Re: certification [was: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Intro and a request for information]

[Ian Lynch]

On Sun, 2004-11-14 at 12:05, Graham Seaman wrote:
> Ian Lynch wrote:
> 
> >
> >If you want a FLOSS-freindly certification system that can be done
> >alongside the National Curriculum with very little additional work for
> >teachers take a look at www.theINGOTs.org and become an INGOT Academy.
> >We will be using revenue derived to produce educational resources under
> >creative commons licenses and supporting free software development.
> >  
> >
> Talking of Ingots - every so often I've heard discussion of a 
> non-ms-bound ECDL. But I can't find anything recent at all in English. 
> All I've found is:
> 
> http://www.ecdl-linux.de/
> German, can't understand enough to follow what's going on there - I have 
> seen complaints in English that all that's available in reality in 
> Germany is still MS based. Can anyone read this?
> 
> http://www.krea.hu/ecdl_linux.htm
> Hungarian, understand zilch :-(
> 
> http://ecdl.linux.it/
> Italian - developing materials for a 100% free software ECDL.
> 
> But have also found looking round regional Italian sites that councils 
> are offering ECDLs with openoffice etc, and that a linux based ECDL has 
> been recognised by Italian ECDL adminstrators AICA (similar to UK BCS?) 
> - http://www.aicanet.it/ , although there are still complaints that the 
> MS material is not totally avoidable.
> Does anyone know what's going on in other European countries - or even 
> better, anything going on here? The UK site - http://www.ecdl.co.uk/ - 
> says 'ECDL is not restricted to Microsoft applications an  testing and 
> training can be done on the Lotus suite of applications. A number of the 
> automated test providers allow tests to be done using Lotus as well as 
> Microsoft.' Which is not a lot of consolation.

Ask them why they aren't supporting OpenOffice.org as its user base is
the fastest growing of any Office suite in the world. Over 30 million
downloads to date.

One of the reasons for inventing the INGOTs is that its a model that is
independent of particular proprietary tools and can be guaranteed to
work with FLOSS. Its also far less expensive to administer and is
accessible to primary school age children as well as adult beginners. It
is designed to be as compatible as possible with existing courses so we
are causing teachers the problem of fitting in yet another course when
waht we need to do is promote and recognise good practice in what they
are already doing.

-- 
Ian Lynch <address@hidden>
ZMS Ltd