Australia Streaking Ahead?

On reading that NSW is going to abandon Microsoft Office in favor of Open Office I was impressed. The path of least resistance was to simply keep on with Office but no, in typical Aussie fashion they are going to thumb their noses and go with change. What does this mean for us? I guess we won’t be far behind especially after Douglas Harre’s statements at the recent edtech meetings. I do find myself agreeing that in 2001 the Microsoft agreement was a good idea as word processing etc was different just like I feel sorry for those clusters that came before us when there was so much less opportunity with ICT. I would like to make the transition sooner rather than later especially as staff are switching to Office 2007 anyway and have been giving OO.org out to staff to use at home or on family members computers. Many of course struggle to believe how can something be good if it is free.

Also in the article was the governments laptop for every student, well it would seem they meant computer access for every student but I digress I enjoyed reading the comments on many of the blogs surrounding this governmental decision and the overwhelming negativity within them. I worry that people don’t get the point.

Tip of the hat to Andrew for bringing this to my attention