My recent click explorations have had me bouncing around the ed tech in the UK world lately. I ran across this one as a related article to the one of VLEs for all learners.
Schools told to shun Vista and Office 2007 – 11/Jan/2007 – ComputerWeekly.com:
Government agency Becta has told schools and colleges to steer clear of Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Office 2007 products as they do not offer any new “must have†features for the education sector.
A report from the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency concluded that while the new features of Vista added value, there were “no ‘must have’ features in the product that would justify early deployment in schools and collegesâ€.
I’m not sure that I agree with this sort of move. I say that I celebrate the top-down vision of the UK’s government, but don’t really like to see it reaching into such decisions as what operating systems you are going to use in your classrooms. The chief question in my mind is, “Are we trying to make our children tech-savvy or information savvy?”
Tech-savvy, to me, means that we want children learning new operating systems and developing an intuitive ability to adapt to new devices and interfaces. Information-savvy, or literate, students must be able to access, use, and communicate information ethically, within a contemporary information landscape.
I guess maybe we want them both, but it’s a conversation that needs to be happening at all levels of education, not just within BECTA.
*Savvas, Antony. “Schools told to Shun Vista and Office 2007.” ComputerWeekly.com 11 Jan 2007 15 May 2007 <http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/01/11/221126/ schools-told-to-shun-vista-and-office-2007.htm>.
“Tech-savvy, to me, means that we want children learning new operating systems and developing an intuitive ability to adapt to new devices and interfaces.”
Well if you focus on the latter the former comes naturally.
http://gnuosphere.blogspot.com/2006/03/concepts-trump-information.html
What’s unfortunate about BECTA’s recommendation is that they disregard the disconnect proprietary software (e.g. Vista/Office 2007) has with right pedagogy and community. Schools should not teach students such software as A) students are forbidden to explore the inner workings of such software if they wish to and B) they cannot share the software with friends and family within their community.
It would be CRAZY for a school to be an early adopter of Vista. A hugely expensive hassle to figure out what hardware is compatible, support two systems for years while you phase out the old hardware. You’d have to deal with all the early bugs that are being shaken out and then do the big “Service Pack 1” upgrade. No sane enterprise is doing this, and no school should do it.
BECTA’s advice is sound, and it is the same as you’ll get from ANY IT consultant.
Regardlesss, these are recommendations, not mandates. Schools can still make their own decision.
It seems like a good call to me. Moving to Vista increases capital, training, and technical support costs. If BECTA has responsibility for allocating scarce funding, or can influence policy makers who do, it seems very appropriate for it to issue such a recommendation. This recommendation allows funding to find its way into needs that have impact.
Have to say that I agree with the previous two commenters – Vista is just too big a jump – and most schools wouldn’t be able to afford the new hardware to run it! Many school computers generally just won’t be Vista ready. Then there’s the pressure it’ll put on their parents to move the family machine to Vista (which will frequently mean a new family machine or at least additional hardware…) And all this before we get into the enterprise issues of the additional cost and so on. Certainly within our university, this is one upgrade I think we’ll defer as long as possible. Oh, and I DON’T think we should ban Microsoft for being corporate and not very nice – even-handed discussions of the values of open source versus proprietary belong in an economics lesson.
I can’t disagree with the comments here. But it wasn’t the point of the post. It gets a little frustrating when people select one aspect of a post, separate it out, and then go to town. I shouldn’t let it frustrate me, because it isn’t my blog. It’s about conversations, and that’s up to readers.
My point wasn’t whether schools should be using Vista, but whether schools should be having that conversation — or the government. Readers of my blog know that my choice would be to concentrate on the literacy, understanding that part of that is the ability to use the basic literacy tools (computers, software, Internet, and internet applications, etc.) If the focus is on literacy, then it really doesn’t matter which operating system you are using or the productivity software.
Perhaps I was just being too obtuse 😉
Michael says:
“Oh, and I DON’T think we should ban Microsoft for being corporate”
Of course not. There is nothing inherently wrong with corporations – though their legal structure in the US is questionable. Besides, if one took this extreme stance, you’d have to kick Sun’s Java out of schools. That wouldn’t make any sense. This is a great film by the way (book is great too)…
http://www.thecorporation.com/
“even-handed discussions of the values of open source versus proprietary belong in an economics lesson”
Yes indeed. Would you care to discuss free (as in speech) software versus proprietary software? That’s more of a social studies lesson. I think both the economics and ethics are important and yes, I admit a bias toward the latter though the former is interesting to me as well. But putting aside economics and focusing on students and citizens, what do you think of this?…
http://gnuosphere.blogspot.com/2007/04/free-software-best-pedagogy.html
It sorta ties social studies and economics together. If you can poke holes in that argument I’d appreciate it so I can learn more.
David says:
“If the focus is on literacy, then it really doesn’t matter which operating system […]”
I don’t understand how you promote literacy with proprietary software. Sure, you can to a certain extent…but why advocate for surface-level understanding of the tools learners use?
Schools are part of the government, and if higher levels of government do not offer advice on technical matters, it means that such advice ONLY comes from commercial interests (as in the US). To be sure, there are disagreements between local schools and Becta, about using Moodle, for example, but because it is part of the government, there are political solutions. Democracy in action.
What could Vista and Office possibly have to do with pedagogy?
Dave – I take your point – but council schools also exist in a context of centrally allocated budgets which presuppose a certain amount adherence to a given policy. Good, bad? Whole other issue. Still, if our central university computing folks look seriously at open source for our next cycle, I’m comfortable to support that – I wouldn’t have been three or even two years ago.
Peter, interesting article. I think you should (in the best of all possible worlds) teach both. But if I have any further thoughts on that, I’ll take them to your blog!
Gary asks:
“What could Vista and Office possibly have to do with pedagogy?”
It’s not about Vista or Office. It’s about the freedom one has when they obtain a copy of software. Vista and Office are simply examples. Examples of proprietary software.
Proprietary software typically denies the user the freedom to tinker and share technical knowledge (unless that user arranges a contract with the orginial distributor promising not to share that software, or the techniques contained within, with others). Since Vista and Office are proprietary, they essentially deny students the opportunity to learn how the software works right through to the level of source code. MacOS and WordPerfect are the same.
When useful technical knowledge is forcefully kept secret through NDAs, that software is an inferior option pedagogically. Denying students access to socially useful knowledge is poor pedagogy.
So BECTA, being a government (i.e. of the people ideally) agency focusing on education (i.e. for the students ideally) should not only mention the financial and technical issues regarding their recommendations but the broader pedagogical/social issue as well. If David had posted a similar article mentioning a recommendation by a for-profit corporation I wouldn’t have bothered chiming in.
One of the big mistakes we’ve made over the years with training teachers (and other adults) to use technology is that we taught them the step-by-step of specific software rather than concepts. “Tech savvy” doesn’t mean learning Microsoft Word. It means understanding how to use a word processor to foster the writing process.
For that reason alone there’s no good reason to upgrade in this case since there really isn’t anything new in either Vista or Office 2007 that would enable the vast majority of users to be better writers, presenters, or spreadsheet users. Or teachers or students.
Instead of putting more money into software upgrades, maybe we could use it for better training on how to use what we have now.
Peter,
You provided a political, perhaps even religious argument, but did not answer the question of what this has to do with learning. (or pedagogy)
-=Gary
Unless those students want to specialize in the field of using a specific operating systems, I believe that learning the basics of both is necessary. It’s better to be flexible than to be focused on one point.
“Peter, You provided a political […] argument”
No, not really. This is more an educational argument though I won’t deny it ties into politics at some level. This is more a political argument…
http://gnuosphere.blogspot.com/2007/03/free-software-best-defense.html
“but did not answer the question of what this has to do with learning. (or pedagogy)”
As I’ve explained, it is not about any particular brand of software, it’s about licensing which determines the freedom students have to explore and learn. Having access to the fundamental algorithms making up a piece of software radically changes the possibilities in the classroom. As well, there is a social benefit in allowing students to create with the tools their peers use rather than segregating them. The licensing directly affects what a teacher can do (pedagogical choices) with her students.
Does this make sense?
Geri says:
“I believe that learning the basics of both is necessary”
If you learn conceptually on one then you can learn the basics of another quite easily. I find the older generation harder to convince of this truth. The older generation tends to memorize steps and rarely thinks about software processes conceptually. For instance, if you know what “savnig a file” is and what a “directory structure” is there is no reason why learning to save a file using another interface would be of any significance.
Geri, what do you think of this?
http://gnuosphere.blogspot.com/2006/03/concepts-trump-information.html
This is a great conversation, and it is the point of my post. When the government says, or suggests, “don’t use Vista or Office 2007!” it forgives educators for not having just this conversation. A learning environment that is making appropriate uses of technology is one where those appropriate uses have been discussed by the educators directly involved, where cases have been effectively made that Linux, OSX, Windows XP, or even Vista, will help us prepare our children for their future.
It’s Process!
You ask: “Are we trying to make our children tech-savvy or information savvy?â€
I argue that it is neither. Sure, according the New Jersey Core Content Standards, we have standards for students to become “technology literate”. This year for the first time, 8th graders need to be assessed in these technology skills. However, knowing how to use a piece of technology equipment is pretty much useless if you can’t do anything with it. An analogy: Without a hamburger or a piece of chicken, knowing how to use a BBQ grill doesn’t help you much when you are hungry.
As far as informational literacy goes, that all depends upon one’s definition. Many secondary educators see this term as teaching and memorizing content, as many of the high school final exams will attest to. With students able to find information quicker than before, is this as important as it used to be? Was it ever truly important at all? Analogy Part II: If you have two raw pieces of meat but don’t know how to operate the BBQ, you’ll get very sick when you eat the unprocessed raw meat.
My thought is that we need our students to be “understanding savvy”. This means that they know how to get information, confirm that it is valid, analyze it for perspective and priority, and internalize it so they can use it to solve a problem, complete a task, or increase what they “know”. Analogy III: When you have acquired the meat, know how to work the grill, and studied how to marinate, season, flip at the right time, how to use the spatula, and the intricacies of the medium-well burger, you are able to synthesize all the pieces and have a good meal.
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling savvy AND hungry.
I agree that they need to use one operating system for compatibility reasons and for easy colaboration. I think they also have to choose one which is comfortable to both the students and teachers.
Becta is an advisory organisation that helps to provide a lot of very useful support for schools and local authorities. The advice about Office and Vista is very helpful. It is not saying don’t go down that road, it is just advising that there is no real need to rush. After all what will Vista provide in schools that we don’t already have? There is a steep learning curve to Office 2007 – why hurry down that road?
We need that sort of advice. I am sure we shall go down the Vista road within the next year but we need to know that everything won’t fall over when we do. It will be a big investment and a lot of our current kit just won’t cope.
We need to be wise with our educational pound and not rush down a road too quickly.
Just a little correction to your post, David, since there is no ‘UK Education system’. What you’re referring to is England. In Scotland my organisation, Learning and Teaching Scotland, will never recommend using or not using one particular piece of kit over another, although we will show people the possibilities of different systems and uses.
Above all, we don’t really concentrate on tools at all – we concentrate on helping teachers adapt their pedagogy. Now that does relate directly to what goes on in the classroom, but I don’t see this ‘hand holding’, in terms of improving educational approaches, as being a bad thing, especially since it is not top down so much as holding up examples from the grassroots.