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   Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:05 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

   Folks in NZ are starting to realise the implications of the impending EOL of Microsoft Windows 10 for our education system. In its finite wisdom, our MinOfEd has effectively locked all schools into either the use of MS Windows or Google ChromeOS. Both have fundamental issues like endless license hassles, EOLing OSs, ending support for Window or ChromeOS on specific computer models, etc. And that doesn't even start to talk about digital colonisation & sovereignty (see https://davelane.nz/explainer-digitech-risks-school-boards) 1/n

   • Embed this notice
     djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:29 JST djsumdog

     in reply to
     Catalyst IT, with all it's open source philosophy, and its contract for PACT, and it's support of Mahara .. you think they'd have the foresight to push for Linux based laptops in schools over MS/Google captive-ware.
     
     The thing is, the NZ government is known for legally domestically spying on all of you (I was there during the GCHQ protest, where John Key and Parliament retroactively changed the law to make domestic spying on Kim Dotcom legal). Chromebooks are all about spying on students and setting them up with Google accounts at a very young age (All schools monitor students in the US. It's insane). Win 11 will push the same with MS accounts. Under the covers, school systems probably want this, because it allows an insane amount of control and privacy violations.
     
     Students and parents should have the option to opt out of both.
   • Embed this notice
     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:30 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     At the very least, a #ThirdWay would give us a fighting chance of arresting the onslaught of generative LLMs into every aspect of our digital existences. That's in direct opposition to, say, Microsoft, who've been working with the MinOfEd for years for ways to shoehorn 'AI' into every aspect of the curriculum: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/492898/documents-expose-microsoft-s-relationship-with-nz-education-and-hopes-for-ai-in-schools

     7/n

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     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:31 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     I think we'd all benefit in many ways from an edtech #ThirdWay that is fully run by NZ businesses competing to offer services with a common set of open (#libre) platforms that give us, as a country, the ability to set our pedagogical & practical tech direction. If you want to create tech-savvy kiwi kids, the best way is to give them real experience with open tech, without glass ceilings or steel floors.

     I'm certain it would, post transition, cost us all less & offer us far more.

     6/n

   • Embed this notice
     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:32 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     The #edtech status quo in Aotearoa has huge inertia & plenty of tech support staff who mostly have very narrow expertise, limited to those two US corporate monocultures and a smattering of other things around the edges. So whatever transition is proposed needs to be gradual & carefully-managed. Ultimately, a transition to a #ThirdWay will be mostly political & there'll be a stiff opposition to it from the many vested interests involved. We need to agree the status quo is not acceptable.

     5/n

   • Embed this notice
     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:34 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     Over the coming weeks, I'm going to start explaining what I think that #ThirdWay should look like, because I don't think we can afford, as a nation, to continue with the duopoly to which the MinOfEd has shackled us.

     For the curious, here's a starting point: https://davelane.nz/openschools - in addition to an explainer video, there's an entire book (available for download as a PDF) on there, which explains that better way.

     4/n

   • Embed this notice
     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:35 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     Unbeknownst to anyone with decision-making power in the MinOfEd, with a bit of leadership & vision, we could create a vastly better edtech landscape for Aotearoa *in* Aotearoa, without any dependence on foreign tech corporations whatsoever. But, yeah, the 'leadership & vision' part is missing entirely. Seems to me, we need a mandate for the MinOfEd to realise that putting all our eggs in those two very precarious MS & GOOG baskets is/was a mistake & they need to invest in a '#ThirdWay'.

     3/n

   • Embed this notice
     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 12:52:38 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     The IT Professionals institute has been wringing its hands: https://www.digitalequity.nz/blog/windows-10-desupport-who-will-be-impacted and pleading with Microsoft to come up with a less exclusionary process. Of course, Microsoft couldn't care less. The problem is that our national edtech system is conceptually flawed from the start & needs a fundamentally different approach. Dependence on 2 US corporations (neither known for honest dealings or 'not being evil') for *all* our schools most basic edtech is ridiculous. So, what approach?
     2/n

   • Embed this notice
     Future Sprog (futuresprog@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 14:02:19 JST Future Sprog

     in reply to

     • djsumdog

     My avatar is John Key’s mate who was running the GCSB at the time looking very shocked at what he’s reading on my social media.

     @djsumdog @lightweight

     djsumdog likes this.