Teachers, what is it with them and open source?

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(And I wasn't sure where to post this, as it's computer related yet school related at the same time)

OK, so my school own millions of computers with Windows on them, of course, seeing as Microsoft is impossible to get away from.
I can even list the versions of Windows they have:
- Windows XP (Used on all normal machines)
- Windows 2003 (Used on the servers)
- Windows 2008 (To upgrade the servers, but they don't support 2008, but they tried anyway, meanwhile I was LMAO at their confusion at why the network immediately went boom)
- Windows 7 (To upgrade the normal machines, which will have the same effects as 2008, except if they try it,, I will just be like "lolwtfbbq? Do you learn?")

Then the school has iMacs for the Arts department (Arts get all the good stuff, bast@#*$)
The great thing with the Macs, is the IT techs have no idea wtf they are doing.

But no Linux stuff, as soon as I talk to any teacher about Linux they are like "HACKER!! !"
Even when I pointed out that Mac runs on UNIX they were like, "no it doesn't".

Honestly I hate them, on my last day I'm going to bootnuke every machine I get near.

Oh and their WiFi spots use WEP, lol.

I'm a teacher, and I love open source software. I've never had any luck getting any installed on school computers. I think there's a few reasons for this and not many of them of them are any good. 1) Lots of teachers are technologically illiterate. This means that when they've learned something on the computer, they don't want to have to change. 2) The person in charge of buying/maintaining the computers got their training from microsoft and wouldn't know where to begin. 3) Management of schools is very conservative, and change is not easy. 4) If we teach on computers, we want what we teach to be the most relevant to the real world. There's no point teaching the design students how to use oss programs when they'll just have to switch to macs if they want to get jobs.

<sarcasm>Oh, and yeah, a school is a wonderful target for sabotage -- bastards trying to teach kids.</sarcasm>

Oh, you take all the fun out of it

Yeah it would probably be pointless sabotaging the computers, especially as I can just leave the IT team to mess up themselves.

Oh and did you know that the school use unlicensed software? But of course, it's ran by the government, so its perfectly OK to use illegal software... not.

The high school I went to used a pirated Macromedia suite, and even had a cracked installer for easy network installs .

I guess it works out cheaper at least, it's around 2000 pounds for the adobe creative suite, but only about 200 for educational purposes.

I agree with DrS that in the case of specific teaching it sometime require to teach people how to use what the employer want to use for need to make those without good software learning skill able to work.

But I admit I never understood why not go for open source for general purpose computer, would save so much money it is insane. It would already be pretty good saving by simply using open office over microsoft.


Even on my side only reason I am still using Windows is because I am a gamer, for a bit forced to use it for lack of support for openGL in the mainstream gaming industry. Through I admit it is nice to see Mac getting more support on gaming side, through I am not one who plan to get a Apple computer anytime soon since on hardware side they are overpriced.

Schools qualify for VLK products which mean they can get a better discount for computers with Windows installed and they don't have to do much else to them.

Most IT teachers will mostly have learnt or trained under one operating system and nothing else. Or are brainwashed with opensource as being bad, or possibly malware, etc.

Fortunately there are some intelligent teachers who know better- they're just harder to find

My last college didn't have unlicensed software from what I know, but damn it insane the number of student teacher would send to the computer club to get software for their home use. =p

Most popular one been Maple from the fundamental science department teacher.


But I admit it not something I like much so see, but I guess that come from first studying in electronic engineering and in informatics in a School that actually had a good professional teacher, some of the electronic teacher teacher were quite from the old guard, one for example came from nuclear engineering background since he was one of the pioneer. Their line on unlicensed use was don't encourage pirate use if there is an alternate or resource permit. (Got depressive back then so had to stop and went back to my home region, still not confidant enough in my ability to fully live alone to return to these studies, still need a bit of structure around me even if live alone)

That ethic sure was not something the president of the computer club of my last college had, that guy was a pirate software promoter to the point even his open source notion were distorted.

It's more funny that they left all of the cracking and installation files on my school laptop, who I then gave to a teacher, who copied the files.

But recently I reinstalled Windows on this laptop and I need to ask for the files back as I need that software, before I end up with a headache.

(Google: Dolphin Supernova)

Oh and if I so much as mention Ubuntu I get labeled as a hacker. one of the IT teachers forced me (and only me) to sign a note saying I won't hack the school network.

I find that sad for when I was in informatics one of the first thing my teachers said and repeated quite often was learn to program correctly before you learn how to write a program, for that way you you are ready to use any type of programming language even if you never learned it before (which is something required in this type of field since of the quick change in software and how they are made).

I find this applicable to the usage of software themselves and not simply their programming.

But maybe that just natural to me for I have always been intuitive in most task I come to do including cooking, don't know almost any recipe and barely make any but I can make you a freaking good meal without an idea of what I am trying to make before I start cooking. (I admit it might end up looking odd, my worse been seasoned rice that looked like someone had a diarrhea in the cooking pot, learned not to mix too many different color heavy spice that day , but I don't remember making something that taste bad)

My mom has tried a couple linux distros and she's a 1st grade teacher. Also a VERY dedicated user of openoffice.

When I went to sound engineering school, we had Atari STs with cracked copies of Cubase. This would have been in the year 2001.

Badge of pride. See if you can get it on your transcript; I bet it would help you get a job.

lol
Knowing the (good) IT crowd it probably would
At least the University of Surrey were impressed with my IT skills.
(I had work experience at UniS)

The main problem is the general public doesn't care about who's not a hacker or who is.

They want cheap. They want what everyone else has. Even though Linux has come a far way from being the "hacker" OS, most people don't want to learn a new OS. Windows is somewhat similar between versions.

People are definitely lazy, but windows isn't that similar between versions. Most linux distros change less, at least as far as the UI is concerned.