Chaplog tries hard

The Next Steps in our use of IT

1. Replace Microsoft Office software with an open source equivalent
OpenOffice
2. The replacement of our Microsoft Outlook server software
3. Weblogs for administration teaching and learning
4. Wikis for non-static content that has more than one author.
5. Software to manage courses where students enrol and submit work electronically
6. A web presence for all - linked to a Trinity portal
7. Remove Hotmail, Yahoo and other web based mail systems and replace our Outlook Web access email system
8. Allow access to files from outside school for students and teachers
9. To review our policies concerning child safety and the use of information technology

A solution to our reliance on Microsoft products

Keeping up with the changes in information technology is difficult for most adults unless they dedicate an unusually large percentage of their time to the process. In an ideal world we would want to use the same IT tools at school as parents had in their work places and students had at home. We are failing to do this at the moment. We use Windows 98 and Microsoft Office 97. It is unlikely that many of our students will be using these versions of this software at home. I have kept to these versions of the software in my home so I will be familiar with the versions the students are using. I cannot afford to do so any more as there are features, in later versions, that I need - for example the support that Windows provides for the use of digital cameras or music.

We have not kept up-to-date with Microsoft products because we cannot afford to do so. We knew years ago that to plan effectively we needed to know what we would be spending on Information technology a number of years ahead. We still do not know and I suspect will continue not to do so.

For this reason alone we need to move to Open Source software. There are other reasons. It is not only the cost of licenses that is causing us problems. There are also the support costs. Open Source software has a community of users who support each other away from the financial business model. Put simply is this not more in keeping with the way we work than Microsoft business practices? Another reason, in many cases the software is actually better, more in tune with the way you as a user interact with the software. The majority of people use the browser Microsoft Internet Explorer, they do so not because it is better, in fact there is little doubt it is inferior to other browsers, but because it is on their machine when they bought it. If there are features that you need in Open Source software that are not in the present version of the software you can add them to a list of requested features. It is likely that these features will appear in the next version. If they are critical to a project then you can pay someone to produce the feature.

This will be the last year that we teach Microsoft Office to students. We will use an Open Source equivalent such as Star Office. Some staff and students are already using this software. It may be that we provide each student with a CD containing this software, instructions on how to install it and a support service to ensure that they have a working copy of the software at home.

Our Microsoft exchange server software is in need of up dating and more licences are required. This again will be the last year that we use this software. The move to an Open Source equivalent SUse SLOX (On line demo), in the short term will not make a significant difference to staff as they can continue to use the Microsoft Outlook client software but we will not be up-dating this software in the future. The Open Source equivalent is web access and is significantly different. The migration to this software can start in November, by staff who want to make this change earlier rather than later this year and a timetable for migration can be worked out.

Present problems - administration teaching and learning

As a team we have adopted and made extensive use of email. In my opinion we are now over using it to a considerable degree. We must encourage people to find information.

Problems with our use of email

1. We receive too much email – time taken to process
2. We are reading what we are sent not what we want to read
3. We are sending attachments rather than stating where the file can be found
4. Attachments become out-of-date and new attachments have to be sent - this leads to the "which version are you looking at problem?"
5. Email is frequently irrelevant to the person it is being sent to
6. Viruses and Spam – may become an ever increasing problem

We wanted to develop an Intranet last year but we only made a start. This consisted of public folders, the W: and T: drive but for many the information was too difficult to access. The technology now exists, at a price we can afford, for all of us to publish on the Internet. This should lead to an effective Intranet that contains up-to-date information. As it is accessible using a browser the difficulty of finding the information should be removed.

Our web site then becomes the menu for a variety of different types of web content some would be Intranet, some Extranet and the rest Internet. We would need softeware to tie these elements together possibley Post Nuke Content Management System One of the tools that would help us achieve an effective Intranet is a weblog. The features that make a weblog a great application for this job are:

1. how simple it is to be a publisher and to comment on published work
2. how easy it is to edit the content and change its appearance
3. it's ability to archive information in a variety of forms e.g. categories or chronological format
4. the powerful database that makes it searchable
5. The ability to have many authors with different roles
6. an example of weblog software is Movable Type open source software
7. there are a community of people, Movable Type Support who are constantly developing and using it and will share their knowledge
8. it enables students and teachers to publish information that better connects the school to its community

The following possibilities come to mind for the use of weblogs in school. Most of these ideas could contribute to an effective Intranet others to teaching and learning.

1. A daily bulletin - that can be up-dated through out the day – students and staff can easily check days they have been absent
2. The newsletter – will be archived automatically
3. A staff bulletin - up-dated when required - security considerations
4. Each department could have a weblog of information that is currently being circulated. The chronological format and the ability to file in categories e.g. Year 7, Year 8, All years and minutes make it especially suited to the task.
5. Writing and publishing tools for teaching and learning - leading edge work see North Chadderton
6. Interactive course logs available to staff, parents and students
7. A learning diary for students that could move with them through their education - a web presence for all
8. from a content management system that will give a front end for the Intranet and a front end to our public presence that is the web site at the moment
9. educational content Julius Caesar's Weblog and The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Not everyone thinks weblogs are good thing

For content that is static and requires more than one author there is open source software that we could be using - a Wiki. The uses of a Wiki are:

1. To replace a static Intranet. Content is maintained by the employees, thus eliminating the "one webmaster syndrome" of outdated and insufficient Intranet content.
2. As a knowledge base and FAQ system.
3. To design and document software projects.
4. As a document management tool.
5. To collaborate on common goals
6. As a software archive, · As a company internal message board, i.e. for job listings

It is difficult to look at examples but there is a dictionary project Widkapedia and a Movable Type Wiki If we were to allow those teachers with responsibility for defined areas to maintain a document such as the A-Z. Then we could have information that was easy to find and up-date on the web. Practise on a Wiki

We will be using software to manage courses where students enrol, access course material and submit work electronically we have been using within science for some time. The danger that we have been aware of since the start is that many departments will require this type of software in the future and that it would be better to standardise on one type. Students should not be expected to become familiar with a variety of different interfaces for one purpose. The cost of the software our science team was using multiplied a few times would have caused us problems. There is an Open Source alternative Moodle Course Management SystemMoodle that has considerable support and could become very important in the not so far future. A description of the features of this type of software is not that useful, it is probably better to have a look at the Moodle demo course to see how we might use this type of software in the future.

The City Learning Centre has introduced and developed, extremely successfully, some Open Source Help desk software that other schools and we are now using. Its introduction appeared to be painless and the benefits considerable. We were not so successful with our library software – ALICE – it failed to do the task and the Open Source equivalent was too difficult to migrate to.

We must have a system to so students are availabe to transfer files between home and school, this was part of the design for the CLC. Mimerdesk was to be the Open Source solution but we are told it is not in a form at the moment that we are able to use. A later version will hopefully allow us to make this step. It would be nice to point to a list of schools that have made the steps that I have described above. I have not found such a list, but I have found many examples of schools that have implemented one or more of the things that I have suggested. I frequently came across North Chadderton school that is close to home and a look at their web presence shows that they are doing a lot more than having a school web site. What's new at North Chadderton There is a conference coming up! The

Open Source Software Conference Posted by mikec at August 31, 2003 09:45 PM