On Sun, 2007-10-14 at 15:03 +1000, draicone@gmail.com wrote: 
Well, if the course was in-depth enough, and it was engineered
appropriately -- e.g. use of word processing software such as
Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org -- then the course would be generic
enough to suit our purpose, would teach skills that are useful
immediately and would lower the bias towards MS Office apps.

There are hundreds of tasks specific to Microsoft Word, but most
people don't need to be familiar with them, and the people who do
(e.g. clerks and secretaries) would want an MS Word specific course
anyway.
I would like to see this as well, unfortunately government colleges and other training organisations don't get funding or the time to do this. Training today is focused at a "minimum standard of competency" not teaching all of the skills required. As I said it becomes a Catch 22; the majority of organisations use Microsoft Office so these are the skills that are expected when students complete courses.

I teach using OpenOffice.org and, because they use Microsoft Office for a majority of subjects, my students MUST submit in ODF format electronically for marking. We provide TheOpenCD free of charge to all students for use at home and the required software is installed on the PCs where I teach. I'm lucky that I have had some very supportive Head Teachers over the years and they have supported my "Open Source Advocacy" teaching.

I also get students to use other alternatives to Microsoft products like Ubuntu Linux, Open Workbench http://www.openworkbench.org/ and more recently RT: Request Tracker http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/ as part of their courses.

I have found that students tend to get enthusiastic about Open Source Software and they are keen to use the software to help their friends reduce the costs and security issues of computing.

It is up to us, the Open Source and Free Software Communities, to encourage the use of qualifications that do not focus on a particular brand of software. I also believe that these qualifications should not be prohibitively priced, preventing students, who are often unemployed, from taking the tests. They are better served spending the money on computers and other hardware for use at home so they can better their skills and find employment.

Is this something the Software Freedom Day should look into? Registering or certifying skills with software promoted on Software Freedom Day.

Sorry, if I have taken this way off topic for the SFD discussion list.

Regards,

Steve 
On 10/14/07, Steve Olive <steve@bathurst-tafe.nsw.edu.au> wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-10-13 at 19:13 +1000, draicone@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > On 10/13/07, xolani Ndlovu <xolanimart@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >                 hie eveyone
> >
> >                 are there any educational programmes that teach
> >                 computing short courses using FLOSS
> >                 products ,programmes like ICDL and others?if not,
> >                 OpenSourceBulawayo and others are going to be working
> >                 on a parallel or alternative  educational programme
> >                 to ICDL that will teach  short computer courses using
> >                 FLOSS products only since ICDL and other short
> >                 cources in ZIMBABWE are only taught using Microsoft
> >                 products only.As we were discussing on how we can get
> >                 companies and institutions to use Floss  we realized
> >                 that companies send their employees to do ICDL so
> >                 that  they can use computers at their work places.
> >                 so with  programmes like these compinies can switch
> >                 and get their people to do the programmes.if there are
> >                 such programmes please let me now so that we save time
> >                 work on getting them done in zimbabwe too.One of the
> >                 pioneers (KUDAKWASHE ) of FLOSS in Zimbabwe has set a
> >                 framework on the programme equivalent to ICDL it goes
> >                 like this: In the meantime, I hereby volunteer to host
> >                 the wiki on FLOSS-based
> >                 ICDL
> >                 course material here:
> >
> >
> http://www.rukanda.com/wiki/index.php?title=International_Computer_Driving_License_%28ICDL%29on_Free/Libre_Open_Sourse_Software_%28FLOSS%29
> >                 <snip>
> >
> > This is all very well, but in the spirit of FOSS, should the use of
> > any particular software package, FOSS or non-FOSS, be even considered?
> > The nature of FOSS pretty much asks for forks, derivatives and
> > alternatives, and any such courses should teach students how to use
> > software packages for a particular purpose, not how to use a
> > particular package. Is this education or training?
> >
> > Especially with the volatile nature of specific FOSS projects (what
> > ever happened to Nvu?), restricting learning to a particular
> > application may leave people with redundant expertise. SFDers should
> > think about encouraging educational institutions to teach generic
> > skills using FOSS, e.g. word processing taught on OO.org, instead of
> > specifically Microsoft Word.
>
>
> The difficulties with this is "industry standards", when people complete
> training they expect, as do employers, that they will be able to
> immediately use those skills when employed, not need more training.
> Unfortunately most PCs use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office,
> whether legally or from pirated versions. This results in a Catch 22
> situation, whilst doing the training using FOSS is not hard, students
> won't do these courses because it is not used in industry.
>
> As mentioned by other INGOTS training is focused at OpenOffice.org
> products and learning materials are already available. Another online
> source is:
>
> http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/index.html
>
> The ECDL/ICDL tests are very focused on the use of Microsoft Office
> XP/2003 products to complete the exams.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve
>
>