably in this country from 16, FE and HE. Partly due to the people delivering it and partly due to people like EdExcel who authorise learning modules.
Teach them the fundamentals and they can teach themselves almost any bit of software or OS, proper diversity.
7. anonymous
What a load of ancient minds.
If the Education Agency was to get off it's seat, and try these products, they would find them beneficial.
Scaremongering is not a very good thing, the government is obviously anti education. Get with the times, move with it, or get left behind.
We have been using Vista & Office 2007 without any issues. The Kids tend to prefer the Vista PC's over the XP ones.
Certain people higher up in the chain obviously can't handle change, perhaps they should make the best change of all for everyone and change jobs.
8. Joe Whitehead
Hmm the biggest reason not to use Office 2007 is pretty simple - by default it deliberately breaks not just saving, but loading of non-Office 2007 formats. For a corporation or college, it's easy enough to make a policy that forces support to be turned on. Your local technicians will have to tell Office 2007 users with their own machines to run a registry file from a Microsoft link. Of course, the issue of saving to a file that is useless on any other PC is of course classic to any new version of MS Office (most applications, really).
The best reason to use it, is that you get access to many new features that are inspired by recent issues. For example, the ability to have better control over documents.
A not so important reason to use Office 2007 is support for the new document standard. This is of course a circular argument since you need the new program to read the new documents anyways... ;)