Comments on: Moodle http://wrecking.org/cbd/2005/09/09/moodle/ Software studies, technical communication, writing studies, web accessibility, and new media. Life with my girls. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:43:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: cbd http://wrecking.org/cbd/2005/09/09/moodle/#comment-48 cbd Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:42:37 +0000 http://wrecking.org/cbd/?p=44#comment-48 I would hesitate to believe any claim to single-sourcing from MS. I also wonder what advantage MS Office would have over OpenOffice, given the latter uses XML as its native data format. Um, why not build out from that? Finally, how many student are even interested in single sourcing? Most just type out their papers and print them. OO can handle that, to be sure. They are lying, flat out, about the cost of the software. It is not cheap, especially for course management stuff. Or for things like Photoshop. Aside one: OO style sheets blow away the format painter (and MS style sheets too, IMO). Aside two: feel free to make an account--that way you can edit your posts :) I would hesitate to believe any claim to single-sourcing from MS. I also wonder what advantage MS Office would have over OpenOffice, given the latter uses XML as its native data format. Um, why not build out from that? Finally, how many student are even interested in single sourcing? Most just type out their papers and print them. OO can handle that, to be sure.

They are lying, flat out, about the cost of the software. It is not cheap, especially for course management stuff. Or for things like Photoshop.

Aside one: OO style sheets blow away the format painter (and MS style sheets too, IMO).

Aside two: feel free to make an account–that way you can edit your posts :)

]]> By: Clancy http://wrecking.org/cbd/2005/09/09/moodle/#comment-47 Clancy Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:50:44 +0000 http://wrecking.org/cbd/?p=44#comment-47 "They" meaning the students, sorry. and "the risk" meaning the risk of using software without company tech support, I imagine. “They” meaning the students, sorry. and “the risk” meaning the risk of using software without company tech support, I imagine.

]]> By: Clancy http://wrecking.org/cbd/2005/09/09/moodle/#comment-46 Clancy Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:49:07 +0000 http://wrecking.org/cbd/?p=44#comment-46 I attended a needs assessment meeting for my campus's computer labs, and they were talking about mostly hardware but software as well, with a couple of unnamed folks stressing the trend of single-sourcing and pointing out that with the newest version of Microsoft Office, there are all these capabilities that facilitate single-sourcing (I wouldn't know; I've used OpenOffice for the last three years. The only advantage Microsoft Office has over OO is that format painter.). Anyway, I asked why we weren't even CONSIDERING open source software and using the money we'd save to buy better and/or more hardware, and I was promptly told that the price of the software was negligible compared to the price of the hardware, so they wouldn't save enough money for it to be worth the risk of using open source. Besides, Microsoft is what they use at home, blah blah blah... I attended a needs assessment meeting for my campus’s computer labs, and they were talking about mostly hardware but software as well, with a couple of unnamed folks stressing the trend of single-sourcing and pointing out that with the newest version of Microsoft Office, there are all these capabilities that facilitate single-sourcing (I wouldn’t know; I’ve used OpenOffice for the last three years. The only advantage Microsoft Office has over OO is that format painter.). Anyway, I asked why we weren’t even CONSIDERING open source software and using the money we’d save to buy better and/or more hardware, and I was promptly told that the price of the software was negligible compared to the price of the hardware, so they wouldn’t save enough money for it to be worth the risk of using open source. Besides, Microsoft is what they use at home, blah blah blah…

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