3. In the Province of New Brunswick, a lot of money is spent on hardware and software Hardware needs to be updated usually because of compatibility issues, not because of technical issues
4. Every teacher (7,000) has a government supplied laptop HP with MS Windows XP MS Office 2007 Email Account Anti-Virus and other software
5.
6. We had a number of laptop schools (grades 8-9) but the program has been scrapped ($) Every school in the province has wireless internet Every student in the province has an email account Every school has a fair complement of laptop computers and regular PC labs We have “mobile” labs that can be booked out It seems that Apple products are not really supported The City of Fredericton is completely covered by free wireless internet We were the 1 st jurisdiction in the world with full fibre optic connectivity
7. Our central repository for information and collaboration is on what we call the NB DOE Portal (or the Portal) Created using MS Sharepoint Designer
12. The “Free” way, in our case, is superior than what we pay for
13. We communicate with each other primarily via email although we can also use Microsoft Office Communicator, Interwise and SMART Bridgit software
14. A few dozen courses are offered via distance education (for high school students) This is done by using Desire2Learn
15. We spend a lot of money for MS licenses Windows XP – Vista Microsoft Sharepoint MS Outlook Web Access We spend a lot of other software Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks McAfee Anti-Virus, Interwise communications, etc
16. Get the picture? We are spending a lot of money on software and user rights Teachers are not flocking towards the Portal for information and especially collaboration The majority of teachers (dare I say 85%) will only use MS Office for Word and Powerpoint They love their laptops but want a way to get their work done and not as interested in what program they use to do this
17. So, I bring up Open Source software Free software and Web 2.0 apps
18. Why? I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but if we weren't spending this large amount of money on software, couldn't we provide more hardware/tools to the students?