Re: Good news - UK government officially adopts ODF

Nathan, I'm not trying to argue that your account was untrue.  Sadly, I'm
very nearly certain that it was.  I did not anyone to get the impression
that that sort of thing is common, or even regarded as reasonable, at OP.
 Thank you for showing me that there are opportunities to help some of my
colleagues learn how to better use technology in their teaching.  Now,
where did I put my cluebat?

This conversation could quickly reach a point where it would interesting to
me and possibly even a very small number of other individuals, but not most
of this list.  So I'll try to summarise how things should work here:

1.  In a particular paper we may tell students that the course work
requires the use of certain software or other tools *that are made
available to them*, probably on campus.

2.  We sometimes require students to purchase books or other course
materials.

3.  We can't require students to install particular software on their own
machines, for practical reasons if nothing else.  We may, however, point
out what software students may want to install in order to perform course
work on their own machines.  For example, yesterday I told some students
that it would easier to for them use Linux for their work in my class.

4.  Finally rest assured that, if you study information technology at the
Polytech, you will be expected to use some Linux and other free software as
well as Windows and other proprietary software.

Cheers,
Tom


On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Thomi Richards <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 24 July 2014 09:48, nathaN P <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Tom I am sorry that you take exception to my comment but I had a family
>> member who has come home from Otago poly this week and the message she got
>> from the computing class was - she needs to get a copy of Microsoft
>> installed on her laptop - I saw red!
>
>
> Sadly, in New Zealand, and especially in Dunedin, the overwhelming
> majority of programming jobs are Microsoft based (most C#/.Net, from what I
> hear). If a student wishes to use their personal laptop for class work
> (which certainly used to be optional, _not_ a requirement for completing
> the papers) then it's only reasonable that the Polytech advice is to
> install windows & visual studio [1]. I'm sure a similar argument exists for
> some other papers, but I don't have any first hand knowledge there, so I'll
> not speculate...
>
> While I desperately want the local job market to change, it's not fair to
> criticise the Polytech for catering to the current market.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> [1] Mono, and monodevelop are potential alternatives, but again, it's not
> fair to ask the Polytech staff to support something that's several versions
> behind the .Net library. It might be something to look into though...
> --
> Thomi Richards
>

_______________________________________________
DunLUG mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ethernal.org/listinfo/dunlug
DunLUG Wiki - http://dunlug.kallisti.net.nz/