Linux at Bett 2010

Linux at BETT 2010

You'll have to look hard for Open Source software at Bett 2010, but it's there all right and may even win a BETT award! My bet, though, is that the real significance of this show will be a child shouting 'The Emperor has no clothes!' thereby marking the start of the process whereby teachers reclaim technology for teaching...

BETT stands for 'British Education and Training Technology'. This title has long been forgotten, unlike the BETT show itself. Held at Olympia, it is still going strong after a quarter of a century as the world's leading edu-tech show. 

I think I have been to every one (can that really be true?). In the early days it was pretty damn exciting. I remember the torrent of newness: colour printers, scanners, the Acorn 5000, the launch of Windows 95, desktop publishing software, Adobe Photoshop and hundreds of tiny software vendors with the latest software guaranteed to teach something or another.

All promised to revolutionise education. CAL was, and is, (Computer Assisted Learning if you are interested) how teaching and learning would be in the future. Technology changed education, even revolutionised it, but made it better?...no I don't think so.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Teachers, administrators and decision makers at the highest level became mesmerised by the sheer potency and wonder of new technology. A multitude of false prophets convinced the uncomprehending that computers were good for education. 

Good for the vendors sure: good for teaching and learning, I'm not so sure.

The promised education 'revolution' resulted in nothing more than an horrendous increase in administration-orientated software and the peddling of a relentless diet of state-subsidised Microsoft Office software to bored pupils. 

It achieved, courtesy of the corporate giants which took control of school ICT:

1) the lowest number of students studying Computing at University compared to any other first world country,

2) schools now employing the same number of administrators as they do teachers, and

3) every child typically consuming 3,000 A4 paper printouts every year!!

yup, insanity... and don't get me started on interactive whiteboards... why do they exist?, who thought they were a good idea?

The New 2010 Bett

Look out for three things making a comeback: teaching, learning, and thrift.

Taking 'thrift' first.

The cost of school ICT is incredible, unsustainable, mad, insane and that's just Becta's opinion. From now on costs will have to be controlled and cut... (unless you believe our PM's vision of a world that never runs out of cash) ..in the real world, low energy computing combined with free, open source software will rule.

Amazingly it seems with hindsight that...

Once it made sense to splash-out on MS Office or Adobe Photoshop, famously high end expensive products, but now, just as useful but free, Open Office, Gimp and Inkscape make that a financially ludicrous proposition for schools. 

Once it seemed sane to fit 500 watt PSUs to massive beige boxes to run Word... now 'slates', 'tablets' what you will are 'computers on a chip' with resistive touch interfaces (as in iPhone) which means that you only need a fiftieth of that power.

By way of a very quick illustration of the above: the new OLPC (so lovely) and Freescale's tablets lead the way as do the Amazon Kindle DX e-reader and Sony's latest offering in that field.

They all use free open source software and sip power hence they will be ultra low cost too.

(Microsoft have had a go and Apple are dithering but their heart does not seem in it.. strange that.)

Now for teaching and learning: 'back to basics'

Teachers need person to person contact to be effective (that's why classrooms were invented in order to scale up the proven model of the private tutor or the apprentice artisan). Forget your VLEs and such like, they don't nag you or get 'on your case' or encourage you,.. or indeed listen to you. 

One to one (for short periods) is a very effective way of learning; one to very many can alternatively allow the inspirational teacher to reach those who would otherwise miss out. Video-voip makes either very easy to do.

Books, text books, that is good text books, trump worksheets and web-site pages any day. Emissive screens damage children's eyes worse than reading a book under the duvet with a torch. Electronic text books on an e-reader with e-ink are the next best thing to a real book. 

An e-reader can hold all of the text books, worksheets and podcasts that a pupil will ever need.. and fits into a small bag unlike the massive loads borne by kids today.

If you can go with the two assertions above then which products and what software will be important for the next decade?

Video Voip: Software Open Source, cost: free service

Google has recently bought Open Source firm Gizmo, who excel video-voip and there are strong rumours that, having been burnt by proprietary third party codebase fights, Skype (already free) will go open source too. 
These technologies will, I think, re-establish the role of the teacher in what was called CAL (computer assisted learning). CAL must be the most expensive and failed Government IT project ever.

E-readers: Software Open Source, cost: £50 (soon)

The Linux powered e-readers and the open EPUB electronic format will sweep away conventional text books. 

Really they will.

Imagine, you could download EPUBS from your school website. No more worksheets, no more print-outs, and better still fewer rip-offs from the publishing houses as they will compete against the thousands of teachers online who could write their own text books but are not on the 'great and the good' list.
EPUB is easy, so are e-readers. 

Welcome to the future, it looks just like the past!

Conclusion

Bett 2010 will give us the clues we need to see the future. Ignore the dinosaurs, they are roaring for the past. Squint for the last time at the 1000watt Xenon whiteboard bulbs, marvel at the latest database to track the movements of little Johnny around the school if you will, but deep down you will know it's all over.

Instead, hunt around for the cute little furry creatures who will inherit the world. 

Reputedly there are some on stand Q50. Come along have a great show!