The Forum > Article Comments > The CSIRO and the myth of progress > Comments
The CSIRO and the myth of progress : Comments
By Cameron Leckie, published 5/7/2010Busting the myth of progress is a precursor to changing industrial civilisations' current unsustainable path.
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> Tomw, Moodle is open source.
Yes, because Moodle is free, it may be distorting the statistics on the cost of imported versus local software. Educational institutions are not paying for Moodle (from Australia) or Mahara (from New Zealand), making purchases of local software appear lower.
> It is estimated that over $11 billion of taxpayer’s money will be spent on computers in schools ...
$11B is a small proportion of the cost of education.
> So there is a long way to go to repay these costs through Moodle.
For 2007/08 international education was estimated to contribute $13.7 billion to the Australian economy: http://www.idp.com/research/statistics/education_export_statistics.aspx
> ... due to the almost complete use of imported software, an IT industry in this country has become a hopeless proposition. ...
Figures for imported software are not likely to be a true reflection of the situation. Some educators are using free open source software packages. As a result there is no direct software fee associated with this. However, they are likely to be investing in local support for those packages.
In my view, the government could usefully encourage local development of educational software and content, using an open source model. If nothing else, this would reduce the expenditure on imported software and courseware.
As portable hand held devices come to be used more for education this may also reduce the amount of imported software used. The new crop of $200 tablet computers and netbooks are likely to run some version of Linux, not Microsoft Windows. The mobile computers will come with a suite of free software and not need any software to be purchased (I find I don't need to use Microsoft software, or other non-free software for teaching). This will not necessarily reduce the cost much, as software support will still be required, but that support can be from local Australian industry.