ubuntu-advertising team mailing list archive

[alan c <aeclist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 27/12/10 22:27, Barry Drake wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-12-27 at 21:43 +0000, alan c wrote:
> >  This includes the Education profession.
>
> Alan, I can understand a lot of what you are saying here - and I am sure
> you have some excellent points - but tell us more about the above.  Why
> or how, and is there any way we can move towards changing this?  eg.  My
> wife is chair of govs at our local primary school and my daughter is a
> governor with special responsibility for IT.  My granddaughter will
> start at that school as a pupil in two years, and by then, she will have
> been using Ubuntu for quite a while!
> I guess I've done my bit .... any further thoughts?
> Regards,		Barry Drake.

Hi Barry. My grandaughter  has been using Ubuntu since she was 3 years 
old. My elderly relative has been using Ubuntu for two years after 
never before using a PC, she is 90 years old now.

I talk to the local UK adult learning centre, where a computer club I 
am in, meets up. The whole place is wall to wall MS. Literally, on the 
walls are direct comments about using MS products, aimed at novice 
adult users. The room is run by a person with teaching qualifications 
including formal qualifications using MS products, and there are 
strong associations with the local Further education college 
(teenagers and up). I am on affable terms with the Adult Learning 
Centre. The teacher is aware of say, open office, but is not 
interested in investing time becoming familiar with it. She has a 
life's work of Windows behind her. Windows is cheap for such places - 
discounts etc. The club that meets there can get massive discounts on 
MS software on the basis that they are a pseudo learning organisation. 
To run a course there one would need to have a formal teaching 
qualification, so I am told. The 'Parent' college has no tradition at 
all of normal use of FOSS. In It, Linux is covered, but no commitment 
develops at all.  MS is seen as the business standard. The adult 
classes on offer are all MS products. It is hard to break into this 
well fortified corral.
Who ever got sacked for using Microsoft software? (Apologies to IBM)

For several years I attended the BETT exhibition in London UK, in an 
Ubuntu hat and T shirt, handing out Ubuntu leaflets. It is a massive 
event, but with only literally a couple of FOSS related stands. It all 
does have to *start* somewhere, although the (UK) education scene is 
fairly well stitched up by MS instiutionalisation. Every little helps 
though.

My elderly relative when widowed, decided to get  to use the PC, and 
went to classes.
'Shopping delivered to Great Grandma, by Ubuntu Linux'
http://dnc.digitalunite.com/2009/03/31/shopping-delivered-by-ubuntu-linux/
(extract)
‘The first time I went, there was a big screen on the wall. We didn’t 
touch a PC’. ‘I went to two more lessons. I was typing out columns and 
paragraphs of text from a book’. ‘I did not even learn how to turn a 
computer on or off.’ ‘I do not think I learned anything’.
'..... was clear that she wanted to do shopping on line and the 
teacher explained that this course was not suitable for that. The 
teacher said she would try to get (her)  onto a particular 6 week 
course, although (she) says she heard nothing more.  (She) left the 
course and looks back on it saying it was a ‘waste of time’.
[...]
'Around this time (she) was in conversation with another person who 
had been going to the computer classes for two years. He was pleased 
to say he could now manipulate a printer font to be upside down. (She) 
asked if he could do online shopping. ‘No’ he replied. ‘What’s the 
good of that then? (she) asked.'

The classes were directed towards wordprocessing in Word. The teacher 
was a qualified teacher (In MS stuff), trying to earn a crust, and the 
course was traditional, pressing keys. Outcome based. Each stage got a 
tick in a box I guess, and after two years you might be able to get a 
lot of angels standing in the space of full stop mark. The institution 
with Education is full of long careers and vested interests, and to be 
fair, lack of time or energy to change. Also of course, there are some 
central apps in the organisations which are heavily locked in to 
Windows. I have a relative running a UK school IT.

Thinking of where the seat of power lay, in local education near me, I 
decided that it was the elected representatives in local government 
who had the power. Millions of UK pounds, budgets, decisions, etc. I 
contacted my local elected rep. asking about Free Software (in these 
hard times) and I offered a demonstration. My enquiry was referred to 
the Council IT department (!) on the grounds that the Councillor (who 
had the decision making power and the money) was not versed in IT! 
When speaking personaly to the Councillor, who I do see by chance on a 
few occasions, I suggested she tried Ubuntu on her own laptop. The 
ready answer was that it was not her personal property it was the 
Council's laptop and could only run IT department stuff. A bit 
circular here. I am sorry I must do what I am told, but wait a minute, 
I am telling me?

I think that Advertising would soften and enlighten the knowledge and 
attitudes in such cases as this. There are key people out there who 
never mess with PCs themselves, but who make vast decisions all the 
time.  Otherwise decisions are left to IT professionals.

The interesting next stage in the saga was that against all my 
prejudiced expectations, I was invited by the IT manager to be shown 
round their IT facility. I accepted and to my happy surprise found 
that well over 90 percent of the Council's software was handled in 
virtual machines on Suse Enterprise servers in an advanced and modern 
setting. Reasons were basically financial - licences and flexibility. 
Future  users (employees) desktops would probably be thin client 
based, but yet undecided. Probably not Windows. There were about a 100 
or so apps which were yet locked into legacy software.

I was the first member of the public to be offered such a tour. I 
guess I was the first who has shown interest. (There is a message here?)

The UK government has a published policy of a 'level playing field' 
for FOSS. This exact same policy has been in place for several years, 
even through a change of Government.
This is useful, but it is like a small warm animal sat on top of a 
large block of ice, trying to thaw it. Unfortunately there seems to be 
little political will to enforce it. *Advertising* has the power to 
change opinions at all levels. Opinions can and do cause a change of 
political will.
(UK) Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: Government Action Plan
http://writetoreply.org/govoss10/

I believe the institutions in and around Education are a major bastion 
in MS defences.

Advertising can change opinions!
--
alan cocks
Ubuntu user