Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on November 09, 2003 09:27 PM
In an ideal world, schools, like everyone else, would use Free Software. This is not an ideal world.
The problem is that businesses almost exclusively use Windows / MS Office, not Linux / OpenOffice.org . They will expect people to have MS Office skills.
For experienced computer users, this isn't a problem - it's easy to pick up one package which is like another. For most users, it isn't so easy. I'm sure we've all seen people write down exact steps to perform a task - giving them anything other than MS Office simply won't teach them as much. It seems businesses really do have to take the lead on this one. Once enough switch, OOo skills will be in demand, and schools should fill it.
Outside of this, though, there's a ton of great software which can be used. Celestia comes to mind as an example - and I'm sure everyone has their favourites.
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In an ideal world
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on November 09, 2003 09:27 PMThe problem is that businesses almost exclusively use Windows / MS Office, not Linux / OpenOffice.org . They will expect people to have MS Office skills.
For experienced computer users, this isn't a problem - it's easy to pick up one package which is like another. For most users, it isn't so easy. I'm sure we've all seen people write down exact steps to perform a task - giving them anything other than MS Office simply won't teach them as much. It seems businesses really do have to take the lead on this one. Once enough switch, OOo skills will be in demand, and schools should fill it.
Outside of this, though, there's a ton of great software which can be used. Celestia comes to mind as an example - and I'm sure everyone has their favourites.
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